Taiwan Governor-General Office (Taipei Air Raid Site)

The Taiwan Governor-General's Office (台湾総督府), completed in 1919 to a competition design by architect Uheiji Nagano as revised by Matsunosuke Moriyama, in a Renaissance Revival style with a distinctive 60-meter central tower, served as the seat of Japanese colonial administration in Taiwan. On May 31, 1945, it became the primary target of the largest Allied air raid on Taiwan.

The Raid on Taipei (台北大空襲) was executed by about 117 Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers of the US Fifth Air Force (Chinese-language accounts give 118). The bombing began at approximately 10:00 AM and continued until 1:00 PM — three hours of uninterrupted carpet bombing over central Taipei. The death toll is commonly given as over 3,000 in a single day, but the figure is disputed: statistics compiled by the Governor-General's police bureau recorded 759 air-raid deaths and 64 missing in Taihoku Prefecture for the whole of May 1945. Many more were wounded or displaced.

Despite Japanese camouflage efforts — painting the building and surrounding it with fake structures — the Governor-General's Office received multiple direct hits. The front left wing, main lobby, central guard tower, elevators, stairwells, and offices on the southeast side were all struck. The resulting fire reportedly burned for three days, damaging approximately 83% of the building's usable floor area. However, the reinforced concrete structure with octagonal corner chambers survived intact.

Other major buildings devastated in the raid included the Taiwan Railway Hotel (now Shin Kong Life Tower site), the Bank of Taiwan headquarters, Taipei Imperial University Hospital, the Taihoku High Court, and the Governor-General's Library. The residential areas around Chongqing South Road and Hengyang Road were heavily cratered.

The building was repaired by the Republic of China government between 1946 and 1948 through private donations, reportedly employing about 81,000 workers. Renamed Jieshou Hall (介壽館), it became the Presidential Office in 1950 and remains Taiwan's seat of government today. It was designated a National Monument in 1998.

Notably, unlike the 228 Incident, there are no dedicated public memorials to the Taipei Air Raid victims. The event remained largely absent from public discourse and history education for decades. Commemoration has been largely left to civic groups, one of which held a remembrance ceremony near the site on the raid's anniversary in 2014.