All historic sites
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169 sites · page 5 of 8
Sagami Naval Arsenal Ruins
相模海軍工廠跡
Ruins of the Imperial Japanese Navy's dedicated chemical weapons and pyrotechnics arsenal, established in May 1943 in Samukawa Town, Kanagawa Prefecture. The facility was promoted from the Chemical Research Division of the Naval Technical Research Institute (Hiratsuka) to enable mass production of mustard gas (yperite) bombs, gas masks, and incendiary ordnance. At peak capacity over 3,500 workers — including conscripted laborers, Women's Volunteer Corps members, and mobilized students — operated within the 700,000 m² compound. In 2002, buried mustard gas bottles were discovered at the former site during expressway construction, injuring 11 workers and confirming the enduring contamination legacy.
Sarushima (Monkey Island) — Tokyo Bay Fortress Battery Ruins
猿島（東京湾要塞跡 猿島砲台跡）
The largest natural island in Tokyo Bay, Sarushima served as Japan's first daiba (battery island) from 1847 and was developed into a full coastal defense fortress between 1881 and 1884. Featuring remarkably preserved Meiji-era brick tunnels built in Flemish bond, ammunition magazines, and gun battery emplacements, the island was armed with anti-aircraft guns during WWII in 1941. After the war, American forces dismantled all functional military equipment. Designated a National Historic Site in 2015, the uninhabited island is now accessible by a 10-minute ferry from Yokosuka and is celebrated for its atmospheric brick-lined passages overgrown with vegetation, often compared to Studio Ghibli's Laputa.
Site of the Army Youth Pilot School, Tokorozawa
陸軍少年飛行兵学校跡
The site where the Imperial Japanese Army's youth pilot training system was born in 1934. The Tokorozawa Army Flying School began accepting teenage boys (initially aged 15 to under 19) as aviation cadets (少年飛行兵) to train them as pilots, navigators, and maintenance technicians for the Army Air Service. As Japan's war losses mounted, the program expanded dramatically from 170 initial recruits to thousands per cohort, eventually producing over 45,000 young airmen across multiple schools by war's end in 1945. Today the former school grounds are part of Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Park, where the Youth Aviation Soldier Statue (少年航空兵像) stands as a memorial to the teenage cadets who served.
Tateyama Naval Air Group Ruins (Akayama Underground Tunnels)
館山海軍航空隊跡（赤山地下壕跡）
Site of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Tateyama Naval Air Group, established in 1930 at the southern tip of the Boso Peninsula to guard the entrance to Tokyo Bay. The Akayama Underground Tunnels — a massive 1.6 km subterranean complex excavated during the final years of the war — served as a command center, hospital, power station, and aircraft workshop. Designated a Tateyama City historic site, a 250-meter section of the tunnels is open to the public.
Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Park & Museum
所沢航空記念公園・所沢航空発祥記念館
The birthplace of Japanese aviation, established in 1911 as Japan's first military airfield. On April 5, 1911, Captain Tokugawa Yoshitoshi piloted a Henri Farman biplane in the inaugural flight from Tokorozawa. The site evolved into the Imperial Japanese Army's central aviation training and research complex, housing the Army Aviation School (1919), the Army Aviation Technical School (1935), and the Army Aviation Maintenance School (1938). During WWII, the airfield served as a key Army Air Force installation; in June 1945, a tokkotai (special attack) unit was formed here. After Japan's surrender, the site was seized by the U.S. military as the Tokorozawa Communications Base. Land was gradually returned from 1971, and the 50.2-hectare Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Park opened in 1978, with the Tokorozawa Aviation Museum (所沢航空発祥記念館) inaugurated in 1993.
Tokyo Second Army Arsenal (Itabashi Powder Works)
東京第二陸軍造兵廠（板橋火薬製造所）
Site of the Imperial Japanese Army's Second Tokyo Arsenal, Japan's first government-operated gunpowder factory established in 1876 on the former Kaga Domain estate in Itabashi. The facility produced explosives, propellants, and ammunition components, and housed the Army Explosives Research Institute. Designated a National Historic Site in 2017, the surviving brick structures and ballistic testing tunnels are preserved in Kaga Park.
Tsukuba Naval Air Group Site and Former Headquarters
筑波海軍航空隊跡（旧司令部庁舎・記念館）
A surviving naval pilot-training headquarters in Kasama, now a memorial museum. The site traces the transition from flight instruction to wartime combat and special-attack training.
