Former Senzaki Repatriation Port Site

Senzaki Port, a small fishing harbor on the Sea of Japan coast in Nagato City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, was thrust into a pivotal role in Japan's postwar repatriation effort. When Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, millions of Japanese soldiers and civilians remained stranded across the former empire. The government designated multiple ports to receive returnees, but Shimonoseki — the logical choice for traffic from the Korean Peninsula — was rendered unusable by American-laid mines and sunken ships clogging the Kanmon Strait. Senzaki, with its natural harbor sheltered by Ōmijima Island (青海島), was selected as the replacement.

On September 2, 1945, just weeks after the surrender, the first repatriation ship Koan Maru (興安丸, 7,079 tons), a former Busan–Shimonoseki ferry, arrived carrying approximately 7,000 repatriates from Busan. Over the following 13 months, the port processed a total of 413,961 incoming repatriates, primarily from the Korean Peninsula, Manchuria (via Huludao), and Shanghai. Simultaneously, 339,548 Korean and other foreign residents were dispatched from Senzaki back to their homelands, making it the second-busiest outbound repatriation port after Hakata.

The tiny fishing town of Senzaki was utterly unprepared for this human tide. Temples and schools were requisitioned as relief stations, first-aid posts, and temporary lodgings. When these proved insufficient, local residents opened their own homes to shelter the exhausted and often ill returnees. Community volunteers organized rice-ball distributions and other provisions. The port's infrastructure — originally designed for sardine trawlers and coastal traders — could not accommodate large transport vessels, forcing repatriates to transfer from ships anchored offshore onto small landing craft.

Today, a stone monument and explanatory plaque mark the site of the overseas repatriation landing near the Senzaki Kitchen roadside station (道の駅センザキッチン). In 2025, the 80th anniversary of the first repatriation, Nagato City marked the occasion with commemorative events. The site overlooks the harbor where hundreds of thousands once took their first steps back on Japanese soil.