All historic sites
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169 sites · page 6 of 8
Former Residence of Yoshida Shigeru (Oiso)
旧吉田茂邸（大磯）
The Former Residence of Yoshida Shigeru in Oiso, Kanagawa Prefecture, was the private home of Japan's most consequential postwar Prime Minister, Shigeru Yoshida (1878–1967). Originally purchased in 1884 by his adoptive father Yoshida Kenzo as a seaside villa, Shigeru Yoshida made it his primary residence from 1945 until his death in 1967. From this estate overlooking Sagami Bay and Mount Fuji, Yoshida orchestrated Japan's postwar reconstruction and negotiated the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty that ended the Allied occupation. The residence became a destination for the politicians of the so-called "Yoshida School" (吉田学校) — the group of largely ex-bureaucrat Diet members Yoshida had recruited, including future prime ministers Ikeda Hayato and Sato Eisaku — who continued to call on him here after his retirement. The main building, designed by renowned architect Yoshida Isoya in a modern sukiya style with all-cypress construction by Kyoto palace carpenters, burned down in March 2009. It was rebuilt with the help of public donations on the basis of original plans and photographs, and Oiso Town reopened the site to the public in April 2017 as an annex of the Oiso Town Local History Museum within Oiso Joyama Park.
Former Soviet Embassy (now Embassy of Russia)
旧ソビエト連邦大使館（現ロシア大使館）
The former Soviet Embassy in Tokyo's Azabudai district (now the Embassy of Russia) was the site where Soviet Ambassador Yakov Malik was to deliver the formal declaration of war against Japan on August 8–9, 1945, abrogating the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact of 1941. Foreign Minister Molotov informed Ambassador Satō in Moscow at 5 p.m. Moscow time (11 p.m. JST) on August 8, and Malik subsequently met Foreign Minister Tōgō in Tokyo on August 10 to formally deliver the notification. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria commenced at midnight on August 9, becoming a decisive factor in Japan's surrender.
Former Tokyo Army Garrison Hospital (National Center for Global Health and Medicine)
旧陸軍衛戍病院跡（国立国際医療研究センター）
Site of the former Tokyo First Army Garrison Hospital (東京第一陸軍病院), the Imperial Japanese Army's principal hospital in Tokyo and one of its oldest. Established in 1868 as a provisional army hospital to treat Boshin War casualties, it was relocated to its current site in Toyama, Shinjuku in 1929. Throughout the Pacific War the hospital treated vast numbers of wounded soldiers from all theaters and established branch hospitals nationwide. After Japan's surrender in 1945 it was transferred to the Ministry of Health and Welfare as the National Tokyo First Hospital, and has since evolved into the National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGM), a leading research hospital.
Former Tokyo First Army Arsenal Headquarters (Chuo Park Cultural Center)
旧東京第一陸軍造兵廠本部事務所（中央公園文化センター）
The former arsenal headquarters survives in Tokyo's Jujo district as a public cultural center. Built in 1930, it connects the area's wartime arms industry with its later use by U.S. forces and conversion to civic facilities.
Former Tsukiji Naval Academy Site
旧築地海軍兵学校跡
Site of the original Imperial Japanese Naval Academy (海軍兵学校, Kaigun Heigakkō) at Tsukiji, Tokyo, where modern Japanese naval officer education was born. Established in 1869 and operating until the academy relocated to Etajima, Hiroshima Prefecture in 1888, this was the birthplace of the Imperial Japanese Navy's officer corps. The site subsequently housed the Naval War College, which was damaged in the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake and moved away in 1932; the area became the legendary Tsukiji Fish Market from 1935 to 2018. A stone monument commemorating the Naval Academy and Naval Medical School stands at the nearby National Cancer Center.
Heiwa-dōri (Peace Avenue)
平和通り
A one-kilometer cherry-tree-lined avenue in central Hitachi extending from JR Hitachi Station to National Route 6, built during the postwar reconstruction of the city devastated by the July 1945 naval bombardment and B-29 incendiary raids. The avenue symbolizes Hitachi's rebirth and commitment to peace.
Hyakuri Naval Air Base (Hyakuri Air Base & Yuhien Park)
百里原海軍航空隊（百里基地・雄飛園）
Imperial Japanese Navy air training base established in 1938 in Ibaraki Prefecture. Hyakurihara Naval Air Group began as a primary flight-training unit, added carrier attack and dive bomber training from late 1943, and in the war's final months formed special attack (kamikaze) units that flew sorties during the Battle of Okinawa. Now home to JASDF Hyakuri Air Base — the closest fighter base to Tokyo — with the Yuhien outdoor memorial park displaying retired military aircraft and monuments to the fallen.
