All historic sites
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417 sites · page 13 of 18
Former Bank of Japan Hiroshima Branch
旧日本銀行広島支店
A surviving bank building close to Hiroshima's hypocenter, damaged in the atomic bombing and used to resume payments two days later. Public rooms preserve architectural details and visible traces of the bombing.
Former Fourth Infantry Regiment Barracks (Sendai City Museum of History and Folklore)
旧歩兵第四連隊兵舎（仙台市歴史民俗資料館）
A surviving wooden Army barracks in Tsutsujigaoka Park, used until August 1945 and later moved within the former military grounds. It now houses Sendai's history and folklore museum.
Former Hibiya Public Hall
旧日比谷公会堂
Hibiya Public Hall, completed in 1929 in Hibiya Park, Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, was Japan's first full-scale public concert and assembly hall. Designed by architect Sato Koichi and championed by statesman Goto Shinpei as a center for civic discourse, the roughly 2,000-seat Neo-Gothic hall became a critical venue for wartime national mobilization rallies during the 1930s and 1940s — most notably the founding ceremony of the National Spirit Mobilization Central Federation (国民精神総動員中央連盟) on October 12, 1937. Throughout the Pacific War, the hall hosted propaganda events, patriotic assemblies, and government-organized mass meetings designed to rally public support for the war effort. The building survived the devastating 1945 firebombing of Tokyo and was immediately repurposed during the Allied occupation for cultural events, including one of the first postwar concerts on September 6, 1945, featuring vocalist Fujiwara Yoshie. Designated a Tokyo Metropolitan Historical Building and Tangible Cultural Property, the hall closed in 2016 for seismic renovation and is expected to reopen in 2029, marking its centennial.
Former Honjo Army Clothing Depot Site
旧陸軍被服本廠跡（本所）
Site of the Imperial Japanese Army Clothing Depot Headquarters (陸軍被服本廠), established in 1890 in Honjo Ward on the former grounds of the Edo-era Honjo Rice Storehouse (本所御蔵). The depot manufactured and distributed military uniforms, boots, caps, cloaks, blankets, canteens, and other equipment for the entire Japanese Army, expanding massively during the Sino-Japanese (1894–95) and Russo-Japanese (1904–05) Wars. After the depot relocated to Akabane in 1919, the vacant site was sold in 1922 to the Ministry of Communications and the City of Tokyo, the latter for park development. On September 1, 1923, during the Great Kanto Earthquake, approximately 40,000 refugees crowded onto the open ground — and a catastrophic fire tornado swept through, killing an estimated 38,000 people in the single deadliest concentration of casualties in the earthquake. The site later became Yokoamicho Park, the location of Tokyo Memorial Hall. During the March 10, 1945 firebombing of Tokyo, the surrounding Honjo-Fukagawa area was at the epicenter of the deadliest air raid in human history.
Former Imperial Japanese Army Meteorological Department
陸軍気象部跡
Site of the Imperial Japanese Army Meteorological Department (陸軍気象部, later renamed Army Central Meteorological Department 陸軍中央気象部), the military weather intelligence organization that provided critical meteorological forecasting for Imperial Army operations throughout the Pacific War. Established in 1938 at Mabashi 4-chome (now Koenji-kita 4-chome), Suginami Ward, Tokyo, the department conducted research on military meteorology, tested weather instruments, and operated a vast network of observation stations across Japan, Korea, Manchuria, and occupied territories. The site is now Mabashi Park (馬橋公園); the Kishō Shrine (気象神社), originally built within the compound in 1944, survives as a relocated sub-shrine at nearby Koenji Hikawa Shrine — said to be Japan's only weather shrine.
