All historic sites
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417 sites · page 16 of 18
Schoolchildren Evacuation Memorial (Matsumoto)
学童疎開の碑
A memorial in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, commemorating the wartime evacuation of schoolchildren (学童疎開, gakudō sokai) from Tokyo and other major cities to the Japanese countryside during 1944–1945. More than 400,000 elementary school pupils were relocated to rural areas to escape intensifying American air raids, with Nagano Prefecture serving as one of the largest receiving regions. Matsumoto City is reported to have taken in 14 schools comprising 4,437 children, housed primarily in hot spring inns and temples at Asama Onsen.
Seki Underground Factory of Suzuka Naval Arsenal
鈴鹿海軍工廠関防空工場跡（関地下工場）
Sealed tunnel entrances in Kannon-yama recall an underground dispersal factory producing aircraft machine-gun ammunition in 1945. The surrounding park is accessible, but ordinary visits are limited to exterior viewing.
Shin-Tanna Tunnel (Bullet Train Project Wartime Remnant)
新丹那トンネル（弾丸列車計画遺構）
The Shin-Tanna Tunnel is the longest tunnel on the Tokaido Shinkansen (7,959 m), running beneath the Tanna Mountains between Atami and Mishima in Shizuoka Prefecture. Construction began in August 1941 as part of the wartime Dangan Ressha (弾丸列車, "Bullet Train") plan — an ambitious Tokyo–Shimonoseki high-speed railway conceived in 1939. By the time work was halted in 1943 due to deteriorating war conditions, approximately 2 km of pilot tunnels had been excavated from both portals. The tunnel was left abandoned until 1959, when it was resumed for the new Tokaido Shinkansen, opening on 1 October 1964. It is the most significant surviving remnant of the wartime bullet train project.
Shinyo Special Attack Base Ruins (18th Shinyo Squadron, Nominoura)
震洋特攻基地跡（第18震洋隊・呑之浦）
Ruins of the 18th Shinyo Special Attack Squadron base at Nominoura inlet on Kakeromajima Island, part of the Amami archipelago in the Nansei Islands. Established in November 1944, the base housed 52 explosive motorboats and 186 personnel under the command of Toshio Shimao, who later became one of Japan's most celebrated postwar novelists. Twelve concrete storage tunnels carved into the hillside survive, one containing a full-scale Shinyo replica. The squadron received sortie orders on August 13, 1945, but the war ended before the attack could be launched.
Shōkeikan (National Museum for Disabled War Veterans)
しょうけい館（戦傷病者史料館）
Shōkeikan is a national museum in Chiyoda, Tokyo, dedicated to preserving and conveying the experiences of Japanese soldiers who were wounded or fell ill during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. Established by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and opened in March 2006, the museum collects oral testimonies, prosthetics, medical records, personal belongings, and documentary materials illustrating the physical and psychological hardships endured by war-injured veterans and their families during and after the conflict. Originally located in Kudanminami near Yasukuni Shrine and the Showakan (National Showa Memorial Museum), the facility relocated to Green Oak Kudan in Kudankita in October 2023.
Showa Denko Kawasaki Factory Ruins
昭和電工川崎工場跡
Site of the Showa Denko chemical and aluminium factory in the Keihin Industrial Zone of Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture. Opened in 1931 as the Kawasaki plant of Showa Fertilizer (founded 1928), it became a major wartime producer of aluminium, chemical products, and military materiel after the 1939 merger that created Showa Denko K.K. The company later caused the Niigata Minamata disease (1965), Japan's second mercury poisoning disaster. The 1931 Art Deco main office building survives as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property.
South Manchuria Railway Tokyo Office Site
南満州鉄道株式会社東京支社跡
The South Manchuria Railway Company (南満州鉄道株式会社, commonly known as Mantetsu/満鉄) maintained its Tokyo branch office as the critical liaison between the colonial enterprise in Manchuria and the Japanese government in the capital. Originally established at Azabu-Mamiana-chō in 1907 when the headquarters relocated to Dalian, the Tokyo office later moved to Akasaka-ku Aoi-chō 2-banchi (present-day Toranomon 2-chōme), where a purpose-built reinforced concrete building was completed in 1936 during President Yōsuke Matsuoka's tenure. The "Mantetsu Building" (満鉄ビル) served as the nerve center for the company's Japan-side operations — lobbying the Diet, coordinating with the military and zaibatsu, managing investment flows, and operating the Manchuria Resource Exhibition Hall (満洲資源陳列所) which showcased Manchurian natural resources and industrial potential to investors and policymakers. After Japan's defeat in 1945, the building was requisitioned by SCAP/GHQ and repurposed as a U.S. Embassy annex and residence for occupation forces families. The original structure was demolished and replaced by the current Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Building (商船三井ビルディング, formerly Toranomon Dai Building) completed in 1979.
