All historic sites
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417 sites · page 15 of 18
Miyakonojo Airfield Ruins (East & West)
都城飛行場跡（都城東・西飛行場）
Site of two Imperial Japanese Army airfields in southern Kyushu from which 79 Shinbu (Army special attack) pilots flew Ki-84 Hayate fighters on 17 kamikaze sorties against the U.S. fleet off Okinawa between April 6 and July 1, 1945. The West Airfield (built 1934, expanded to 1,200 m runway by 1945) launched the first mission on April 6; after devastating air raids on April 27–28 destroyed it, operations shifted to the East Airfield (built 1944 on converted rice paddies by the Navy, later transferred to Army use). Today, stone monuments at both former airfield sites and the Hayate Shinbu Special Attack Corps Memorial in Toshima Park (former Army cemetery) preserve the memory of the young pilots, most aged 18–23, who never returned.
Miyazaki Naval Air Group Ruins (Miyazaki Kamikaze Base Memorial)
宮崎海軍航空隊跡（宮崎特攻基地鎮魂碑）
Site of the Imperial Japanese Navy air group at Akae Airfield (now Miyazaki Airport), which served as a major kamikaze staging base from February 1945. Forty-seven Ginga bombers with 140 crew members, together with Suisei dive bombers carrying 19 crew, took off from here on special attack missions. A memorial monument (Chinkon no Hi) was erected in 1983.
Mobara Naval Airfield Site and No. 3 Aircraft Shelter
茂原海軍航空基地跡・3号掩体壕
A surviving concrete aircraft shelter marks the former Mobara naval airfield. Nearby roads and school sites trace the base's runway, headquarters and barracks within today's city.
Monument of the Nine Maidens
九人の乙女の碑
A memorial in Wakkanai Park commemorating nine young female telephone operators at the Maoka Post Office in Karafuto (southern Sakhalin), who took their own lives with potassium cyanide on August 20, 1945, rather than abandon their switchboards during the Soviet assault on Maoka. Their final transmission — "Everyone, this is the end. Goodbye, goodbye" — is inscribed on the monument. Erected in 1963, it stands as a symbol of civilian sacrifice in the closing days of the Pacific War.
Mukyudo Cave (Eternal Cave Air-Raid Shelter)
無窮洞
Mukyudo ("Eternal Cave") is a massive air-raid shelter hand-dug by elementary school students and teachers of Miyamura National School in Sasebo over nearly two years (August 1943 – August 1945). Roughly 5 meters wide, 19 meters deep, and 8 meters high, the shelter accommodated approximately 600 students during air raids and contained a classroom, kitchen, toilets, food storage, and an Imperial portrait room. It is the only known school-style air-raid shelter in Japan built entirely by schoolchildren, and stands as a powerful testament to the civilian — especially children's — experience of strategic bombing on the home front.
Nagaoka Air Raid Bombing Center Point Monument
長岡空襲爆撃中心点の碑
A stone monument erected on August 1, 2016 in Meiji Park, Nagaoka, marking the exact aiming point designated by U.S. XXI Bomber Command for the August 1, 1945 incendiary raid. American forces photographed the area in June 1945 and drew a circle with a 4,000-foot (1.2 km) radius on the aerial mosaic, targeting this point as the center. The monument is engraved with a reproduction of the U.S. military's bombing target map. Located adjacent to Yamamoto Memorial Park (the birthplace of Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku).
Nagoya POW Camp
名古屋俘虜収容所
The Nagoya POW Camp was a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp system established in the Nagoya area of Aichi Prefecture during World War II. The main camp headquarters was set up in Taisei National School in Nagoya, where the Tōkai Army headquarters was then located, on April 5, 1945, as part of a nationwide reorganization of POW administration. The Nagoya camp group administered multiple branch camps across the Chubu region where Allied prisoners — primarily American, British, Dutch, and Canadian servicemen — were subjected to forced labor at munitions factories, railway workshops, and mining operations run by major Japanese corporations including Nippon Sharyo (Nippon Rolling Stock Company), Mitsui Mining, and Ishihara Sangyo. About 3,300 Allied prisoners were held in the eleven branch camps of the Nagoya camp system at the end of the war.
