All historic sites
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417 sites · page 17 of 18
Utsunomiya City Memorial Tower
宇都宮市慰霊塔
A memorial tower erected in September 1970 at Kitayama Reien cemetery in Utsunomiya, commemorating all war dead including victims of the devastating July 12, 1945 air raid in which 133 B-29 bombers dropped 802.9 tons of incendiary bombs, killing over 620 civilians and destroying approximately 65% of the city center.
Uzurano Airfield Remains (Himeji Naval Air Group)
鶉野飛行場跡（姫路海軍航空隊）
A former naval training airfield in Kasai with a surviving concrete runway, shelters and gun positions. Its wartime role also included test flights for Kawanishi aircraft assembled nearby.
Verny Memorial Museum & Verny Park
ヴェルニー記念館・ヴェルニー公園
A 2.6-hectare waterfront park and museum in Yokosuka directly opposite the former Yokosuka Naval Arsenal (now U.S. Fleet Activities Yokosuka), honoring François Léonce Verny, the French naval engineer who directed construction of the arsenal from 1865 to 1876. The museum displays Japan's oldest surviving steam hammers (designated Important Cultural Properties), made in the Netherlands in 1865 for the Yokosuka Iron Works. The park features bronze busts of Verny and Oguri Tadamasa, French-style rose gardens with 1,400 plants of 130 varieties, a seaside boardwalk with panoramic views of the naval base and JMSDF facilities, and memorial monuments to the warships Nagato, Yamashiro and Okinoshima.
Yakushi Park Peace Goddess Statue
薬師公園 平和女神像
A peace monument erected in July 1954 atop Yakushi Hill in central Kamaishi, overlooking the city and harbor, to memorialize the victims of the two 1945 Allied naval bombardments and to pray for lasting peace.
Yamanashi Peace Museum (Ishibashi Tanzan Memorial Hall)
山梨平和ミュージアム（石橋湛山記念館）
A citizen-founded peace museum in Kofu opened in May 2007, dedicated to preserving records of the July 6-7, 1945 Kofu Air Raid (Tanabata Air Raid) that destroyed 74% of the city and killed 1,127 people. The first floor displays panels listing all 1,127 victims by name, along with exhibits on strategic bombing history and wartime life. The second floor houses what is billed as Japan's first memorial hall for the Yamanashi-raised liberal journalist and Prime Minister Ishibashi Tanzan.
Yanagimoto Airfield (Yamato Naval Air Group Yamato Base)
柳本飛行場（大和海軍航空隊大和基地）
A hastily constructed Imperial Japanese Navy airfield in Nara Prefecture, built 1943–1945 as the Yamato Naval Air Group's Yamato Base. Intended as a major homeland defense installation with four runways, only one 1,500-meter runway was completed before the war ended. The base housed the Yamato Naval Air Group's training aircraft and, from July 1945, a fighter unit and the Kinki Naval Air Corps headquarters, and was reportedly earmarked for the Third Air Fleet command for the anticipated defense against Allied landings on the Kii Peninsula. Two concrete air raid shelters survive as preserved war ruins.
Yokaichi Airfield & Nunobiki Aircraft Revetments
八日市飛行場・布引掩体群
One of Japan's earliest military airfields, established in 1922 in Shiga Prefecture's Okinogahara plain. The site's most significant surviving remains are the Nunobiki Revetment Group — 17 aircraft shelters constructed in 1944–1945 along a 2-kilometer stretch of the Nunobiki Hills, a rare surviving wartime aircraft shelter complex in Shiga Prefecture. The airfield hosted the Army Aviation 3rd Regiment, and later the 244th Fighter Regiment that defended the homeland against B-29 raids. Actor Toshiro Mifune served here as a private first class in charge of the cookhouse.
Yokohama Customs House (Queen's Tower)
横浜税関本関庁舎（クイーンの塔）
The Yokohama Customs headquarters, completed in 1934, is an iconic waterfront building nicknamed "Queen's Tower" for its distinctive Islamic-style green-domed tower rising 51 meters. One of the famed "Yokohama Three Towers," it was requisitioned by the US Eighth Army on August 30, 1945, and served as an Allied occupation facility until 1953, making it a key symbol of both prewar modernity and postwar occupation in Yokohama.