Suzuki Kantarō Memorial Museum
鈴木貫太郎記念館
Memorial museum in Sekiyado, Noda City, Chiba Prefecture, dedicated to Baron Kantarō Suzuki (1868–1948), the 42nd Prime Minister of Japan who led the nation to accept the Potsdam Declaration and end World War II. Opened in 1963, the museum preserves over 1,000 personal belongings, ceremonial attire, and documents, as well as an oil painting depicting the fateful Imperial Conference (Gozen Kaigi) of August 9–10, 1945. The museum has been closed since October 2019 due to damage from Typhoon Hagibis and structural concerns.
Tagajo Naval Arsenal Site (Tagajo Garrison Area)
多賀城海軍工廠跡（多賀城駐屯地周辺）
A wartime naval factory for aircraft machine guns and ammunition transformed southeastern Tagajo. Part of its buildings and protective earthworks survives within an active garrison; the wider site has become industrial and other developed land.
Taisha Naval Air Base Ruins
大社海軍航空基地跡
Former Imperial Japanese Navy air base in Hikawa-chō, Izumo City, Shimane Prefecture, constructed March–June 1945 and described as the largest military base in western Japan at the time. The base housed the 762nd Naval Air Group with Ginga (P1Y) bombers and stored 50 unassembled Ohka suicide weapons. Surviving structures include portions of a 1,700m concrete runway — one of Japan's largest war relics — plus aircraft revetments and tunnel storage facilities in the surrounding hillsides.
Taiwan Tower (Okinawa Peace Memorial Park)
台湾の塔
A memorial tower in the Okinawa Peace Memorial Park at Mabuni, Itoman, unveiled on 25 June 2016 to honour the approximately 30,000 Taiwanese who died serving in the Japanese Imperial military during World War II. The monument bears the signature line of then-President Tsai Ing-wen and stands among roughly 50 prefectural and national memorial towers on Mabuni Hill, the site of the final fighting of the Battle of Okinawa.
Takahashi Korekiyo Memorial Park
高橋是清翁記念公園
A public park in Akasaka, Minato Ward, on the site of the former residence of Finance Minister Korekiyo Takahashi (1854-1936), who was assassinated here by rebel soldiers during the February 26 Incident. Takahashi, a former Prime Minister who had served seven times as finance minister, was killed in his bedroom at the age of 81. The site was donated to Tokyo City in 1938 and opened as a memorial park in 1941; it features traditional Japanese landscaping and a bronze statue of Takahashi.
Togo Shrine
東郷神社
Togo Shrine is a Shinto shrine in Harajuku, Shibuya, Tokyo, dedicated to Admiral Togo Heihachiro (1848–1934), commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet who achieved a decisive victory over the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905. Established on May 27, 1940 — Navy Day commemorating the Tsushima victory — the shrine was built during the height of wartime militarism and served as a site for spiritual mobilization, venerating Togo as a symbol of Japanese naval supremacy. The original wooden shrine buildings were destroyed by Allied firebombing during the Tokyo air raids of spring 1945. The shrine was rebuilt in reinforced concrete in 1964 and remains an active Shinto shrine today.
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.
Tokyo Imperial University — Second Faculty of Engineering
東京帝国大学第二工学部
The Second Faculty of Engineering of Tokyo Imperial University was established in Chiba City in 1942 for wartime military research and engineer training. Its ten departments — including ordnance, aeronautics, shipbuilding, and applied chemistry — trained engineers for wartime industry. The campus later became part of Chiba University.