Imperial Hotel (Frank Lloyd Wright Building Site)
旧帝国ホテル（フランク・ロイド・ライト館跡）
The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1923, was Japan's most prestigious hotel and famously survived the Great Kanto Earthquake on its opening day. During WWII, the south wing was gutted by incendiary bombs in the 1945 air raids on Tokyo (dated May 25 in English-language accounts and March 10–11 in Japanese ones), though the main structure survived. After Japan's surrender, the hotel was commandeered by the Allied occupation forces from 1945 to 1952, serving as billets for senior SCAP and GHQ personnel. The iconic Wright building was demolished in 1967-68 due to accumulated war damage, deferred maintenance, and the need for expansion; the entrance lobby was preserved and relocated to the Meiji Mura architecture museum in Aichi Prefecture.
Imperial Japanese Army Provisions Depot (Etchujima)
陸軍糧秣本廠
The central provisions depot of the Imperial Japanese Army, located at Etchujima in Fukagawa (present-day Koto Ward, Tokyo). Established in 1897 on the site of a former military drill ground, the depot was responsible for procuring, manufacturing, and storing food provisions for soldiers and fodder for military horses across the entire army. The facility operated continuously until Japan's surrender in 1945 and was heavily damaged in the Tokyo firebombing raids of March 1945. The site was subsequently used as a JGSDF camp until 1960 and has since been completely redeveloped.
Inba Airfield Site and Open-Air Aircraft Revetment
印旛飛行場跡・無蓋掩体壕
An earthen aircraft revetment survives beside a flood-control pond in Inzai. It recalls the Inba pilot-training airfield's wartime conversion to an army fighter base.
Jōgashima Artillery Battery Ruins (Tokyo Bay Fortress)
城ヶ島砲台跡（東京湾要塞）
A coastal defense battery on Jōgashima Island at the southern tip of the Miura Peninsula, built as part of the Tokyo Bay Fortress system. Begun in 1924 after the Great Kantō Earthquake and completed in 1927, the battery was armed with twin 25.4 cm gun turrets taken from the decommissioned battleship Aki. Though the battery never saw combat, it served as a key element of the capital's seaward defense until the end of World War II. Today, underground ammunition magazines and a 50-meter passage survive beneath Jōgashima Park.
Kashima Naval Air Group Ruins (Oyama Lakeside Park)
鹿島海軍航空隊跡（大山湖畔公園）
One of the best-preserved IJN seaplane training base ruins in Japan, located on the southern shore of Lake Kasumigaura in Miho Village, Ibaraki Prefecture. Established on December 15, 1938, as a practice air group for seaplane pilot training under the Yokosuka Naval District, the base grew to over 1,000 personnel and 100 aircraft by 1941. Surviving structures include the reinforced-concrete headquarters building, 32-meter smokestack boiler house with original 1939 boilers, self-powered generator building, vehicle garage, seaplane catapult foundation, and lakeside slipways designated as Civil Engineering Heritage. Opened to the public as Oyama Lakeside Park in July 2023.
Kashiwa Airfield & Shusui Rocket Interceptor Site
柏飛行場・秋水関連遺跡
The Imperial Japanese Army airfield in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, designated as the operational base for the J8M/Ki-200 "Shusui" — Japan's only rocket-powered interceptor, reverse-engineered from the German Me 163 Komet. Underground fuel storage bunkers for the Shusui's volatile hydrogen peroxide and hydrazine propellants survive in the Hanano-i residential area, representing Japan's most ambitious late-war aviation technology program.
Kawagoe Army Arsenal Site (Fukuoka Ammunition Factory)
東京第一陸軍造兵廠川越製造所跡（福岡工場・火工廠）
The former ammunition works in present-day Fujimino operated from 1937 to 1945, producing cartridges, fuzes and other munitions components. Its grounds now contain civic buildings, housing, schools and factories; the marker represents the former site around city hall.
Kensoji Temple — Grave of the Twenty-Two Samurai
賢崇寺（二十二士之墓）
A Soto Zen temple in Moto-Azabu, Minato Ward, housing the graves of the "Twenty-Two Samurai" (二十二士之墓) — the nineteen officers executed for their role in the February 26 Incident, plus two who committed suicide (Captain Shiro Nonaka and Captain Hisashi Kono) and Lieutenant Colonel Saburo Aizawa executed for the 1935 Aizawa Incident. The gravestone was erected in 1952 by the Busshinkai; annual memorial services are held on February 26 and July 12.
Maebashi Army Airfield Ruins (Tsutsumigaoka Airfield)
陸軍前橋飛行場跡（堤ヶ岡飛行場）
An Imperial Japanese Army airfield built in 1943-1944 in Gunma Prefecture for pilot training and air defense. The Utsunomiya Army Flight School operated a training unit here, and a Nakajima Aircraft branch factory assembled Ki-84 Hayate fighters on site. Maebashi city was one of the last cities firebombed by B-29s on August 5, 1945, the night before Hiroshima.
