All historic sites
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417 sites · page 14 of 18
Hiroshima Army Youth School Ruins
広島陸軍幼年学校跡
Ruins of the Imperial Japanese Army Youth School (Rikugun Yōnen Gakkō) in Hiroshima, established in 1897 to train boy cadets aged 13–16 as future army officers. Located in the Motomachi district north of Hiroshima Castle, the school was destroyed by the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945. Students had been evacuated to the mountains weeks earlier, but staff and hospitalized students perished. Gate pillars and a monument stone remain at the site today.
Hisai Army Barracks and Former 30th Infantry Brigade Headquarters
久居陸軍兵営跡・旧歩兵第三十旅団司令部（久居駐屯地）
Camp Hisai occupies the former Imperial Army barracks established in 1908. Its surviving 30th Infantry Brigade headquarters now houses a museum of the units stationed here; visits to this active military camp require advance arrangements.
Hotarukan Tomiya Shokudo
ホタル館 富屋食堂
Restored wartime military dining hall in Chiran, Kagoshima, originally run by Tome Torihama (1902–1992) — known as the 'Mother of the Special Attack Corps' (特攻の母). During 1945, the Tomiya Shokudo served as the designated army restaurant for kamikaze pilots departing from Chiran Air Base. Torihama provided emotional support, home-cooked meals, and motherly care to young pilots on the eve of their final missions, often forwarding their last letters to families. The building was faithfully reconstructed and opened as a memorial museum displaying photographs, personal effects, and stories of the pilots and Torihama's lifelong dedication to preserving their memory.
Hyakuri Naval Air Base (Hyakuri Air Base & Yuhien Park)
百里原海軍航空隊（百里基地・雄飛園）
Imperial Japanese Navy air training base established in 1938 in Ibaraki Prefecture. Hyakurihara Naval Air Group began as a primary flight-training unit, added carrier attack and dive bomber training from late 1943, and in the war's final months formed special attack (kamikaze) units that flew sorties during the Battle of Okinawa. Now home to JASDF Hyakuri Air Base — the closest fighter base to Tokyo — with the Yuhien outdoor memorial park displaying retired military aircraft and monuments to the fallen.
IJN Submarine School (Sonar Training Hall Monument)
海軍潜水学校（探知講堂跡）
Site of the Imperial Japanese Navy Submarine School, which trained all IJN submarine crews from 1920 until 1945. Originally established in Kure, the school relocated to Otake in 1942. The sole surviving remnant is the Sonar Training Hall (探知講堂) monument — a section of the concrete wall from a unique over-water facility where submariners trained to identify enemy vessels by propeller sound. The monument stands in the Toei District Waterfront Green Park in Otake.
Imperial Hotel (Frank Lloyd Wright Building Site)
旧帝国ホテル（フランク・ロイド・ライト館跡）
The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1923, was Japan's most prestigious hotel and famously survived the Great Kanto Earthquake on its opening day. During WWII, the south wing was gutted by incendiary bombs in the 1945 air raids on Tokyo (dated May 25 in English-language accounts and March 10–11 in Japanese ones), though the main structure survived. After Japan's surrender, the hotel was commandeered by the Allied occupation forces from 1945 to 1952, serving as billets for senior SCAP and GHQ personnel. The iconic Wright building was demolished in 1967-68 due to accumulated war damage, deferred maintenance, and the need for expansion; the entrance lobby was preserved and relocated to the Meiji Mura architecture museum in Aichi Prefecture.
Imperial Japanese Army Provisions Depot (Etchujima)
陸軍糧秣本廠
The central provisions depot of the Imperial Japanese Army, located at Etchujima in Fukagawa (present-day Koto Ward, Tokyo). Established in 1897 on the site of a former military drill ground, the depot was responsible for procuring, manufacturing, and storing food provisions for soldiers and fodder for military horses across the entire army. The facility operated continuously until Japan's surrender in 1945 and was heavily damaged in the Tokyo firebombing raids of March 1945. The site was subsequently used as a JGSDF camp until 1960 and has since been completely redeveloped.
