All historic sites
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169 sites · page 4 of 8
Imperial Japanese Army Medical School Site
陸軍軍医学校跡
Site of the Imperial Japanese Army Medical School (陸軍軍医学校, Rikugun Gun'i Gakkō) in Toyama, Shinjuku — the parent institution of Unit 731 and home to the Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory (防疫研究室) directed by Shirō Ishii. Established in 1886 and relocated to Toyama in 1929, it served as the intellectual and organizational nucleus for Japan's biological and chemical warfare programs. In July 1989, construction workers unearthed over 100 human skeletal remains from the site, many bearing marks of surgical experimentation — a discovery widely believed to be linked to Unit 731's human experiments. The school grounds are now occupied by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, beside the former National Center for Global Health and Medicine (国立国際医療研究センター); the two were merged into the Japan Institute for Health Security in 2025.
Imperial Japanese Army Preparatory Officer School Site (Shinbudai)
陸軍予科士官学校跡（振武台）
Site of the Imperial Japanese Army Preparatory Officer School (陸軍予科士官学校), which trained officer cadets aged 16-19 from 1937 to 1945. Relocated from Ichigaya, Tokyo to this former golf course in Asaka in autumn 1941; Emperor Showa personally bestowed the name "Shinbudai" (振武台, "Invigorate Martial Spirit Plateau") on December 9, 1943. Approximately 15,000 students — including international cadets from China, Thailand, Mongolia, the Philippines, and India — trained here before the war's end. The site is now JGSDF Camp Asaka, headquarters of the Eastern Army, and home to the Shinbudai Memorial Museum (振武臺記念館) which preserves school artifacts. The adjacent Asaka Shooting Range hosted shooting events at both the 1964 and 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Imperial Japanese Army Toyama School Site
陸軍戸山学校跡
Site of the Imperial Japanese Army Toyama School (陸軍戸山学校, Rikugun Toyama Gakkō), established in 1873 in Shinjuku, Tokyo as the army's premier institution for infantry combat research and training. The school specialized in marksmanship, bayonet techniques, swordsmanship, gymnastics, and military music, and its military band was one of the most celebrated in Japan. During WWII, the adjacent Army Medical School conducted bacteriological warfare research linked to Unit 731. In 1989, the discovery of over 100 human remains at the nearby former Army Medical School site sparked major controversy over Japan's wartime biological experimentation program. The school closed in September 1945; today the area hosts the Japan Institute for Health Security (into which the National Center for Global Health and Medicine was reorganized in April 2025), Toyama Park, and residential developments, with memorial markers preserving the site's history.
Imperial Rule Assistance Association HQ Site
大政翼賛会本部跡
Site of the central headquarters of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (大政翼賛会, Taisei Yokusankai), the totalitarian ruling political organization established by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe on October 12, 1940. Headquartered first in the requisitioned Tokyo Kaikan in Marunouchi (1940–42) and later reportedly in the Kasumigaseki government district, the IRAA served as the instrument of one-party rule that dissolved all existing political parties and mobilized the entire nation for total war. It was formally dissolved on June 13, 1945.
Ishikawajima Shipyard
石川島造船所
Established in 1853 on Ishikawajima at the mouth of the Sumida River (present-day Tsukuda, Chūō-ku), Tokyo, Ishikawajima Shipyard was Japan's first Western-style shipyard and a major warship builder for the Imperial Japanese Navy during WWII. It produced destroyers, escort vessels, and other naval craft, and is the predecessor of today's IHI Corporation.
Iwahana Explosives Factory Ruins (Gunma-no-Mori Park)
岩鼻火薬製造所跡（群馬の森）
Site of the Iwahana Explosives Manufacturing Plant (1882–1945), established as the Tokyo Artillery Arsenal's gunpowder factory in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture. It was the Imperial Japanese Army's sole black-powder and dynamite production facility — and the birthplace of dynamite manufacturing in Japan (1906). The sprawling 1.07-million-square-meter complex produced black powder, smokeless powder, and up to 180 tons of dynamite per month at peak capacity with nearly 4,000 workers. A catastrophic explosion in December 1938 killed 13 workers and damaged 560 nearby homes. After Japan's surrender in 1945, the grounds were divided among Nippon Kayaku Co., the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, and the prefectural Gunma-no-Mori Park (opened 1974). The park preserves blast-protection earthworks, concrete tunnel passages, ammunition magazine ruins, a firing-range embankment, and the "Birthplace of Dynamite in Japan" memorial stone (erected 1973).
Johnson Air Base Site (JASDF Iruma Air Base)
ジョンソン基地跡（航空自衛隊入間基地）
Originally established in 1938 as Irumagawa Airfield for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force Academy, this base served as a training facility during WWII. After Japan's surrender in 1945, the U.S. Fifth Air Force took control and renamed it Johnson Air Base in honor of Lt. Col. Gerald R. Johnson, a USAAF ace killed during a typhoon approach. Fully returned to Japan in 1978, it now operates as JASDF Iruma Air Base and hosts a popular annual air show on Culture Day.