Former Imperial Theatre Site (Marunouchi)
旧帝国劇場跡（丸の内）
Japan's first Western-style theater, the Imperial Theatre (帝国劇場) opened in Marunouchi, Tokyo in 1911 as a symbol of Meiji-era modernization. During WWII, the theater was requisitioned by the Cabinet Information Bureau (内閣情報部) as its office from September 1940, ending theatrical performances. The basement cafeteria was converted into a public congee kitchen for civilians in January 1944 amid severe wartime food shortages. After Japan's surrender, the theater resumed performances in October 1945 and later served entertainment needs during the Allied occupation. The original Renaissance-style building, designed by Yokogawa Tamisuke, was demolished in 1964 and replaced by the current Toho-operated theater designed by Taniguchi Yoshiro, which opened in September 1966.
Former Italian Embassy, Tokyo
旧イタリア大使館
The former Italian Embassy in Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo served as the diplomatic headquarters of Axis partner Italy in Japan during WWII. After Italy's armistice with the Allies in September 1943, the embassy became a site of dramatic diplomatic division, with most staff siding against the Japanese-backed Italian Social Republic. The official residence was destroyed in the April 1945 Tokyo air raids.
Former Komatsu Naval Air Base Revetment
旧海軍小松航空基地 掩体壕
A WWII-era reinforced concrete aircraft revetment (entaigo) surviving within the grounds of JASDF Komatsu Air Base in Ishikawa Prefecture. Built around 1944 by the Imperial Japanese Navy Maizuru Naval District to shelter Zero fighters and Saiun reconnaissance aircraft, this covered shelter is one of very few remnants of the Komatsu Naval Air Station — a late-war dispersal base on the Sea of Japan coast. Originally the base had 35 medium covered shelters, 40 medium open shelters, 31 small covered shelters, and 15 small concealed positions; today only a handful survive. The JASDF has preserved this revetment as a heritage monument, housing a camouflage-painted T-6G trainer inside to honor wartime aviators.
Former Manchukuo Embassy Site (Moto-Azabu, Tokyo)
旧満洲国大使館跡（東京都港区元麻布）
The former Manchukuo Embassy in Tokyo was located at the present-day site of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Moto-Azabu, Minato-ku. The building, originally designed by architect Antonin Raymond in 1922 as the residence of Viscount Goto Shinpei (a former Foreign Minister and Mayor of Tokyo), was converted into the Manchukuo Embassy in 1932 when Japan established the puppet state of Manchukuo in northeast China. The embassy represented the diplomatic facade of Japan's continental expansion until the building was destroyed in the devastating Tokyo air raid of May 25, 1945. After the war, the site was repurposed as the Republic of China embassy and later became the embassy of the People's Republic of China, which occupies the location to this day.
Former Ministry of Communications Savings Bureau (Iikura, Azabu)
逓信省貯金局跡（麻布飯倉）
The Otemachi (Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo) site of the Ministry of Communications (逓信省), used here to represent the ministry's Savings Bureau — whose own office building, completed in 1930, actually stood in Iikura, Azabu (present-day Azabudai, Minato Ward). During WWII the bureau managed the wartime postal savings mobilization system, channeling citizens' deposits into war bonds to finance the military effort. The Ministry of Communications also oversaw wartime censorship of mail and telecommunications. The Teishin Building on the Otemachi site housed the Teishin Comprehensive Museum (逓信総合博物館, known as "Tei-Park") from 1964 until its closure in 2013, and was demolished by 2015 to make way for the Otemachi Place redevelopment.
Former Nippon Kangyo Bank Headquarters
日本勧業銀行本店跡
Site of the former headquarters of Nippon Kangyo Bank (日本勧業銀行) in Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo. During WWII, the bank served as the central institution for issuing wartime government bonds (戦時公債), lottery-style savings bonds (割増金付戦時債券), and the "Victory Tickets" (勝札) that became the precursor to Japan's modern national lottery (宝くじ). The original Meiji-era building (1899, designed by Tsumaki Yorinaka) was sold and relocated in 1926 and succeeded by a second head office completed in 1929; the site later became the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank Head Office Building (1981) and subsequently the Mizuho Bank Uchisaiwaicho Head Office Building, which was demolished in 2022 for redevelopment.
