Maebashi Army Airfield Ruins (Tsutsumigaoka Airfield)

Maebashi Army Airfield (known locally as Tsutsumigaoka Airfield) was an Imperial Japanese Army airfield located in what is now Takasaki City, Gunma Prefecture, in the Kanto region. Despite bearing the name "Maebashi," the airfield was actually centred on the former Tsutsumigaoka Village and extended into the former Kokufu and Nakagawa villages — now the Munadaka-machi area of Takasaki.

Construction was ordered by the Army Aviation Headquarters as part of an urgent program to build training airfields for rapid pilot production during the Pacific War. Land acquisition began in May 1943, and construction commenced in September of that year. The first aircraft landed on the temporary runway on February 15, 1944, and the airfield was officially completed on August 1, 1944, when the Utsunomiya Army Flight School Maebashi Training Unit was formally established. The airfield covered approximately 160 hectares.

From February 1945, the airfield's role expanded beyond training. Fighter planes and bombers were deployed for homeland defense operations, and on February 15, 1945, a branch factory of the Nakajima Aircraft Company relocated to the airfield. This dispersed factory began assembly of the Ki-84 Hayate (Type 4 Fighter "Frank"), one of the most capable Japanese fighter aircraft of the war, produced in response to the increasing destruction of main factory complexes by American strategic bombing.

The city of Maebashi itself suffered a devastating firebombing raid on the night of August 5-6, 1945 — just hours before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. A total of 92 B-29 Superfortresses dropped approximately 724 tons of incendiary and high-explosive bombs over the city, destroying 11,460 of the city's 20,871 houses (more than half of all dwellings) and killing 535 people. This was one of the final conventional bombing raids of the war.

After Japan's surrender in August 1945, the approximately 160-hectare airfield site was gradually returned to civilian use. By November 1951, all land had been sold to private owners and converted to farmland. Today, some concrete foundations and remnants of the temporary runway mesh can still be found in the residential areas around Munadaka-machi. The site is being considered for redevelopment as an IT industry hub by Gunma Prefecture and Takasaki City.