Inba Airfield Site and Open-Air Aircraft Revetment
印旛飛行場跡・無蓋掩体壕
An earthen aircraft revetment survives beside a flood-control pond in Inzai. It recalls the Inba pilot-training airfield's wartime conversion to an army fighter base.
Jōgashima Artillery Battery Ruins (Tokyo Bay Fortress)
城ヶ島砲台跡（東京湾要塞）
A coastal defense battery on Jōgashima Island at the southern tip of the Miura Peninsula, built as part of the Tokyo Bay Fortress system. Begun in 1924 after the Great Kantō Earthquake and completed in 1927, the battery was armed with twin 25.4 cm gun turrets taken from the decommissioned battleship Aki. Though the battery never saw combat, it served as a key element of the capital's seaward defense until the end of World War II. Today, underground ammunition magazines and a 50-meter passage survive beneath Jōgashima Park.
Kamaishi Daikannon
釜石大観音
A 48.5-meter reinforced-concrete Kannon statue erected in 1970 on the coast of Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, to console the souls of those who perished in the two devastating Allied naval bombardments of 1945 and the Meiji- and Showa-era tsunamis.
Kashihara Jingu
橿原神宮
Kashihara Jingu is a Shinto shrine in Kashihara, Nara Prefecture, dedicated to Emperor Jimmu, the mythical first emperor of Japan. Founded in 1890, it became the focal point of the massive Kigen 2600 celebrations in 1940, drawing approximately 10 million visitors that year, and served as a key site for kokutai (national polity) ideology and spiritual mobilization during wartime Japan.
Kashima Naval Air Group Ruins (Oyama Lakeside Park)
鹿島海軍航空隊跡（大山湖畔公園）
One of the best-preserved IJN seaplane training base ruins in Japan, located on the southern shore of Lake Kasumigaura in Miho Village, Ibaraki Prefecture. Established on December 15, 1938, as a practice air group for seaplane pilot training under the Yokosuka Naval District, the base grew to over 1,000 personnel and 100 aircraft by 1941. Surviving structures include the reinforced-concrete headquarters building, 32-meter smokestack boiler house with original 1939 boilers, self-powered generator building, vehicle garage, seaplane catapult foundation, and lakeside slipways designated as Civil Engineering Heritage. Opened to the public as Oyama Lakeside Park in July 2023.
Kashiwa Airfield & Shusui Rocket Interceptor Site
柏飛行場・秋水関連遺跡
The Imperial Japanese Army airfield in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, designated as the operational base for the J8M/Ki-200 "Shusui" — Japan's only rocket-powered interceptor, reverse-engineered from the German Me 163 Komet. Underground fuel storage bunkers for the Shusui's volatile hydrogen peroxide and hydrazine propellants survive in the Hanano-i residential area, representing Japan's most ambitious late-war aviation technology program.
Kawagoe Army Arsenal Site (Fukuoka Ammunition Factory)
東京第一陸軍造兵廠川越製造所跡（福岡工場・火工廠）
The former ammunition works in present-day Fujimino operated from 1937 to 1945, producing cartridges, fuzes and other munitions components. Its grounds now contain civic buildings, housing, schools and factories; the marker represents the former site around city hall.
Kenebetsu No. 1 Airfield Covered Aircraft Shelter No. 1
旧陸軍計根別第一飛行場1号有蓋掩体
A surviving concrete aircraft shelter from the Army's Kenebetsu airfield complex, built around 1942–1943. It remains on private pasture in Betsukai and may not be entered or approached across the field.
Kensoji Temple — Grave of the Twenty-Two Samurai
賢崇寺（二十二士之墓）
A Soto Zen temple in Moto-Azabu, Minato Ward, housing the graves of the "Twenty-Two Samurai" (二十二士之墓) — the nineteen officers executed for their role in the February 26 Incident, plus two who committed suicide (Captain Shiro Nonaka and Captain Hisashi Kono) and Lieutenant Colonel Saburo Aizawa executed for the 1935 Aizawa Incident. The gravestone was erected in 1952 by the Busshinkai; annual memorial services are held on February 26 and July 12.