Ueno Station Underground Passage (War Orphans)
上野駅地下道（戦災孤児聚集地）
The underground passages of Ueno Station (上野駅) in Taito Ward, Tokyo, became the largest gathering point for war orphans (戦災孤児/戦争浮浪児) in postwar Japan. Following the devastating Tokyo air raids of 1944–1945, which killed over 100,000 civilians and left vast swathes of the city in ashes, an estimated 123,500 children nationwide were orphaned. Over a thousand of these children — known as "eki no ko" (駅の子, station children) — congregated in Ueno Station's underground corridors, sleeping on stone-paved floors, begging, shining shoes, collecting cigarette butts, and scavenging to survive. The government's 1948 survey acknowledged the scale of the crisis, yet orphanages could accommodate only about 12,000 children. Many orphans died of starvation, disease, and exposure in the tunnels. The "Ah! Ueno Station" (あゝ上野駅) song monument, erected in 2003 near the Hirokoji Exit, commemorates the collective memory of wartime displacement and postwar hardship at this station.
Utsunomiya Air Raid Site
宇都宮空襲跡
The site of the devastating firebombing of Utsunomiya on the night of July 12, 1945, when 133 B-29 Superfortresses dropped 802.9 tons of incendiary bombs on the city center, destroying 43.6% of the urban area, killing 628 civilians, and rendering nearly 48,000 people homeless.
Washington Heights Site (Yoyogi Park)
ワシントンハイツ跡（代々木公園）
Site of the largest U.S. military dependent housing complex in occupied Japan, built in 1946 on the former Imperial Japanese Army Yoyogi Parade Ground. The 92.4-hectare compound housed 827 family units with schools, churches, and theaters. Returned to Japan in 1964 for the Tokyo Olympics, it is now Yoyogi Park and the National Gymnasium.
Yokohama Commonwealth War Cemetery
横浜英連邦戦死者墓地
Yokohama War Cemetery in Hodogaya-ku is the only Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Japan, holding the remains of 1,555 Allied servicemen — primarily British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and Indian personnel who died as prisoners of war in Japanese captivity during World War II. Constructed after the war by the Australian War Graves group, the cemetery also houses a shrine containing an urn with the ashes of 335 soldiers, sailors, and airmen from Commonwealth nations, the United States, and the Netherlands. The site, a former children's recreation ground requisitioned in 1946, has been visited by Queen Elizabeth II (1975), Princess Diana (1995), and Prince William (2015).
2nd Naval Gunpowder Arsenal Ruins
第二海軍火薬廠跡
Ruins of the Imperial Japanese Navy's principal gunpowder, propellant, and explosives manufacturing arsenal in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. Originally established in 1905 as a British-capital venture (Nihon Kayaku Seizō K.K.) by Armstrong, Nobel and a third British firm (given as Chilworth or as Vickers, depending on the source) to produce British MD cordite for the IJN, the factory was purchased outright by the Navy in 1919 and designated the Naval Gunpowder Arsenal (海軍火薬廠). In 1941 it was reorganized as the 2nd Naval Gunpowder Arsenal (第二海軍火薬廠) as part of a three-arsenal system — with the 1st at Funaoka (Miyagi) and the 3rd at Maizuru (Kyoto). Covering approximately 380,000 tsubo (1.26 million m²), its seven plants produced smokeless powder for guns and rockets, nitrocellulose, nitroglycerin, machine-gun propellant and the acids needed to make them. The facility was devastated during the Hiratsuka air raid of 16–17 July 1945 by 138 B-29 bombers dropping about 1,173 tons of incendiary bombs. After Japan's surrender, the site was occupied by Allied forces until 1950, then transferred primarily to Yokohama Rubber Company, which still operates its Hiratsuka Manufacturing Plant on the grounds. The surviving Western-style building of about 1912 — built by the Anglo-Japanese powder company and later used as the naval officers' club — was donated to Hiratsuka City and relocated to Hachimanyama Park in 2009 as the registered tangible cultural property "八幡山の洋館" (Hachimanyama no Yōkan).
Army Aviation Maintenance School
陸軍航空整備学校
The Imperial Japanese Army's central institution for training aviation maintenance personnel, established in 1938 at Tokorozawa Airfield in Saitama Prefecture. Created by transferring maintenance training from the Army Aviation Technical School, the school educated officer candidates, non-commissioned officers, and youth aviation soldiers (少年航空兵) in aircraft maintenance and repair. Renamed the Tokorozawa Army Aviation Maintenance School (所沢陸軍航空整備学校) in 1943 when a sister school opened at Kakamigahara, Gifu Prefecture. The school operated until February 1945, when it was reorganized into the 3rd Air Training Corps (第3航空教育団). Its legacy is preserved at Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Park, where the Youth Aviation Soldier Statue (少年航空兵像) — originally erected on the school grounds in 1944 — still stands.