Former Residence of Hideki Tojo
東條英機邸跡
Site of wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo's private residence in Yoga, Setagaya, Tokyo. On September 11, 1945, when GHQ military police arrived to arrest him as a suspected Class-A war criminal, Tojo shot himself in the chest with a pistol in his study but missed his heart and survived. American journalists and photographers who had gathered outside captured the dramatic scene, and the resulting photographs — showing Tojo slumped in a chair, bleeding from his self-inflicted wound — were transmitted worldwide and became some of the most iconic images of the immediate postwar period. After receiving emergency blood transfusions from American military doctors, Tojo recovered and was transferred to Sugamo Prison. He was tried before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and executed on December 23, 1948. The residence no longer exists; the site is now occupied by a Rissho Kosei-kai (立正佼成会) church building, with a small stone marker reading "東條英機邸跡" on the grounds.
Former Residence of Yoshida Shigeru (Oiso)
旧吉田茂邸（大磯）
The Former Residence of Yoshida Shigeru in Oiso, Kanagawa Prefecture, was the private home of Japan's most consequential postwar Prime Minister, Shigeru Yoshida (1878–1967). Originally purchased in 1884 by his adoptive father Yoshida Kenzo as a seaside villa, Shigeru Yoshida made it his primary residence from 1945 until his death in 1967. From this estate overlooking Sagami Bay and Mount Fuji, Yoshida orchestrated Japan's postwar reconstruction and negotiated the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty that ended the Allied occupation. The residence became a destination for the politicians of the so-called "Yoshida School" (吉田学校) — the group of largely ex-bureaucrat Diet members Yoshida had recruited, including future prime ministers Ikeda Hayato and Sato Eisaku — who continued to call on him here after his retirement. The main building, designed by renowned architect Yoshida Isoya in a modern sukiya style with all-cypress construction by Kyoto palace carpenters, burned down in March 2009. It was rebuilt with the help of public donations on the basis of original plans and photographs, and Oiso Town reopened the site to the public in April 2017 as an annex of the Oiso Town Local History Museum within Oiso Joyama Park.
Former Soviet Embassy (now Embassy of Russia)
旧ソビエト連邦大使館（現ロシア大使館）
The former Soviet Embassy in Tokyo's Azabudai district (now the Embassy of Russia) was the site where Soviet Ambassador Yakov Malik was to deliver the formal declaration of war against Japan on August 8–9, 1945, abrogating the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact of 1941. Foreign Minister Molotov informed Ambassador Satō in Moscow at 5 p.m. Moscow time (11 p.m. JST) on August 8, and Malik subsequently met Foreign Minister Tōgō in Tokyo on August 10 to formally deliver the notification. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria commenced at midnight on August 9, becoming a decisive factor in Japan's surrender.
Former Student Mobilization Factory Site (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nagoya)
旧学徒動員工場跡（名古屋三菱重工）
Site of the former Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Nagoya Aircraft Works and Engine Plant, where thousands of mobilized students (学徒動員) were conscripted to produce Zero fighters and aircraft engines from 1943 onward. On December 13, 1944, B-29 bombers killed over 300 workers including many student laborers. The Oe factory district in Minato Ward, Nagoya, now houses the Mitsubishi Oe Clock Tower Aviation History Museum, preserving the memory of wartime aircraft production and the student mobilization program that sent over 3.4 million Japanese students into military factories.
Former Sumitomo Metal Industries Propeller Factory
住友金属工業プロペラ製造所跡
Site of the former Sumitomo Metal Industries Propeller Manufacturing Plant in Sakurajima, Konohana-ku, Osaka. Established in 1933 as Japan's largest aircraft propeller factory, Sumitomo produced 66% of all Japanese military aircraft propellers during WWII — approximately 89,885 units — including constant-speed propellers for the Zero fighter, under license from Hamilton Standard. The factory was devastated by U.S. incendiary bombing on June 15, 1945.
Former Taishoya Kimono Store and Fuel Hall (Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park Rest House)
旧大正屋呉服店・燃料会館（広島市平和記念公園レストハウス）
The former Taishoya store became a wartime fuel-rationing office and survived the Hiroshima atomic bombing as a damaged shell. Its basement and exhibitions now convey the building's history and the life of the former Nakajima district.
