All historic sites
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104 sites · page 4 of 5
National Diet Building
国会議事堂
The National Diet Building in Nagatacho, Chiyoda, Tokyo, completed in 1936 after 17 years of construction, served as the seat of the Imperial Diet throughout WWII. Within its chambers, wartime Japan's most consequential legislation was enacted — the National Mobilization Law (1938), extraordinary military budgets, and declarations of war. The 1942 Yokusan Election, the only wartime general election, filled these halls with Imperial Rule Assistance Association-endorsed representatives who rubber-stamped the Tojo government's war policies. The building was deliberately spared from Allied firebombing.
Naval Air Facility Atsugi
厚木海軍飛行場
A major Imperial Japanese Navy airfield in Kanagawa Prefecture, begun in 1938 and opened in 1943, home to the elite 302nd Naval Air Group that defended Tokyo against B-29 raids. On August 30, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur landed here aboard his C-54 "Bataan," marking the first step of the Allied occupation of Japan.
Noborito Laboratory (IJA 9th Technical Research Institute)
登戸研究所（陸軍第九技術研究所）
A top-secret Imperial Japanese Army research institute that developed covert warfare tools including counterfeit currency, balloon bombs, and biological weapons, now preserved as a peace education museum.
Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum
沖縄県平和祈念資料館
The Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum is a comprehensive museum dedicated to documenting the Battle of Okinawa (April–June 1945), which the museum describes as the only ground battle in Japan to mobilise an entire prefecture's population and the largest battle of the Asia-Pacific War. Located on Mabuni Hill in Itoman City — the site of the final desperate fighting — the museum was originally established on 11 June 1975 and reopened in a new purpose-built facility on 1 April 2000. Its five permanent exhibition rooms present the Okinawan civilian experience of the battle through photographs, testimonies, artifacts, and dioramas.
Okunoshima Poison Gas Museum
大久野島毒ガス資料館
A museum on Okunoshima Island documenting Japan's secret chemical weapons program that produced over 6,000 tons of poison gas between 1929 and 1945. The island was erased from wartime maps to conceal its mustard gas and lewisite production facilities, at what was the Imperial Japanese Army's only poison gas factory, whose output grew with the demands of the war in China.
Old Prime Minister's Official Residence (Surrender Rescript Drafting Site)
旧内閣総理大臣官邸（終戦の詔書起草地）
The old Prime Minister's Official Residence (旧官邸, completed 1929) in Nagatacho, Chiyoda, Tokyo, was where Chief Cabinet Secretary Sakomizu Hisatsune and his team drafted the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War (終戦の詔書) between August 10 and 14, 1945. Working under extreme secrecy within the Cabinet Secretariat offices of the Kantei, Sakomizu, Chinese classics scholar Kawata Mizuho, and other Cabinet staff produced the historic document through which Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. The rescript was finalized during the Cabinet meeting on August 14 and broadcast to the nation at noon the following day. The 1929 building now serves as the Prime Minister's Residential Quarters (首相公邸).
Ōminato Guard District
大湊警備府
The Imperial Japanese Navy's northernmost guard district, responsible for defending the Tsugaru Strait and patrolling waters around Hokkaidō, Karafuto, and the Kurile Islands. Home port of the IJN 5th Fleet, from which the Aleutian Islands campaign was launched in June 1942. Now the JMSDF Ōminato Base, the keystone of Japan's northern maritime defense.
Osaka Army Arsenal
大阪砲兵工廠
The largest army arsenal in Japan, producing artillery, ammunition, and armored vehicles.
Otsushima Kaiten Base
大津島回天基地
The Imperial Japanese Navy's first and best-preserved training and launch base for kaiten (回天) human torpedoes, established on Otsushima Island in September 1944. The island's torpedo testing facilities, in use since the late 1930s, were converted to support the manned suicide torpedo program. Remains include a 250-meter transport tunnel, launch platforms with concrete caissons, and maintenance facilities — the only kaiten base nationwide where original wartime structures survive substantially intact.
RIKEN Institute
理化学研究所
Japan's premier scientific research institute, involved in wartime nuclear research (Ni-Go project).
Sado Gold Mine (Sado Kinzan)
佐渡金山
A historic gold and silver mine complex on Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture, that was one of Japan's largest gold producers. During WWII, an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 Korean laborers were mobilized to work in the mines under harsh conditions. Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2024, the site remains internationally controversial due to disputes over Japan's acknowledgment of wartime forced labor.
Sasebo Naval Base
佐世保海軍基地
A major IJN fleet base in Kyushu, key for operations in the East China Sea and the southern Pacific.
Sugamo Prison Site (Sunshine 60)
巣鴨プリズン跡（東池袋中央公園）
Sugamo Prison, originally built in 1895, was commandeered by Allied occupation forces after WWII to hold suspected war criminals awaiting trial before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. On December 23, 1948, seven Class-A war criminals — including former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo — were executed by hanging here. A total of 60 war criminals were executed at the site. The war-criminal prison closed in 1958 (1962 by some accounts); the buildings were demolished in 1971 and replaced by the Sunshine City commercial complex (anchored by the 240-meter Sunshine 60 skyscraper) which opened in 1978. A small stone monument inscribed "Pray for Eternal Peace" (永久平和を願って) stands in adjacent Higashi-Ikebukuro Central Park, near the former gallows location.
