All historic sites
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55 sites · page 2 of 3
Port of Humanity Tsuruga Museum
人道の港 敦賀ムゼウム
A museum at Tsuruga Port in Fukui Prefecture commemorating the approximately 6,000 Jewish refugees who landed here between 1940 and 1941 carrying transit visas issued by Japanese consul Chiune Sugihara in Kaunas, Lithuania. The museum also documents 763 Polish orphans who arrived at Tsuruga in the 1920s. Originally opened in 2008, the museum was extensively renovated and reopened on November 3, 2020, with a facade recreating four historic Western-style buildings from the port area.
Second Naval Fuel Depot (Yokkaichi)
第二海軍燃料廠
The Second Naval Fuel Depot (第二海軍燃料廠) in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture was Imperial Japan's largest oil refinery, with a daily capacity of 25,000 barrels. Established in 1941 in the Shiohama district, it produced aviation gasoline, liquid fuels, and lubricating oil for the Imperial Japanese Navy. The facility and its associated Utsube River Oil Refinery were ranked first among Japan's aviation fuel production centers by 1945. From June to August 1945, US B-29 bombers of the 315th Bombardment Wing conducted repeated precision raids that destroyed the refinery complex. Yokkaichi itself was firebombed on June 18, 1945, killing 736 civilians. After the war, the site was converted to civilian petrochemical use and became the foundation of the Yokkaichi industrial kombinat.
Shizuoka Air Raid Site
静岡大空襲跡
Site of the devastating June 19, 1945 firebombing of Shizuoka by 137 B-29 bombers of the USAAF 314th Bombardment Wing. The two-wave incendiary attack dropped 13,211 bombs, destroying 66.1% of the city center, killing about 1,950 civilians (1,952 in the most widely cited count) and injuring between 5,000 and 12,000 depending on the source. Shizuoka was targeted as the 15th largest Japanese city and a key point on the Tokaido corridor linking Tokyo and Osaka.
Toyama Air Raid Site
富山大空襲跡
Site of the August 1-2, 1945 firebombing of Toyama City, in which 174 B-29 bombers dropped 1,465 tons of incendiaries and destroyed 99.5% of the targeted urban area — the highest destruction rate recorded for any Japanese city by conventional bombing in WWII. Estimates of the dead range from about 2,150 to more than 2,700 and virtually the entire population of 110,000 was left homeless.
Yamamoto Isoroku Memorial Museum
山本五十六記念館
A memorial museum in Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture, dedicated to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (1884–1943), Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy Combined Fleet and architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Born in Nagaoka as Isoroku Takano into a samurai family of Confucian scholars, Yamamoto rose to become Japan's most prominent naval strategist. The museum, operated by the NPO Yamamoto Gensui Keigyo-kai, displays personal effects, wartime correspondence, his subscriptions to National Geographic, and the recovered left wing of the Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bomber in which he was killed over Bougainville on April 18, 1943 during Operation Vengeance. Nagaoka itself was devastated by a massive firebombing raid on August 1, 1945, when 125 B-29 Superfortresses dropped 925 tons of incendiary bombs, killing 1,488 people by Nagaoka City's count and destroying over 65% of the urban area.
Yosami Radio Transmitting Station
依佐美送信所
One of the world's largest VLF (Very Low Frequency) radio transmitting stations, built in 1929 in Kariya, Aichi Prefecture with eight 250-meter steel towers and German-made Telefunken high-frequency generators. The station established Japan's first wireless communications with Europe and was employed by the Imperial Japanese Navy during WWII for submarine communications. It is believed to have relayed the coded Pearl Harbor attack order "Niitakayama Nobore 1208" via VLF on December 2, 1941. After the war, the station was requisitioned by the US Navy and operated until 1993. The towers were demolished in 1997 and station buildings in 2006. The site is now Floral Garden Yosami, with a memorial museum preserving the original transmitting equipment. Recognized as an IEEE Milestone in 2009.
18th Infantry Regiment Barracks Site (Toyohashi Park)
歩兵第十八連隊兵営跡（豊橋公園）
The former Yoshida Castle grounds housed the 18th Infantry Regiment from 1885 until the end of the Pacific War. Gates, a sentry post and other military remains survive in today's public Toyohashi Park.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.