Kobe Air Raids Monument of Life and Peace
神戸空襲を忘れない いのちと平和の碑
A memorial monument in Okurayama Park, Kobe, erected in 2013 to commemorate the victims of the devastating 1945 air raids that killed over 8,800 people and destroyed half of the city.
Kori Army Ammunition Factory Site (Myokenyama Chimney)
香里製造所跡（妙見山の煙突）
A surviving boiler chimney marks the former Kori ammunition factory in Hirakata. The works dried propellant delivered from Uji and filled shells and bombs; the chimney now stands within a working water facility with limited public openings.
Kyushu Aircraft Zasshonokuma Plant
九州飛行機雑餉隈工場
The main factory of Kyushu Aircraft Company (formerly Watanabe Iron Works) at Zasshonokuma, Fukuoka — birthplace of the J7W1 Shinden, Imperial Japan's radical canard-configuration interceptor designed to counter B-29 raids. The Shinden's forward-swept canard wings and rear-mounted pusher propeller made it one of the most unconventional aircraft of WWII. Only one prototype was completed; it flew three times (August 3, 6, and 8, 1945) from nearby Mushiroda Airfield before Japan's surrender. The 120,000-tsubo factory site was seized by US forces after the war and is now occupied by JGSDF Camp Fukuoka, where wartime factory buildings still serve as military warehouses.
Maebashi Army Airfield Ruins (Tsutsumigaoka Airfield)
陸軍前橋飛行場跡（堤ヶ岡飛行場）
An Imperial Japanese Army airfield built in 1943-1944 in Gunma Prefecture for pilot training and air defense. The Utsunomiya Army Flight School operated a training unit here, and a Nakajima Aircraft branch factory assembled Ki-84 Hayate fighters on site. Maebashi city was one of the last cities firebombed by B-29s on August 5, 1945, the night before Hiroshima.
Maehama Aircraft Shelters (Former Kochi Naval Air Group)
前浜掩体群（旧高知海軍航空隊）
Seven surviving concrete aircraft shelters in fields south of Kochi Airport. Built for the wartime naval airfield, the group includes a conserved public park around Shelter No. 5; shelter interiors are closed.
Matsuyama Castle & Former IJA 22nd Infantry Regiment Site
松山城・陸軍歩兵第二十二連隊跡
Matsuyama Castle in Ehime Prefecture served as the garrison of the Imperial Japanese Army 22nd Infantry Regiment from the 1880s to 1945. The castle's Sannomaru (third bailey, present-day Shiroyama Park / Horinouchi) housed the regimental barracks, while the Ninomaru (second bailey) became an army hospital. The 22nd Regiment, famed as the "Iyo Nikudan Rentai" (Iyo Flesh-Bullet Regiment) for its ferocity in the Russo-Japanese War, belonged to the 11th Division and later the 24th Division before being annihilated in the Battle of Okinawa in June 1945. Matsuyama also hosted Japan's first prisoner-of-war camp during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), where approximately 6,000 Russian POWs were treated with notable humanity. Today the castle grounds are a public park and National Historic Site, with the reconstructed castle tower standing as one of Japan's twelve original castle keeps.
Metabaru Airfield Ruins
目達原飛行場跡
Former Imperial Japanese Army airfield in Yoshinogari Town, Saga Prefecture, established in 1943 as a branch of the Tachiarai Army Flight School. The base trained student pilots and served as a staging point for Army special attack (tokubetsu kōgeki) operations during the final months of WWII, with the 273rd Shinbu Squadron and other kamikaze units departing via Metabaru en route to forward bases in southern Kyushu. The site is now JGSDF Camp Metabaru, with the former main gate pillars and a 1992 memorial monument preserved outside the base perimeter.
Mitsui Tamano Shipyard (Former Tama Shipyard)
三井造船玉野造船所（旧玉造船所）
A shipbuilding centre founded in 1917 that produced naval vessels and wartime standard merchant ships. Parts of the waterfront remain in industrial use, including modern shipbuilding; unrestricted public entry is not established.