Tachiarai Peace Memorial Museum

The Tachiarai Peace Memorial Museum (Chikuzen Municipal Tachiarai Peace Memorial Museum) stands on the former grounds of the Tachiarai Army Airfield in Chikuzen, Fukuoka Prefecture. Completed in October 1919, the airfield was strategically positioned in the Chikugo Plain of northern Kyushu, chosen for its distance from the coast to avoid naval bombardment and its role as a relay point for air units heading to mainland China. By the late 1930s, it had grown into one of the largest military aviation complexes in East Asia.

In 1940, the Tachiarai Army Flight School was established at the airfield, becoming a primary training center for Imperial Japanese Army pilots. The school trained thousands of young aviators, many of whom were later dispatched on tokko (special attack/kamikaze) missions in the final stages of the Pacific War. Notably, the famous Chiran airfield in Kagoshima Prefecture, now widely associated with kamikaze operations, was originally a branch school under Tachiarai's command. Some kamikaze sorties were launched directly from Tachiarai itself.

On March 27, 1945, American B-29 bombers carried out a massive air raid on the Tachiarai airfield. In six waves of attack, nearly 1,000 bombs were dropped, devastating the airfield and surrounding areas. The raid killed numerous military personnel and civilians, including schoolchildren caught in the open during their walk home. The airfield was effectively destroyed, though kamikaze operations continued from the area until the end of the war.

The original memorial facility opened in April 1987, set up privately by local builder Fuchigami Muneshige in the old Tachiarai Station building of the Amagi Railway, which had been slated for demolition. As the collection grew and public interest expanded, the town of Chikuzen built a new purpose-designed museum that opened on October 3, 2009. The modern facility, designed to evoke the appearance of a wartime aircraft hangar, houses approximately 1,800 wartime artifacts.

The museum's most prized exhibits are two rare wartime aircraft: a Nakajima Ki-27 Type 97 Fighter, recovered from Hakata Bay and believed to be the only complete surviving example of this type in the world, and a Mitsubishi A6M Zero Model 32, donated by the Fukuoka Aerospace Association. The permanent exhibitions cover the history of the Tachiarai airfield, the March 1945 air raids, the experiences of young pilot trainees and special attack corps members, and the broader impact of war on the local community. Through these exhibits, the museum conveys the tragic human cost of the Pacific War and advocates for lasting peace.