Tachiarai Army Airfield
大刀洗陸軍飛行場
An Imperial Japanese Army airfield once described as the largest in East Asia, established in 1919 in Fukuoka Prefecture. Tachiarai served as the principal army pilot training center with 18 branch schools, and became a key staging base for kamikaze operations in the final months of WWII. Devastating B-29 raids on March 27 and 31, 1945 killed several hundred to about 1,000 people (figures vary by source), including 31 schoolchildren sheltering in Tonta Forest.
Tachiarai Peace Memorial Museum
筑前町立大刀洗平和記念館
A museum built on the former site of the Tachiarai Army Airfield, once the largest military airfield in Kyushu. It preserves approximately 1,800 wartime artifacts, including the world's only intact Nakajima Ki-27 fighter and a Mitsubishi A6M Zero, commemorating the airfield's history, the devastating March 1945 air raid, and the young pilots who trained there before kamikaze missions.
Tachikawa Airfield & Army Air Arsenal
立川飛行場・立川陸軍航空工廠
The center of Imperial Japanese Army aviation industry, established in 1922 in western Tokyo. Tachikawa Airfield housed the Army Air Arsenal (陸軍航空工廠) and the Tachikawa Aircraft Company, which together produced over 6,000 aircraft including the Ki-36, Ki-55, and Ki-43 Hayabusa fighters. The complex also contained the Army Air Technical Research Institute (陸軍航空技術研究所). Devastated by 13 air raids from February 1945, the site became US Tachikawa Air Base after the war. Following reversion to Japan in 1977, the western portion was transformed into the Showa Commemorative National Government Park (国営昭和記念公園), opened in 1983.
Tokyo Air Raids Memorial / Center for Tokyo Raids
東京大空襲・戦災資料センター
The area of eastern Tokyo devastated by the March 10, 1945 firebombing, the single deadliest air raid in history.
Tokyo Bay Surrender Site
東京湾降伏調印地点
The waters of Tokyo Bay where Japan formally surrendered aboard USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.
Tokyo Memorial Hall (Yokoamicho Park)
東京都慰霊堂（横網町公園）
Tokyo Memorial Hall (東京都慰霊堂) in Yokoamicho Park, Sumida Ward, is the principal memorial for victims of both the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923) and the Bombing of Tokyo (1944–1945). Designed by architect Ito Chuta and completed in 1930, it was originally named the Earthquake Memorial Hall (震災記念堂) to enshrine the remains of approximately 58,000 earthquake victims. Following WWII, the ashes of some 105,400 victims of the Tokyo air raids were also interred here between 1948 and 1951, and the hall was renamed Tokyo Memorial Hall in 1951. In total, approximately 163,000 sets of remains are enshrined in the three-story, 40.9-meter pagoda (納骨堂) behind the main hall. Annual memorial services are held on September 1 (earthquake anniversary) and March 10 (anniversary of the deadliest firebombing raid). The main hall fuses Japanese temple architecture with Indian and Chinese influences, built in earthquake- and fire-resistant reinforced concrete.
Toyokawa Naval Arsenal Ruins
豊川海軍工廠跡
Ruins of the Imperial Japanese Navy's largest inland ordnance factory, established in 1939 in Toyokawa, Aichi Prefecture. On August 7, 1945, 124 B-29 bombers devastated the arsenal and its surroundings, killing over 2,500 people — including 452 mobilized students — making it one of the deadliest single factory air raids in the Pacific War. The site is now preserved as Toyokawa Naval Arsenal Peace Park (opened 2018).
Tsuchiura Naval Air Corps Site
土浦海軍航空隊跡
The site of the Tsuchiura Naval Air Corps (土浦海軍航空隊) in Ami, Ibaraki Prefecture — the Imperial Japanese Navy's primary training facility for the Naval Aviator Preparatory Course (Yokaren). Established in 1940 as an independent base split from the neighboring Kasumigaura Naval Air Corps, the facility exclusively trained teenage recruits aged 14–17 as naval aviators. Over 15 years approximately 240,000 boys enrolled in the Yokaren program; about 24,000 completed training and deployed to combat, with roughly 80 percent killed in action — many as kamikaze pilots. After the war, the site became JGSDF Camp Tsuchiura, home of the Ordnance School until 2026.
Tsushima Maru Memorial Museum
対馬丸記念館
A memorial museum in Naha dedicated to the Tsushima Maru disaster of August 22, 1944, when a Japanese evacuation ship carrying over 800 schoolchildren from Okinawa was torpedoed by USS Bowfin, killing 1,484 people including 784 schoolchildren.
Ujina Port (Imperial Army Transport Port)
広島宇品港（陸軍輸送港）
The Imperial Japanese Army's most critical embarkation port since the First Sino-Japanese War (1894). Constructed in 1889 under Hiroshima Prefecture Governor Senda Sadaaki, Ujina Port served as the primary departure point for continental troop deployments across every major conflict from the Sino-Japanese War through World War II. The Army Ship Command (船舶司令部), known by the code name "Akatsuki" (暁部隊), was headquartered here, commanding over 300,000 personnel and 1,000+ transport vessels. After the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945, the Ship Command — located approximately 4.6 km from the hypocenter — organized the first large-scale rescue operations in the devastated city.
Uragashira Repatriation Memorial Peace Park
浦頭引揚記念平和公園
A memorial park and museum in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, commemorating the approximately 1.4 million Japanese military personnel and civilians who were repatriated through Uragashira Port between 1945 and 1950. Sasebo was one of Japan's major repatriation ports, primarily receiving returnees from mainland China and Southeast Asia.