Former Tokyo Army Garrison Hospital (National Center for Global Health and Medicine)
旧陸軍衛戍病院跡（国立国際医療研究センター）
Site of the former Tokyo First Army Garrison Hospital (東京第一陸軍病院), the Imperial Japanese Army's principal hospital in Tokyo and one of its oldest. Established in 1868 as a provisional army hospital to treat Boshin War casualties, it was relocated to its current site in Toyama, Shinjuku in 1929. Throughout the Pacific War the hospital treated vast numbers of wounded soldiers from all theaters and established branch hospitals nationwide. After Japan's surrender in 1945 it was transferred to the Ministry of Health and Welfare as the National Tokyo First Hospital, and has since evolved into the National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGM), a leading research hospital.
Former Tokyo First Army Arsenal Headquarters (Chuo Park Cultural Center)
旧東京第一陸軍造兵廠本部事務所（中央公園文化センター）
The former arsenal headquarters survives in Tokyo's Jujo district as a public cultural center. Built in 1930, it connects the area's wartime arms industry with its later use by U.S. forces and conversion to civic facilities.
Former Tsukiji Naval Academy Site
旧築地海軍兵学校跡
Site of the original Imperial Japanese Naval Academy (海軍兵学校, Kaigun Heigakkō) at Tsukiji, Tokyo, where modern Japanese naval officer education was born. Established in 1869 and operating until the academy relocated to Etajima, Hiroshima Prefecture in 1888, this was the birthplace of the Imperial Japanese Navy's officer corps. The site subsequently housed the Naval War College, which was damaged in the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake and moved away in 1932; the area became the legendary Tsukiji Fish Market from 1935 to 2018. A stone monument commemorating the Naval Academy and Naval Medical School stands at the nearby National Cancer Center.
Haranomachi Army Airfield
原町陸軍飛行場
Former Imperial Japanese Army airfield in Minamisōma, Fukushima Prefecture, established in 1936 as the Hibarigahara Airfield and converted to a military flight training facility in 1940. During the final year of the Pacific War it served as a kamikaze special-attack training base, training pilots of 14 tokkōtai units that fought in the Philippines, off Okinawa and in the homeland. The Nakoso Fu-Go balloon bomb launch base lay about 90 km to the south on the same Hamadōri coast, though no operational link between the two is documented. A memorial at Jingasaki Park Cemetery, erected in 1971, records 71 airmen from the airfield who died in special-attack units.
Heiwa no Mori Park & Peace Statue
平和の森公園・平和像
A memorial park in central Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture, created in 1996 to commemorate the August 1, 1945 firebombing that killed 1,488 people by the city's 2019 count and destroyed about 80% of the urban area. The park's centerpiece is the Peace Statue (平和像), originally erected in 1951 at Nagaoka Station to honor approximately 280 schoolchildren among the dead. Funded by prefecture-wide teacher donations, the statue contains a copper plate engraved with the names of all student victims. The park also houses a second-generation Hiroshima survivor aogiri tree, symbolizing resilience and peace.
Heiwa-dōri (Peace Avenue)
平和通り
A one-kilometer cherry-tree-lined avenue in central Hitachi extending from JR Hitachi Station to National Route 6, built during the postwar reconstruction of the city devastated by the July 1945 naval bombardment and B-29 incendiary raids. The avenue symbolizes Hitachi's rebirth and commitment to peace.
Hirao Kaiten Base Remains
平生回天基地跡
Remains of the Imperial Japanese Navy's third kaiten (human torpedo) training and launch base, established on the Atata Peninsula of Hirao Town in March 1945. The base dispatched submarine I-58 with six kaiten on July 18, 1945; five pilots were killed in action in the Philippine Sea. A memorial monument (erected 1959) and the Atata Exchange Hall (opened 2004) now preserve the memory of the nine men who died.