Tokushima Naval Air Group Ruins
徳島海軍航空隊跡
Former Imperial Japanese Navy air training base in Matsushige, Tokushima Prefecture, where the Shiragiku Special Attack Unit was formed in 1945. Trainee pilots flew obsolete Kyushu K11W Shiragiku trainer aircraft on one-way kamikaze missions against Allied ships off Okinawa. Of the 108 men who perished, 56 were killed in special attack sorties launched from Kushira Air Base between May and June 1945. The site is now shared by Tokushima Airport and JMSDF Tokushima Air Base, which houses a small memorial museum with a Kannon statue honoring the fallen.
Images
History
Tokushima Naval Air Group (徳島海軍航空隊) was established on April 1, 1942, in Matsushige Village (now Matsushige Town), Itano District, Tokushima Prefecture. Built on reclaimed land along the coast of the Kii Channel, the base served as a training facility — at first for fighter pilots and, from 1944, for flight observers and reconnaissance crew.
As Japan's war situation deteriorated, all training was discontinued in March 1945 and the air group was reorganized into an operational combat unit. The desperate decision was made to convert the base's stock of Kyushu K11W Shiragiku (White Chrysanthemum) trainer aircraft — slow, lightly built planes with a maximum speed of only 230 km/h — into kamikaze weapons. Each aircraft was modified to carry two 250 kg bombs.
The Tokushima Shiragiku Special Attack Unit (徳島白菊特攻隊) was organized in May 1945. Five waves of attacks were launched from Kushira Air Base in Kagoshima Prefecture on May 24, 27, and 28, and June 21 and 25, 1945. The two-man crews — a pilot and a navigator — flew at extremely low altitude (under 100 meters) to evade radar, requiring approximately five hours to reach the waters off Okinawa. Attacks were restricted to moonlit nights because the trainers lacked adequate instruments for night operations. A total of 115 aircraft sorties were flown; 56 aircraft and their crews never returned.
The human cost was staggering: 56 men killed in special attack missions, 26 in training accidents, 21 in American air raids on the base, 3 by suicide as defeat loomed, and 2 from disease — 108 war dead in total. Many of the pilots were teenaged reservists with minimal flight training, sent on missions in aircraft wholly unsuited for combat.
After the war, the airfield was repurposed. Today it serves as Tokushima Awaodori Airport (a civilian facility) jointly operated with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) Tokushima Air Base, home to the 202nd Naval Air Training Squadron. A small museum (opened 1973) stands within the JMSDF base grounds, accessible only by prior arrangement or during annual open-base events. The museum displays a 164-member unit photograph, farewell letters from five identified airmen, flight equipment, a Shiragiku seat and tire, and a flight-path map showing routes to Okinawa. Outside stands a life-size Memorial Kannon (Buddhist goddess of mercy) statue cradling a small figure of a Shiragiku crewman in its palm — a poignant tribute to the young men who flew to their deaths in trainer aircraft.