Kawasaki Great Air Raid Site
川崎大空襲跡
Site of the devastating April 15, 1945 firebombing of Kawasaki, a critical Keihin Industrial Zone city. B-29 bombers dropped napalm incendiary bombs destroying 37% of the urban area (9.3 km²); the US Strategic Bombing Survey recorded 1,520 dead and 8,759 injured in Kawasaki's air raids, while the city's own reconstruction record gives 768 dead. Kawasaki was targeted for its concentration of war-essential heavy and chemical industries including NKK Steel (now JFE), Toshiba, and Nippon Oil facilities.
Kōnoike Naval Air Base Ruins
神之池海軍航空基地跡
Site of the former Kōnoike Naval Air Base in Kashima, Ibaraki Prefecture, a training air base opened in April 1944 that from November 1944 served as the training ground of the 721st Naval Air Group (Jinrai Butai) and its Ohka piloted bombs. The second-generation Genzan (Wonsan) Naval Air Group named in this entry was a separate fighter-training unit formed in August 1944 at Wonsan in colonial Korea, whose Shichishō-tai flew suicide sorties from Kanoya during the Battle of Okinawa; Japanese sources do not place it at Kōnoike. The vast 500-hectare airfield site is now occupied mainly by the Nippon Steel Kashima Works, where one aircraft shelter is preserved as Ohka Park.
Koza Naval Arsenal
高座海軍工廠
A major Imperial Japanese Navy arsenal built from 1943 and formally completed in 1944 in the Zama–Yamato–Ebina area of Kanagawa Prefecture. The facility produced 128 Mitsubishi J2M Raiden ("Thunderbolt") interceptor fighters and mobilized approximately 8,400 Taiwanese teenage boys (台湾少年工) as wartime laborers — one of the most significant examples of colonial youth labor mobilization during the Pacific War.
Kumagaya Army Air School
熊谷陸軍飛行学校
The Imperial Japanese Army's primary training center for young aviation soldiers (少年飛行兵), established in December 1935 in Saitama Prefecture. The school trained thousands of teenage pilot cadets at its main campus and branch schools including the Okegawa sub-school. Kumagaya city was devastated by one of the last B-29 firebombing raids of the war on the night of August 14-15, 1945 — less than 12 hours before Japan's surrender announcement. Today the former school site is JASDF Kumagaya Air Base, while the restored Okegawa branch is a peace memorial hall.
Mito Air Raid Site
水戸空襲跡
On August 2, 1945, 160 B-29 Superfortress bombers from the Mariana Islands firebombed Mito, the capital of Ibaraki Prefecture, dropping approximately 1,150 tons of incendiary bombs over 105 minutes. The raid burned out most of the city, killed more than 300 civilians, and obliterated irreplaceable cultural treasures including the National Treasure Mito Toshogu Shrine and Mito Castle's three-story turret. It was one of the last major strategic bombing raids before Japan's surrender.
Mitsui Main Building
三井本館
The Mitsui Main Building (三井本館) is a seven-storey neoclassical office building in Nihonbashi-Muromachi, Chuo Ward, Tokyo, completed in 1929 as the headquarters of the Mitsui Zaibatsu — the largest and oldest of Japan's four great zaibatsu conglomerates. Designed by the American firm Trowbridge & Livingston in Beaux-Arts style after the previous building was destroyed in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, it served as the nerve center of Mitsui's wartime economic empire encompassing some 270 companies involved in banking, trading, mining, shipbuilding, and munitions. During WWII, Mitsui played a central role in Japan's wartime economic control system, channeling resources for military procurement, expanding into occupied territories, and employing forced labor including Allied POWs. Following Japan's surrender, GHQ ordered the dissolution of Mitsui as part of zaibatsu dismantlement. Designated a National Important Cultural Property in 1998, the building today houses Mitsui Fudosan headquarters and the Mitsui Memorial Museum.
Nakajima Aircraft Utsunomiya Plant
中島飛行機宇都宮製作所
Nakajima Aircraft Company's Utsunomiya Plant was a major aircraft assembly facility established in January 1944 in Utsunomiya City, Tochigi Prefecture. The plant was dedicated to producing the Ki-84 Hayate (疾風, 'Frank'), the Imperial Japanese Army's most advanced fighter of the war, completing 727 aircraft by July 1945. Some accounts also credit the plant with a share of Ki-43 Hayabusa (隼, 'Oscar') production. The site survived Allied bombing largely intact and after the war became Fuji Heavy Industries (now Subaru Corporation) Aerospace Division, which continues aircraft manufacturing at the same location today.
Narashino Army School
陸軍習志野学校
The Imperial Japanese Army's primary chemical warfare (poison gas) training school, established in 1933 in Narashino, Chiba Prefecture. Complementary to Okunoshima Island (which manufactured chemical weapons), Narashino specialized in the operational use, defense, and tactical deployment of chemical agents. The school graduated 3,074 officers between 1939 and 1945, and was described by US intelligence as "splendidly equipped, well staffed, and effective." The former site in Izumi-cho now includes "Narashino no Mori" (Narashino Forest), where concrete foundations and an animal memorial tower remain.
