Moji Port (Former Moji Customs & Mojiko Retro)

Moji Port (門司港) in Kitakyushu's Moji Ward, Fukuoka Prefecture, was Imperial Japan's premier gateway to the Asian continent and one of the nation's most strategically vital wartime logistics hubs. Situated at the narrowest point of the Kanmon Strait separating Kyushu from Honshu, Moji commanded the western approach to the Seto Inland Sea and served as the terminus for maritime routes to Dalian, Tianjin, Shanghai, Busan, and other continental ports.

Moji Port was designated a Special Export Port for coal, rice, and wheat in 1889, catalyzing rapid growth. The Moji Customs office was established as a branch of Nagasaki Customs and became an independent customs authority — Japan's seventh — on November 1, 1909. The Former Moji Customs building (旧門司税関), completed in 1912 (Meiji 45), was a two-story Renaissance-style structure clad in red brick and granite, designed by architect Sakuju Eichi under the supervision of Tsumaki Yorinaka, one of the three great masters of Meiji-era architecture. It replaced the first customs building, which had been destroyed by fire about two years earlier, and served as the customs office until 1927, when operations relocated to the Nishikaigan (West Coast) wharf district.

The 1920s and 1930s marked Moji Port's golden era. After the completion of port expansion works, regular liners on the Dalian route began berthing at Moji's wharves in 1932, and the port handled an enormous volume of trade with Manchuria, China, and Korea. The Nishikaigan wharf could simultaneously berth seven vessels of up to 10,000 tons. The Former Dalian Route Terminal (旧大連航路上屋), built in 1929 as a passenger terminal for the Japan-Manchuria-China sea routes, became a symbol of the port's continental connections.

Following the Manchurian Incident of 1931, Moji Port's role shifted decisively toward military logistics. The port became Japan's primary embarkation point for troops and materiel bound for the Asian continent. Over the course of the war years, more than 2 million soldiers departed from Moji's wharves — particularly from the Dalian Route Terminal area — for deployment to Manchukuo, China, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. An estimated 1 million draft horses were also shipped from Moji as military horses for continental operations. The port's infrastructure — wharves, warehouses, rail connections via the Kyushu Railway headquarters (also based in Moji), and the 1942 Kanmon Railway Tunnel — made it an irreplaceable node in Japan's wartime supply chain.

The port area was defended by the batteries of the Shimonoseki Fortress complex on both sides of the strait (including the Hinoyama Battery on the Shimonoseki side). Anti-aircraft defenses were reinforced to protect the adjacent Kokura Arsenal industrial zone. On June 29, 1945, Moji was targeted in a firebombing raid by B-29 Superfortresses as part of the broader strategic bombing campaign against Japanese cities. The air raid caused significant damage to the port district; the Former Moji Customs building, which had been sold into private hands after 1927 and was being used as a warehouse, lost its roof.

In the immediate postwar period, Moji Port was designated one of the official repatriation ports (引揚港) in September 1945. The Fukuoka Landing Bureau Moji Branch was established in December 1945 to manage the massive influx of returning military personnel and civilians from the former empire. The port received repatriation ships until April 1947 for organized group returns, with individual repatriations continuing until 1976. The last group repatriation vessel, the Shanghai Maru, arrived at Moji from North Vietnam on June 27, 1961.

The Mojiko Retro district was created in the 1990s to preserve and celebrate the port's architectural heritage. The Former Moji Customs building underwent four years of restoration work from 1991, reopening on March 25, 1995, with its original red-brick and granite façade faithfully restored. Today it houses exhibition spaces, a café, and a customs PR gallery operated by Moji Customs. The building and the broader district — including the Former Dalian Route Terminal, the Former Osaka Shosen (Mitsui O.S.K. Lines) building, the Former Mitsui Club, and the 1914 JR Mojiko Station (the only station building in Kyushu designated as a National Important Cultural Property) — were collectively recognized as part of the Japan Heritage site "Kanmon Nostalgic Strait" (関門"ノスタルジック"海峡). Mooring bollards from the wartime-era Nishikaigan wharf still stand near the current Moji Customs headquarters, silent witnesses to the millions who passed through this gateway.