Yokohama North Dock (Mizuho Wharf)
横浜ノース・ドック（瑞穂埠頭）
Yokohama's Mizuho Wharf, constructed from 1925 to 1945 as a major foreign-trade pier, became a major wartime port for shipping munitions and materiel across the Pacific. Seized by US occupation forces on September 2, 1945, it served as the principal Army port for the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and remains an active US military installation (FAC 3067) in the heart of Yokohama today.
Yokohama Peace Memorial
横浜市平和祈念碑
A bronze peace monument erected on May 29, 1992 in Odori Park, Yokohama, by the Yokohama War Victims Bereaved Families Association to commemorate the approximately 8,000–10,000 civilians killed in the Great Yokohama Air Raid of May 29, 1945. The monument houses granite plaques inscribed with the names of roughly 1,000 identified victims.
Yoshimi Hyakuana (Underground Munitions Factory Ruins)
吉見百穴（地下軍需工場跡）
A nationally designated historic site in Yoshimi Town, Saitama Prefecture, comprising 219 lateral cave tombs (yokoana) carved into a tuff hillside during the Kofun period (6th–7th century). In 1944–1945, the Imperial Japanese military commandeered the site to construct a massive underground factory for the Nakajima Aircraft Company, intended to produce aircraft engines safe from American air raids. An estimated 3,000 to 3,500 Korean laborers, working in round-the-clock shifts, excavated what is reported as approximately 8.4 kilometers of interconnected tunnels in a grid pattern beneath and around the ancient tombs, destroying over 10 designated cave tombs in the process. The factory never reached full production before Japan's surrender in August 1945. Today, visitors can view both the ancient burial caves and the sealed entrances to the wartime tunnel network—a striking juxtaposition of 1,400-year-old funerary archaeology and 20th-century wartime industrial desperation.
Asahi-cho Great Ginkgo Tree (Symbol of Recovery from the Utsunomiya Air Raid)
旭町の大いちょう（宇都宮空襲復興のシンボル）
A 400-year-old, 33-meter-tall ginkgo tree in central Utsunomiya that was scorched black in the July 12, 1945 air raid but miraculously sprouted new growth the following spring of 1946, becoming the city's enduring symbol of postwar recovery and resilience.
Former 2nd Antiaircraft Regiment Searchlight Training Building
旧陸軍高射砲第二連隊照空予習室
A surviving concrete air-defense training building in Kashiwa's Nedo district used projected aircraft images indoors and rangefinding equipment on its roof. Later converted into a fire station, it is now a registered cultural property; entry is prohibited.
Former Residence of Prime Minister Koiso Kuniaki
小磯國昭旧邸跡
Site of the former Tokyo residence of General Kuniaki Koiso (1880–1950), the 41st Prime Minister of Japan who led the wartime cabinet from July 1944 to April 1945 during the final desperate phase of World War II. Koiso, previously Governor-General of Korea and known as "The Tiger of Korea," was convicted as a Class A war criminal at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died of esophageal cancer in Sugamo Prison in 1950.
Fuji Army Airfield Site and Reclamation Monument
富士飛行場跡（開拓記念碑）
A short-lived Army training airfield opened near the Fuji River mouth in 1944. Its grounds were reclaimed after the war; a relocated monument and the area's street pattern recall the lost airfield.
Fukui War & Earthquake Victims Memorial Tower (Jibo Kannon)
福井戦災・震災殉難者慰霊碑塔（慈母観音）
A memorial tower and Compassionate Mother Kannon statue at Asuwa West Cemetery honoring the victims of the July 19, 1945 Fukui air raid (1,583 according to the memorial's own text) and of the 1948 Fukui earthquake (1,627 in the same text). Built in November 1961 with donations from citizens, the tower houses a wooden Jibo Kannon statue commissioned in June 1947 by the Fukui Prefecture Religious and Cultural Association. Registered with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications as an official civilian war-dead memorial.
