Port of Kaohsiung (Former Takao Harbor)

The Port of Kaohsiung (Japanese: 高雄港 / Takao-kō; historical name: 打狗港 / Takao Harbor) is located on the southwestern coast of Taiwan, sheltered by the narrow Cijin (旗津) barrier island. Today it is Taiwan's largest port by cargo volume and one of the world's busiest container ports, but its modern origins are inseparable from three decades of Japanese colonial harbor engineering and the port's transformation into a linchpin of Japan's wartime logistics.

COLONIAL HARBOR CONSTRUCTION (1908–1944)

Before Japanese rule, Takao was a shallow tidal lagoon obstructed by sandbars, usable only by small coastal craft. In March 1908, the Japanese Imperial Diet approved the first harbor construction plan. The Governor-General of Taiwan established the Temporary Engineering Bureau Takao Branch (臨時臺灣總督府工事部打狗出張所) to execute the first phase (1908–1912): dredging the harbor basin, constructing breakwaters, building the first modern wharves, and cutting a navigable channel through the Cijin sandbar. The second phase (1912–1937) expanded commercial wharves and accompanying rail connections, making Takao the primary export gateway for southern Taiwan's sugar, bananas, and canned pineapple bound for Japan. Throughput reached 3.2 million tons in 1939, the port's colonial-era peak.

The third phase, launched in 1937 as the Second Sino-Japanese War escalated into full-scale conflict, marked a decisive shift from commercial to industrial-military port. The Governor-General's 'industrial Taiwan' policy (工業臺灣) dovetailed with the Imperial Navy and Army's southern advance doctrine (南進政策), which envisioned Taiwan as the relay station between Japan's home islands and the resource-rich territories of Southeast Asia. Land reclamation created a massive new industrial zone at Siaogang (小港) and Qianzhen (前鎮), where zaibatsu established war-critical factories: the Japan Aluminum Company Kaohsiung Plant (日本アルミニウム高雄工場), Asahi Electrochemical Industry Kaohsiung Plant (旭電化工業高雄工場), and South Japan Chemical Industry Company (南日本化学工業). These facilities received bauxite ore shipped from the Dutch East Indies and Malaya, smelting it into aluminum ingots for the aircraft industry — a material so electricity-intensive it was called 'canned electricity' (電気の缶詰). The port's proximity to the Sun Moon Lake hydroelectric network and Taiwan's coal-fired power stations made it an ideal site for energy-hungry aluminum production.

WARTIME OPERATIONS (1941–1945)

Following the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, Kaohsiung Port became the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army's principal staging port for operations southward. Troop transports, supply convoys, and naval auxiliaries departed from Takao bound for the Philippines, French Indochina, British Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. The port handled the transshipment of petroleum from Borneo and Sumatra, rubber from Malaya, and tin from the Malay Peninsula, routing these materials northward to Japan's industrial heartland via coastal convoys. Kaohsiung's role was complementary to the Zuoying Naval Base (左營軍港), located approximately 12 km to the north: Zuoying served as the headquarters of the Takao Guard District (高雄警備府, established April 1943) and housed the 6th Naval Fuel Arsenal for aviation fuel refining, while Kaohsiung Port proper handled the bulk of commercial cargo, military supplies, troop movements, and ship repair.

ALLIED BOMBING (1944–1945)

The devastating air campaign against Kaohsiung began on 12 October 1944 during the Formosa Air Battle (台灣沖航空戰), when US Navy Task Force 38 carrier aircraft struck shipping in the harbor and surrounding military installations. USAAF B-29 bombers followed in mid-October 1944, targeting the naval aircraft works and airfield at nearby Okayama. From January 1945, Fifth Air Force B-24 Liberators and B-25 Mitchells conducted repeated strikes against docks, warehouses, railroad marshaling yards, the aluminum smelters, and power stations. On 15 January 1945, carrier aircraft from TF 38 returned and caused a Japanese transport to explode spectacularly in the harbor. The raids of August 1945 were among the final aerial assaults, with bombs devastating the railroad yards of Takao on 12 August 1945 — just three days before Japan's surrender.

Cumulative Allied bombing destroyed virtually all docks and warehouse facilities. The U.S. Fifth Air Force recorded dropping 2,559.2 tons of bombs on Kaohsiung, the heaviest total for any place in Taiwan. To prevent the Americans from using the harbor for amphibious resupply during an anticipated invasion (Operation Causeway, later cancelled), the Japanese military scuttled five large vessels across the harbor entrance channel, completely blocking navigation.

THE ENOURA MARU TRAGEDY (9 JANUARY 1945)

One of the most tragic events at Kaohsiung Port was the bombing of the hellship Enoura Maru (榎浦丸). On 9 January 1945, approximately 1,070 Allied prisoners of war — survivors of the earlier sinking of Ōryoku Maru in the Philippines — were crammed into the holds of the Enoura Maru, which had anchored in Takao Harbor en route to Japan. US Navy carrier aircraft attacked, scoring direct hits on the ship. An estimated 300–400 POWs were killed in the bombing, many from shrapnel and blast injuries in the confined holds. Survivors were subsequently transferred to the Brazil Maru to continue the voyage to Japan, where many more perished from exposure and starvation. The Enoura Maru incident remains one of the deadliest friendly-fire tragedies involving Allied POWs in the Pacific Theater.

POSTWAR AND LEGACY

After Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945, Republic of China forces took control of Kaohsiung Port. Clearing the scuttled blockships and restoring navigability required extensive salvage operations that continued into 1946–1947. The port was gradually rebuilt and expanded during the postwar decades, becoming the engine of Taiwan's export-oriented economic miracle. The original Japanese-era harbor facilities at the first and second port basins have been largely redeveloped, but remnants of the colonial infrastructure survive: the Kaohsiung Harbor Museum (高雄港史館), housed in the former Japanese-era port administration building, preserves the history of the port from the Qing dynasty through Japanese rule to the present. Banana Pier (香蕉碼頭), once the departure point for banana exports to Japan, has been converted into a cultural venue. The former Kaohsiung Port Station (高雄港車站), terminus of the Japanese-era harbor rail line, is preserved as a railway museum. Together with the nearby Cihou Fort (旗後砲台) and the Zuoying naval heritage sites, these landmarks form a corridor of Kaohsiung's layered maritime military history.