Nakajima Aircraft Musashino Dispersal Factory Site (Musashino-no-Mori Park)
中島飛行機武蔵製作所疎開工場跡（武蔵野の森公園）
Park beside the former Army Chofu Airfield in the Fuchu-Chofu-Mitaka area of western Tokyo, not far from the site of the Nakajima Aircraft Musashi Plant. Fighters based at Chofu for the defence of the capital were sheltered in concrete revetments built around the airfield. Now Musashino-no-Mori Park, the site preserves concrete aircraft revetments (entaigō) as tangible reminders of Tokyo's wartime air defence.
Namura Osaka Shipyard Remains (Creative Center Osaka)
名村造船所大阪工場跡地（クリエイティブセンター大阪）
A former shipyard on the Kizu River that built wartime standard merchant ships. Its surviving industrial spaces now host Creative Center Osaka; access is through scheduled tours or events, with no ordinary free entry.
Narimasu Airfield Ruins (Hikarigaoka Park)
成増飛行場跡（光が丘公園）
A hastily constructed Imperial Japanese Army airfield in northwestern Tokyo, completed in late 1943 as a B-29 interceptor base. Home to the elite 47th Air Regiment (飛行第47戦隊) equipped with Ki-44 Shoki fighters, and the Shinten Seiku Tai — a special air-to-air ramming attack unit formed to defend the capital. Postwar the site became U.S. military housing "Grant Heights" (1947–1973), then redeveloped as the Hikarigaoka residential district and park.
Naval Paymaster School Site (Tsukiji)
海軍経理学校跡
Site of the Imperial Japanese Naval Paymaster School (海軍経理学校, Kaigun Keiri Gakkō), the elite training academy for naval logistics, accounting, and supply officers. Founded in 1874 as the Naval Accounting Academy (海軍会計学舎) and reorganized multiple times, it was officially designated the Naval Paymaster School in 1907. The school relocated to a new campus near the west end of Kachidoki Bridge in Tsukiji 6-chome in 1932, where it operated until Japan's defeat in 1945. One of the "Three Great Naval Schools" (海軍三校) alongside the Naval Academy at Etajima and the Naval Engineering School, it trained thousands of paymaster officers and ratings in supply chain management, military accounting, provisioning, and general administration. Notable alumni include Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who completed the short-service reserve officer program here in 1941. The original campus was demolished; a black granite memorial stele stands in a small green space near the southwest approach to Kachidoki Bridge, erected in 1976 by alumni to commemorate the school's 70-year legacy. The site later became part of the Tsukiji fish market complex, itself a successor to the naval facilities that once dominated this waterfront district.
NHK Museum of Broadcasting
NHK放送博物館
The NHK Museum of Broadcasting stands atop Atago Hill in Minato, Tokyo — the birthplace of Japanese broadcasting. Station JOAK made Japan's first radio broadcast on March 22, 1925, from a temporary studio in Shibaura, and began regular broadcasting from its permanent station on this hill that July. On August 15, 1945, the Gyokuon-hōsō (Jewel Voice Broadcast) — Emperor Hirohito's historic radio address announcing Japan's surrender — was transmitted via NHK's broadcasting network, and the original Gyokuon-ban recording disc is preserved in this museum. Opened in 1956 as the world's first museum dedicated to broadcasting.
Niigata City History Museum (Minatopia)
新潟市歴史博物館 みなとぴあ
Municipal history museum opened in 2004 at the mouth of the Shinano River, built around the nationally designated Important Cultural Property "Former Niigata Customs House" (1869) — the only surviving original treaty port customs building in Japan. The museum's permanent exhibition covers Niigata's history as one of five ports opened by the 1858 Treaty of Amity and Commerce, its wartime role as a strategic port for military logistics to the Asian continent, and its designation as an atomic bomb target city in 1945. The grounds include the restored former Daishi Bank branch and the restored customs stone warehouse and landing stage.
Niigata City Peace Monument (Mitokyō Park)
新潟市平和祈念碑（水戸教公園）
Peace monument erected on August 10, 1998 in Mitokyō Park overlooking Niigata Port, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII. Niigata was one of four final target cities for the atomic bomb alongside Hiroshima, Kokura, and Nagasaki, listed in the July 25, 1945 directive authorizing nuclear strikes. In the event the city was not chosen for the missions of early August 1945, not even as an alternate target: it lay far from Tinian and was considered too small a target. The monument honors all war dead, including Japanese civilians, soldiers, and foreign forced laborers who perished on Japanese soil, and an annual flower-offering ceremony is held on August 10 to mark the anniversary of the 1945 air raids on Niigata.