February 26 Incident Memorial Statue
二・二六事件慰霊像
A statue of Kannon (Buddhist goddess of mercy) erected in 1965 at the former site of the Tokyo Army Military Prison in Shibuya, where 15 of the officers and civilians condemned for the February 26 Incident were executed by firing squad on July 12, 1936, and four more on August 19, 1937. The memorial, commissioned by the Busshinkai (an organization of bereaved families), commemorates both the executed officers and all victims of the incident. It stands adjacent to the Shibuya Government Building complex, south of the NHK Broadcasting Center.
Former Army Provisions Depot (Fukagawa)
旧陸軍糧秣本廠跡（深川）
The headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army's provisions supply system, established in 1897 on the former Etchujima drill ground in Fukagawa, Koto Ward, Tokyo. The depot was responsible for the procurement, manufacture, storage, and distribution of food for soldiers and fodder for military horses across the entire army. Operating from the Meiji era through Japan's defeat in 1945, it was the central node in a nationwide network of branch depots including Ujina (Hiroshima, 1903) and Osaka (1908). The site at Etchujima 1-chome is now occupied by the Yamatane Corporation warehouse complex, with no original military structures remaining above ground.
Former Hibiya Public Hall
旧日比谷公会堂
Hibiya Public Hall, completed in 1929 in Hibiya Park, Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, was Japan's first full-scale public concert and assembly hall. Designed by architect Sato Koichi and championed by statesman Goto Shinpei as a center for civic discourse, the roughly 2,000-seat Neo-Gothic hall became a critical venue for wartime national mobilization rallies during the 1930s and 1940s — most notably the founding ceremony of the National Spirit Mobilization Central Federation (国民精神総動員中央連盟) on October 12, 1937. Throughout the Pacific War, the hall hosted propaganda events, patriotic assemblies, and government-organized mass meetings designed to rally public support for the war effort. The building survived the devastating 1945 firebombing of Tokyo and was immediately repurposed during the Allied occupation for cultural events, including one of the first postwar concerts on September 6, 1945, featuring vocalist Fujiwara Yoshie. Designated a Tokyo Metropolitan Historical Building and Tangible Cultural Property, the hall closed in 2016 for seismic renovation and is expected to reopen in 2029, marking its centennial.
Former Honjo Army Clothing Depot Site
旧陸軍被服本廠跡（本所）
Site of the Imperial Japanese Army Clothing Depot Headquarters (陸軍被服本廠), established in 1890 in Honjo Ward on the former grounds of the Edo-era Honjo Rice Storehouse (本所御蔵). The depot manufactured and distributed military uniforms, boots, caps, cloaks, blankets, canteens, and other equipment for the entire Japanese Army, expanding massively during the Sino-Japanese (1894–95) and Russo-Japanese (1904–05) Wars. After the depot relocated to Akabane in 1919, the vacant site was sold in 1922 to the Ministry of Communications and the City of Tokyo, the latter for park development. On September 1, 1923, during the Great Kanto Earthquake, approximately 40,000 refugees crowded onto the open ground — and a catastrophic fire tornado swept through, killing an estimated 38,000 people in the single deadliest concentration of casualties in the earthquake. The site later became Yokoamicho Park, the location of Tokyo Memorial Hall. During the March 10, 1945 firebombing of Tokyo, the surrounding Honjo-Fukagawa area was at the epicenter of the deadliest air raid in human history.
Former Imperial Japanese Army Meteorological Department
陸軍気象部跡
Site of the Imperial Japanese Army Meteorological Department (陸軍気象部, later renamed Army Central Meteorological Department 陸軍中央気象部), the military weather intelligence organization that provided critical meteorological forecasting for Imperial Army operations throughout the Pacific War. Established in 1938 at Mabashi 4-chome (now Koenji-kita 4-chome), Suginami Ward, Tokyo, the department conducted research on military meteorology, tested weather instruments, and operated a vast network of observation stations across Japan, Korea, Manchuria, and occupied territories. The site is now Mabashi Park (馬橋公園); the Kishō Shrine (気象神社), originally built within the compound in 1944, survives as a relocated sub-shrine at nearby Koenji Hikawa Shrine — said to be Japan's only weather shrine.
