Kure Naval Cemetery (Nagasako Park)

The Kure Naval Cemetery (旧呉海軍墓地), now known as Nagasako Park (長迫公園), is a former military cemetery of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Located in Kaminagasako-cho, Kure City, Hiroshima Prefecture, it was established in 1890 (Meiji 23) as a burial ground for naval personnel who died from disease or in battle while serving.

During the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), new monuments were dedicated to specific warships and inscribed with the names of all sailors who had died while serving aboard them. The cemetery contains 157 individual gravestones erected before World War II, along with approximately 80 cenotaphs (合祀碑) collectively honoring the war dead from various vessels. Among the most prominent is the Monument to the War Dead of Battleship Yamato (戦艦大和戦死者之碑), commemorating the roughly 3,000 men who perished (figures vary by source) when Yamato was sunk during Operation Ten-Go on April 7, 1945.

The cemetery also holds gravestones of foreign sailors, most notably that of George Tibbins, a 19-year-old British Royal Navy sailor who drowned en route to Kure in 1907. His tombstone was erected by the Royal Navy in the cemetery that same year. After suffering vandalism in the post-war period, the stone was restored and is now regularly decorated with flowers by students from nearby Nagasako Elementary School.

The site suffered extensive damage from Allied air raids on Kure Naval Arsenal in 1945 and was further devastated by the Makurazaki Typhoon (Typhoon Ida) later that year. After the war, the cemetery became national property and memorial services were discontinued. The grounds fell into disrepair until retired naval veterans from the local area began voluntary restoration work. In 1971, these veterans formally established the Society for the Preservation of the Kure Naval Cemetery (呉海軍墓地保存会), which continues to maintain the site and organize an annual memorial service every autumn equinox.

In 1986, the national government transferred the land to Kure City free of charge. The city combined it with adjacent municipal land to create Nagasako Park, covering approximately 2.9 hectares. Monuments from the earlier Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars tend to be larger, while the approximately 80 World War II cenotaphs are more compact to conserve space. From the 1960s onward, additional cenotaphs continued to be erected by veterans' associations and bereaved families.

The park gained further public recognition as a filming location for the 2005 movie "Otoko-tachi no Yamato" (Men of the Yamato). Today it is a designated component of the Japan Heritage story of Japan's four former naval port cities (Yokosuka, Kure, Sasebo, and Maizuru), recognized in 2016. The park is freely accessible and located approximately 15 minutes by bus from JR Kure Station.