Fukuyama War Dead Memorial Statue (Mother and Two Children)
福山市戦災死没者慰霊の像（母子三人像）
A bronze group of three figures — a mother fleeing with her two children — erected in Fukuyama Central Park in March 1972 to commemorate victims of the August 8, 1945 air raid. Created by sculptor Imashiro Kunitada as part of Fukuyama's 55th city anniversary, the statue was based on an eyewitness account of a mother and two children found dead after the raid. Annual memorial ceremonies are held at this site every August 8. Registered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications as an official civilian war-dead memorial.
Funabashi Bridge Stone Lantern (Toyama Air Raid Damage Remnant)
舟橋常夜灯（富山大空襲被災遺構）
A historic stone lantern (joyato) at the south end of Funabashi Bridge on the Matsukawa River, bearing visible damage from the August 1-2, 1945 Toyama air raid. The lantern's cap was shattered by incendiary bomb impact, preserving tangible evidence of the firebombing that, by the US count, destroyed 99.5% of its target area.
Higashi Nibancho Elementary School Air Raid Memorial
東二番丁小学校 戦災記念碑
A memorial said to have been erected in 1953 at Higashi Nibancho Elementary School in Sendai honoring 23 students killed in the July 10, 1945 air raid. The school grounds also contain a camphor tree that was burned in the firebombing but survived and regenerated, serving as a living symbol of resilience. A bronze statue titled "Natsuko — Eleven-Year-Old Summer" was later donated by citizens to mark the 50th anniversary of the war's end.
Ishizue Jizo Memorial (Ichirenji Temple)
いしずえ地蔵尊（一蓮寺）
A Jizo Bodhisattva memorial at Ichirenji Temple in Kofu, erected to honor over 300 air raid victims whose bodies were cremated and buried on the temple grounds following the devastating July 6-7, 1945 firebombing. Registered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications as an official civilian war-dead memorial facility. The memorial was renovated in 1999 and remains a site of annual remembrance ceremonies.
Junka District Memorial Tower for War & Earthquake Victims
順化地区万霊供養塔
A memorial tower originally erected in August 1967 at the foot of the Gohonjo Bridge inside Fukui Castle to honor civilians who perished in the castle moat during the July 19, 1945 air raid and the 1948 earthquake. Relocated in October 2015 — the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII — to the Junka Green Space adjacent to Fukui Shrine, returning the memorial to the community near the moat where the victims died.
Kakigawa River War Disaster Memorial Monument
柿川戦災殉難地の碑
A memorial stone approximately 1 meter tall in Yanagihara Park along the Kakigawa River, Nagaoka, marking the site of former Shimmei Shrine where 153 people perished during the August 1, 1945 air raid. As incendiary bombs engulfed the city, hundreds of civilians fled to the Kakigawa River seeking refuge, but flames spread across the water surface, trapping and killing many in the shallow river. The monument was erected on the 50th anniversary of the raid in 1995.
Kanmon Pedestrian Tunnel (Moji Side)
関門トンネル人道（門司側）
The Moji-side entrance to the Kanmon Pedestrian Tunnel, a 780-meter underwater walkway beneath the Kanmon Strait connecting Kyushu and Honshu. Construction of the roadway tunnel began in 1937 as strategic wartime infrastructure to ensure a protected Honshu-Kyushu link immune to aerial bombardment. The tunnel was bored through during WWII but not completed until 1958.
Kochi City Peace Memorial Monument
高知市平和祈念の碑
A peace memorial monument erected on July 4, 2004 at the northwest entrance of the Kochi City General Sports Complex (Ryoma Stadium) in Ohara-cho, Kochi. The monument enshrines the Kochi Air Raid Victims Registry and commemorates the 401 civilians killed in the devastating B-29 firebombing of Kochi City on July 4, 1945, which destroyed 40% of the urban area. Annual peace memorial ceremonies have been held at this site every July 4 since 2005.