Nikko Kanaya Hotel
日光金谷ホテル
Japan's oldest surviving resort hotel, established in 1873 in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture. During World War II, the hotel served as wartime evacuation housing and was requisitioned by GHQ as a special service hotel for U.S. military personnel from October 1945 to February 1952.
Noborito Research Institute — Ikuta Branch (Balloon Bomb Production Facility)
陸軍登戸研究所 生田分室
Main compound of the Imperial Japanese Army's Ninth Technical Research Institute (Noborito Research Institute), located in the Ikuta hills of Kawasaki City. It served as a key site for the First Department's Fu-Go balloon bomb program, where research, development, and coordination of the intercontinental balloon weapon took place from 1937 to 1945. The washi-paper balloon envelopes, bonded with konnyaku paste, were made by mobilized students and workers at sites across Japan. Today the site is preserved as the Meiji University Peace Education Noborito Research Institute Museum on the Ikuta Campus, housed in the surviving Building 36.
Oga Kaiten Training Base Remains
大神回天訓練基地跡
Remains of a 1945 naval training base for kaiten manned suicide torpedoes on Beppu Bay. A public memorial park displays a full-size replica, while original support structures and storage tunnels survive at scattered locations.
Ohka Park (Konoike Air Base Ruins)
桜花公園（神之池基地跡）
Memorial park on the site of the former Konoike Naval Air Base in Kashima, Ibaraki Prefecture — the primary training facility for the Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, the only rocket-propelled manned suicide weapon ever used in combat. A full-scale Ohka Model 11 replica is displayed inside the sole surviving aircraft revetment (entaigo). The park commemorates the 721st Naval Air Group "Jinrai Butai" (Thunder Gods Corps), which trained here from November 1944, and the 722nd Naval Air Group "Tatsumaki Butai" (Tornado Corps), the Ohka training unit formed in February 1945.
Okayama Air Raid Exhibition Room
岡山空襲展示室
A permanent exhibition on the 5th floor of Okayama City Museum (Ritt City Building, adjacent to JR Okayama Station west exit) documenting the devastating June 29, 1945 firebombing that destroyed 73% of Okayama's urban area. Displays include actual incendiary bomb specimens, USAAF mission documents, aerial reconnaissance photographs, and recorded survivor testimonies.
Okegawa Branch of the Kumagaya Army Flying School
旧熊谷陸軍飛行学校桶川分教場（桶川飛行学校平和祈念館）
The Army flying school's separate Okegawa campus preserves restored barracks and service buildings. It trained pilots before becoming a special-attack training facility in 1945 and later housing returnees.
Oya Peace Kannon & Oya History Museum (Nakajima Aircraft Underground Factory Ruins)
大谷平和観音・大谷資料館（中島飛行機地下工場跡）
A 26.93-meter stone Kannon statue carved from 1948 to 1954 to commemorate WWII dead, adjacent to the Oya History Museum built inside the massive underground quarry where Nakajima Aircraft secretly produced parts for Ki-84 "Hayate" fighters during the war. The underground space covers over 20,000 square meters.
Peace Museum of Saitama
埼玉県平和資料館（埼玉ピースミュージアム）
A prefectural museum in Higashimatsuyama documenting wartime life, mobilization and military connections in Saitama. Closed for major repairs from 31 August 2026; reopening had not been announced when checked on 3 October 2026.
Saga Air Raid Site
佐賀空襲跡
Site of the August 5, 1945 firebombing of Saga City by 65 B-29 Superfortress bombers of the USAAF 58th Bombardment Wing. Launching from Tinian in the Mariana Islands, the aircraft dropped 459 tons of incendiary and high-explosive ordnance on southern Saga and surrounding villages between 11:30 PM and 1:00 AM, destroying 443 structures and killing 61 civilians. A memorial stone inscribed "B29空爆焦土" (B-29 Bombing Scorched Earth) stands in the city to commemorate the victims.
Sakura Army Regiment Site (National Museum of Japanese History)
佐倉陸軍連隊跡（国立歴史民俗博物館）
The former garrison site of the Imperial Japanese Army Infantry 2nd and 57th Regiments in Sakura, Chiba Prefecture. The 2nd Regiment, formed in 1874, was garrisoned here (its headquarters from 1884) until it moved to Mito in 1908, and was replaced by the 57th Regiment in 1909. The 57th Regiment served in WWII as part of the 1st Division and was nearly annihilated in the Battle of Leyte in 1944–1945. The site now houses the National Museum of Japanese History (Rekihaku), which opened in 1983, while military-era gates and structures remain on the grounds.