Tokyo National Museum
東京国立博物館
Japan's oldest and largest museum, founded in 1872 and located in Ueno Park, Tokyo. During WWII, the museum evacuated its art treasures and national treasures to protect them from air raids, beginning in 1941 with 334 precious items sent to the Nara Museum. The museum was ordered closed on March 10, 1945, as bombing intensified, and its gardens were used to grow crops for food production. The museum survived the war undamaged and reopened on March 24, 1946. In 1947, when the new Constitution took effect, the Imperial Museums became National Museums under the Education Ministry.
Tokyo Shibaura Electric (Toshiba) Horikawa-cho Plant
東京芝浦電気堀川町工場
A major Toshiba industrial facility in Kawasaki that produced military electronics, vacuum tubes, wireless communication equipment, and radar components during WWII. Established in 1908 as the Tokyo Electric Kawasaki Factory in the Keihin Industrial Zone, it was severely damaged in the April 15, 1945 Kawasaki air raids. The site was redeveloped as Lazona Kawasaki after the factory closed in 2000.
Toyama Air Raid Bombing Center Monument "Yume no Seichi"
富山大空襲爆撃中心点モニュメント「夢の聖地」
A glass monument marking the exact aiming point of the August 1-2, 1945 firebombing of Toyama, located at the southeast corner of Toyama Castle Ruins Park. The raid by 174 B-29 bombers destroyed 99.5% of the designated target area according to US reports — the highest figure recorded for any Japanese city in WWII. Children's dream and hope tiles are embedded around the monument.
Toyohashi Army Training School (Reserve Officer School)
豊橋陸軍教導学校（予備士官学校）
A major Imperial Japanese Army training complex on the Takashinohara plateau in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, established in 1927 as one of three army NCO training schools (教導学校). In 1939, a Reserve Officer School (予備士官学校) for Class-A officer candidates was co-located on the same grounds. By 1943 the training school was reorganized into the Second Toyohashi Army Reserve Officer School, which went on training reserve officers until the war's end. The former 15th Division headquarters building (1908) survives as the Aichi University Memorial Hall, a nationally registered tangible cultural property.
Toyota Motor Koromo Plant (now Honsha Plant)
トヨタ自動車工業 挙母工場（現・本社工場）
Toyota's first mass-production automobile factory, completed in 1938 in the town of Koromo (now Toyota City), Aichi Prefecture. Built by Toyota Motor Co., Ltd. — spun off from Toyoda Automatic Loom Works in 1937 — to manufacture trucks and passenger cars, the Koromo Plant was designated a munitions factory during WWII, producing military trucks, aircraft engine components, and other war materiel for the Imperial Japanese Army. On August 14, 1945, the plant was bombed by the U.S. Army Air Forces, destroying approximately a quarter of its facilities. Now known as the Honsha Plant, it remains Toyota Motor Corporation's headquarters plant and the birthplace of Japan's automobile industry.
Tsuiki Naval Air Base
築城海軍航空基地
Imperial Japanese Navy air base in northeast Kyushu, completed in 1942 as a carrier fighter pilot training facility. The Tsuiki Naval Air Group trained Zero fighter pilots and later staged kamikaze sorties — on March 18, 1945, six Ginga bombers departed on a special attack mission against the US task force southeast of Kyushu, with five aircraft and 15 crewmen lost. On August 9, 1945, ten fighters scrambled from Tsuiki in a failed attempt to intercept the B-29 carrying the Nagasaki atomic bomb. Reinforced concrete aircraft shelters (entaigo) survive in nearby Inadou, Yukuhashi City, with the Inadou No. 1 Revetment designated a Fukuoka Prefecture historic site in 2023. The base is now JASDF Tsuiki Air Base, home of the 8th Air Wing.
Uji Army Gunpowder Factory Remains (Uji Garrison)
宇治火薬製造所跡（宇治駐屯地）
A former army explosives factory that continued production through 1945. Part of its extensive grounds is now Uji Garrison, where an altered nineteenth-century brick water tower survives; access is controlled.
Uraga Dock (Former Uraga Dock Company Shipyard)
浦賀ドック（浦賀船渠跡）
The surviving brick dry dock of a shipyard that built Imperial Japanese Navy destroyers through 1945. The works closed in 2003; entry now depends on organized tours or designated events.
Ushio Naval Experimental Station Site
第二海軍技術廠牛尾実験所跡
An unfinished 1945 dispersal site for naval microwave research beside the Oi River. Excavations recorded its electrical facilities before river widening removed the principal foundations.