National Showa Memorial Museum
昭和館
The National Showa Memorial Museum (Showakan) is a national museum in Chiyoda, Tokyo, dedicated to documenting the hardships of Japanese civilian life during and after World War II. Opened on March 27, 1999, and designed by architect Kiyonori Kikutake, the museum houses an extensive collection of artifacts — including letters, clothing, household items, and wartime newsreels — illustrating the impact of wartime rationing, evacuation, air raids, and postwar reconstruction on ordinary citizens. Managed by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and operated by the Japan War-Bereaved Families Association, the museum is located adjacent to Kudanshita Station, near Yasukuni Shrine and the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery.
Naval Technical Research Institute
海軍技術研究所
The Imperial Japanese Navy's foremost scientific and engineering research establishment, headquartered in Meguro, Tokyo from 1930 to 1945. Founded in 1923 by merging the Naval Ordnance Arsenal Research Department, Naval Ship Type Test Institute, and Naval Aircraft Test Institute, the institute conducted advanced research across chemistry, physics, electrical engineering, shipbuilding, and aviation. Its massive hydrodynamic test tanks were used to refine the hull design of the battleship Yamato. The Electrical Research Division was the center of Japan's naval radar (電探, dentan) development, where engineers including Commander Yoji Ito developed cavity magnetrons and the Type 22 shipborne search radar. The site now serves as the Ministry of Defense Meguro District, housing the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) Ship Equipment Research Institute and JSDF staff colleges.
NKK (Nihon Kokan) Tsurumi Shipyard
日本鋼管鶴見造船所
NKK Tsurumi Shipyard was a major wartime shipbuilding facility in Yokohama that produced escort ships (kaibōkan), submarine chasers, and other naval vessels for the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. Established in 1940 when Nippon Kokan merged with the Tsurumi Steelmaking and Shipbuilding Company, the yard was a key component of Japan's wartime naval construction program in the Keihin Industrial Zone.
NKK Kawasaki Steel Works (Nippon Kokan)
日本鋼管川崎製鉄所
Founded in 1912 as Japan's first privately owned steelmaker, the NKK Kawasaki Works in the Keihin Industrial Zone was a critical wartime producer of steel plates, seamless pipes, and heavy plates for the Imperial Japanese Navy's warships and military equipment. Severely damaged by Allied bombing raids in 1945, the works were rebuilt post-war and the site continues operation today as JFE Steel East Japan Works (Keihin District).
NYK Line Hikawa Maru
日本郵船氷川丸
NYK Line ocean liner Hikawa Maru, completed in 1930, served as a naval hospital ship during WWII and as a repatriation ship afterwards. Now permanently moored at Yamashita Park, Yokohama as a museum ship and Important Cultural Property.
Ofuna POW Camp Site
大船捕虜収容所跡
A secret Imperial Japanese Navy interrogation center established in April 1942 near Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, where high-value Allied prisoners of war — including downed aviators and submarine commanders — were held and interrogated outside the protections of the Geneva Convention. The camp was never reported to the International Red Cross and was known among inmates as the "Torture Farm." Notable prisoners included Louis Zamperini, Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, and Richard O'Kane. An estimated 500 to 1,000 prisoners passed through the facility before its liberation on 21 August 1945.
Oppama Naval Air Technical Arsenal
追浜海軍航空技術廠
The Imperial Japanese Navy's premier aviation research and testing facility at Oppama, Yokosuka, where nearly every naval aircraft — including the legendary A6M Zero — underwent prototype evaluation and test flights. Established in 1912 as a naval aviation research committee and expanded into the Naval Air Technical Arsenal (Kaigun Koku Gijutsu Sho) by 1939, the site was the birthplace of Japanese naval aviation technology. Today the grounds are occupied by the Nissan Motor Oppama Plant.
Otsu Fu-Go Balloon Bomb Launch Base Site
風船爆弾大津放球基地跡
Remnants of the largest of three launch bases used for Operation Fu-Go (ふ号作戦), Japan's intercontinental balloon bomb campaign of 1944–1945. Located on the Pacific coast of Kitaibaraki, the Otsu base was the regimental headquarters with its own hydrogen plant and 18 launch pads (27 by some accounts); the balloon regiment as a whole numbered about 2,000 men. A concrete launch pad and the "Wasureji Peace Monument" (わすれじ平和の碑) mark the site today.
Sagami Army Arsenal Ruins
相模陸軍造兵廠跡
Site of the Sagami Army Arsenal (1938–1945), one of the Imperial Japanese Army's major ordnance factories in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture. The arsenal manufactured tanks, armored vehicles, and heavy weapons, employing up to 30,000 workers at its wartime peak. After Japan's surrender in 1945, the facility was seized by the U.S. Army and converted into the Sagami General Depot, which remains an active American military logistics base today.