Miyazaki Naval Air Group Ruins (Miyazaki Kamikaze Base Memorial)
宮崎海軍航空隊跡（宮崎特攻基地鎮魂碑）
Site of the Imperial Japanese Navy air group at Akae Airfield (now Miyazaki Airport), which served as a major kamikaze staging base from February 1945. Forty-seven Ginga bombers with 140 crew members, together with Suisei dive bombers carrying 19 crew, took off from here on special attack missions. A memorial monument (Chinkon no Hi) was erected in 1983.
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History
The Miyazaki Naval Air Group was established on December 1, 1943, at Akae Airfield in southern Miyazaki City as an Imperial Japanese Navy training base. The airfield had been built on reclaimed coastal land near the mouth of the Oyodo River, taking advantage of the flat terrain of the Miyazaki Plain.
In July 1944, as the war situation deteriorated, the base was redesignated from a training facility to a frontline operational base, officially becoming an operations base on October 10, 1944. Just two days later, on October 12, the base played a central role in the Taiwan Air Battle (Formosa Air Battle), with 344 Navy aircraft and 200 Army aircraft — a combined force of 544 planes — launching from or staging through Akae. Casualties from this operation alone included 635 Navy and 80 Army personnel killed.
From February 1945 onward, the base became one of the principal staging points for kamikaze (tokko) operations. Ginga (P1Y "Frances") twin-engine bombers were the primary aircraft used for special attacks, each carrying a three-man crew on one-way missions against Allied naval forces off Okinawa. Between March 21 and May 25, 1945, multiple kamikaze units — including the Kikusui Corps, Ginga squadrons, and the 2nd Kikusui Suisei (D4Y "Judy") unit — launched from the base: 47 Ginga bombers with 140 crew members, and Suisei dive bombers with 19 crew members that took off on March 27 and 29. A sign at the memorial records 127 Ginga crewmen killed in special attacks, and a further 605 Navy and Army airmen died in conventional and torpedo attacks flown from Miyazaki. Zero fighters of the 306th and 307th Fighter Hikōtai of the 721st Air Group were based here for air defense.
American carrier aircraft first attacked Miyazaki on March 18, 1945; air attacks on Miyazaki killed 123 people and wounded 136 in all. The base remained operational until Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945, serving as one of the largest combined Army-Navy airfields in southern Kyushu.
In 1983, veterans, bereaved families, and local residents erected the "Chinkon no Hi" (Monument for Repose of Souls) near the western edge of what is now Miyazaki Airport. The memorial jointly honors the airmen who died flying from the base, Navy and Army airmen from Miyazaki Prefecture, civilian victims of the air raids on Miyazaki, and those killed in civil aviation accidents. The surrounding area preserves several concrete aircraft revetments (entaigo) as tangible reminders of the airfield's wartime role.