Former Student Mobilization Factory Site (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nagoya)

The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Nagoya Aircraft Works, centered on the Oe Plant (大江工場) in Minato Ward, Nagoya, was one of Imperial Japan's most critical military-industrial facilities during World War II. Established in 1920 as the Mitsubishi Internal Combustion Engine Manufacturing Company's Nagoya Factory, the complex grew to encompass multiple facilities across Nagoya, including the Oe airframe plant, the Daiko engine plant (大幸工場), and satellite factories throughout Aichi Prefecture. The facility is most famously associated with the design and production of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter, Japan's iconic naval aircraft, under chief designer Jiro Horikoshi.

From 1943, following the Cabinet decision on the "Outline for Establishing the Student Wartime Mobilization System" (学徒戦時動員体制確立要綱), middle school and university students across Japan were increasingly conscripted into military factory labor under the Student Labor Mobilization program (学徒勤労動員). The Mitsubishi Nagoya factories were among the largest recipients of student labor in the country. By June 1944, the Mitsubishi Engine Plant (三菱発動機) alone had received 2,158 mobilized students. Aichi Prefecture was at the forefront of this program — students from Toho Commercial School and other institutions were among the first in the nation to be assigned to overnight factory shifts, working 10-hour days producing aircraft engines and airframe components.

The human cost of this mobilization became devastatingly clear on December 13, 1944, when approximately 70–90 B-29 Superfortress bombers of the USAAF XXI Bomber Command struck the Mitsubishi Engine Plant at Daiko (present-day Nagoya Dome area). The raid killed over 300 people, including mobilized female volunteer corps members (女子挺身隊) and student laborers. The factory, which had been producing over 40 percent of Japan's aircraft engines, was targeted in seven separate raids between December 1944 and April 1945. Over 600 B-29 sorties dropped more than 1,700 tons of bombs, ultimately destroying the facility entirely.

By March 1945, the government issued the "Decisive Battle Education Measures Outline" (決戦教育措置要綱), suspending all schooling above elementary level for one year and implementing total student mobilization. Across Japan, over 3.4 million students were mobilized into wartime labor by the end of the war. The Nagoya Mitsubishi complex exemplifies the scale and tragedy of this program — teenagers and young adults who should have been in classrooms were instead assembling fighter aircraft in factories that became prime targets for strategic bombing.

Today, the original Oe factory site continues to serve as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' Nagoya Aerospace Systems Works. The Oe Clock Tower Aviation History Museum (大江時計台航空史料室), opened in January 2020 in the restored 1937 headquarters building, preserves artifacts from the factory's wartime history. The four-story clock tower building once housed the aircraft design office on its third floor, where the Zero fighter was conceived. The museum and the surrounding industrial district stand as a memorial to both Japan's wartime aviation industry and the student laborers who were sacrificed in its service.