Mobara Naval Airfield Site and No. 3 Aircraft Shelter
茂原海軍航空基地跡・3号掩体壕
A surviving concrete aircraft shelter marks the former Mobara naval airfield. Nearby roads and school sites trace the base's runway, headquarters and barracks within today's city.
Nakajima Aircraft Musashino Dispersal Factory Site (Musashino-no-Mori Park)
中島飛行機武蔵製作所疎開工場跡（武蔵野の森公園）
Park beside the former Army Chofu Airfield in the Fuchu-Chofu-Mitaka area of western Tokyo, not far from the site of the Nakajima Aircraft Musashi Plant. Fighters based at Chofu for the defence of the capital were sheltered in concrete revetments built around the airfield. Now Musashino-no-Mori Park, the site preserves concrete aircraft revetments (entaigō) as tangible reminders of Tokyo's wartime air defence.
Narimasu Airfield Ruins (Hikarigaoka Park)
成増飛行場跡（光が丘公園）
A hastily constructed Imperial Japanese Army airfield in northwestern Tokyo, completed in late 1943 as a B-29 interceptor base. Home to the elite 47th Air Regiment (飛行第47戦隊) equipped with Ki-44 Shoki fighters, and the Shinten Seiku Tai — a special air-to-air ramming attack unit formed to defend the capital. Postwar the site became U.S. military housing "Grant Heights" (1947–1973), then redeveloped as the Hikarigaoka residential district and park.
Naval Paymaster School Site (Tsukiji)
海軍経理学校跡
Site of the Imperial Japanese Naval Paymaster School (海軍経理学校, Kaigun Keiri Gakkō), the elite training academy for naval logistics, accounting, and supply officers. Founded in 1874 as the Naval Accounting Academy (海軍会計学舎) and reorganized multiple times, it was officially designated the Naval Paymaster School in 1907. The school relocated to a new campus near the west end of Kachidoki Bridge in Tsukiji 6-chome in 1932, where it operated until Japan's defeat in 1945. One of the "Three Great Naval Schools" (海軍三校) alongside the Naval Academy at Etajima and the Naval Engineering School, it trained thousands of paymaster officers and ratings in supply chain management, military accounting, provisioning, and general administration. Notable alumni include Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who completed the short-service reserve officer program here in 1941. The original campus was demolished; a black granite memorial stele stands in a small green space near the southwest approach to Kachidoki Bridge, erected in 1976 by alumni to commemorate the school's 70-year legacy. The site later became part of the Tsukiji fish market complex, itself a successor to the naval facilities that once dominated this waterfront district.
NHK Museum of Broadcasting
NHK放送博物館
The NHK Museum of Broadcasting stands atop Atago Hill in Minato, Tokyo — the birthplace of Japanese broadcasting. Station JOAK made Japan's first radio broadcast on March 22, 1925, from a temporary studio in Shibaura, and began regular broadcasting from its permanent station on this hill that July. On August 15, 1945, the Gyokuon-hōsō (Jewel Voice Broadcast) — Emperor Hirohito's historic radio address announcing Japan's surrender — was transmitted via NHK's broadcasting network, and the original Gyokuon-ban recording disc is preserved in this museum. Opened in 1956 as the world's first museum dedicated to broadcasting.
Nikko Kanaya Hotel
日光金谷ホテル
Japan's oldest surviving resort hotel, established in 1873 in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture. During World War II, the hotel served as wartime evacuation housing and was requisitioned by GHQ as a special service hotel for U.S. military personnel from October 1945 to February 1952.
Noborito Research Institute — Ikuta Branch (Balloon Bomb Production Facility)
陸軍登戸研究所 生田分室
Main compound of the Imperial Japanese Army's Ninth Technical Research Institute (Noborito Research Institute), located in the Ikuta hills of Kawasaki City. It served as a key site for the First Department's Fu-Go balloon bomb program, where research, development, and coordination of the intercontinental balloon weapon took place from 1937 to 1945. The washi-paper balloon envelopes, bonded with konnyaku paste, were made by mobilized students and workers at sites across Japan. Today the site is preserved as the Meiji University Peace Education Noborito Research Institute Museum on the Ikuta Campus, housed in the surviving Building 36.
Ohka Park (Konoike Air Base Ruins)
桜花公園（神之池基地跡）
Memorial park on the site of the former Konoike Naval Air Base in Kashima, Ibaraki Prefecture — the primary training facility for the Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, the only rocket-propelled manned suicide weapon ever used in combat. A full-scale Ohka Model 11 replica is displayed inside the sole surviving aircraft revetment (entaigo). The park commemorates the 721st Naval Air Group "Jinrai Butai" (Thunder Gods Corps), which trained here from November 1944, and the 722nd Naval Air Group "Tatsumaki Butai" (Tornado Corps), the Ohka training unit formed in February 1945.