Former Imperial Theatre Site (Marunouchi)
旧帝国劇場跡（丸の内）
Japan's first Western-style theater, the Imperial Theatre (帝国劇場) opened in Marunouchi, Tokyo in 1911 as a symbol of Meiji-era modernization. During WWII, the theater was requisitioned by the Cabinet Information Bureau (内閣情報部) as its office from September 1940, ending theatrical performances. The basement cafeteria was converted into a public congee kitchen for civilians in January 1944 amid severe wartime food shortages. After Japan's surrender, the theater resumed performances in October 1945 and later served entertainment needs during the Allied occupation. The original Renaissance-style building, designed by Yokogawa Tamisuke, was demolished in 1964 and replaced by the current Toho-operated theater designed by Taniguchi Yoshiro, which opened in September 1966.
Former Italian Embassy, Tokyo
旧イタリア大使館
The former Italian Embassy in Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo served as the diplomatic headquarters of Axis partner Italy in Japan during WWII. After Italy's armistice with the Allies in September 1943, the embassy became a site of dramatic diplomatic division, with most staff siding against the Japanese-backed Italian Social Republic. The official residence was destroyed in the April 1945 Tokyo air raids.
Former Manchukuo Embassy Site (Moto-Azabu, Tokyo)
旧満洲国大使館跡（東京都港区元麻布）
The former Manchukuo Embassy in Tokyo was located at the present-day site of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Moto-Azabu, Minato-ku. The building, originally designed by architect Antonin Raymond in 1922 as the residence of Viscount Goto Shinpei (a former Foreign Minister and Mayor of Tokyo), was converted into the Manchukuo Embassy in 1932 when Japan established the puppet state of Manchukuo in northeast China. The embassy represented the diplomatic facade of Japan's continental expansion until the building was destroyed in the devastating Tokyo air raid of May 25, 1945. After the war, the site was repurposed as the Republic of China embassy and later became the embassy of the People's Republic of China, which occupies the location to this day.
Former Ministry of Communications Savings Bureau (Iikura, Azabu)
逓信省貯金局跡（麻布飯倉）
The Otemachi (Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo) site of the Ministry of Communications (逓信省), used here to represent the ministry's Savings Bureau — whose own office building, completed in 1930, actually stood in Iikura, Azabu (present-day Azabudai, Minato Ward). During WWII the bureau managed the wartime postal savings mobilization system, channeling citizens' deposits into war bonds to finance the military effort. The Ministry of Communications also oversaw wartime censorship of mail and telecommunications. The Teishin Building on the Otemachi site housed the Teishin Comprehensive Museum (逓信総合博物館, known as "Tei-Park") from 1964 until its closure in 2013, and was demolished by 2015 to make way for the Otemachi Place redevelopment.
Former Nippon Kangyo Bank Headquarters
日本勧業銀行本店跡
Site of the former headquarters of Nippon Kangyo Bank (日本勧業銀行) in Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo. During WWII, the bank served as the central institution for issuing wartime government bonds (戦時公債), lottery-style savings bonds (割増金付戦時債券), and the "Victory Tickets" (勝札) that became the precursor to Japan's modern national lottery (宝くじ). The original Meiji-era building (1899, designed by Tsumaki Yorinaka) was sold and relocated in 1926 and succeeded by a second head office completed in 1929; the site later became the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank Head Office Building (1981) and subsequently the Mizuho Bank Uchisaiwaicho Head Office Building, which was demolished in 2022 for redevelopment.
Former Residence of Hideki Tojo
東條英機邸跡
Site of wartime Prime Minister Hideki Tojo's private residence in Yoga, Setagaya, Tokyo. On September 11, 1945, when GHQ military police arrived to arrest him as a suspected Class-A war criminal, Tojo shot himself in the chest with a pistol in his study but missed his heart and survived. American journalists and photographers who had gathered outside captured the dramatic scene, and the resulting photographs — showing Tojo slumped in a chair, bleeding from his self-inflicted wound — were transmitted worldwide and became some of the most iconic images of the immediate postwar period. After receiving emergency blood transfusions from American military doctors, Tojo recovered and was transferred to Sugamo Prison. He was tried before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and executed on December 23, 1948. The residence no longer exists; the site is now occupied by a Rissho Kosei-kai (立正佼成会) church building, with a small stone marker reading "東條英機邸跡" on the grounds.