All historic sites
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417 sites · page 9 of 18
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.
Kumamoto Castle & Former IJA 6th Division Headquarters Site
熊本城・陸軍第六師団司令部跡
Kumamoto Castle, one of Japan's three premier castles, served as the home base of the Imperial Japanese Army 6th Division from 1888 to 1945. The 6th Division, recruited primarily from southern Kyushu, was one of the most combat-experienced formations in the IJA: it fought in the Sino-Japanese War, Russo-Japanese War, and the Siberian Intervention before becoming notorious as one of the principal assault divisions in the Battle of Nanking (December 1937), where it stormed the Zhonghua Gate sector under Lieutenant General Tani Hisao. During the Pacific War, the division fought in the Solomon Islands campaign (Bougainville). The castle grounds housed the division headquarters (a 1917 building on the Honmaru), barracks for the 13th Infantry Regiment, supply depots, an army hospital, and ammunition stores — occupying roughly 270,000 square meters of the city center and transforming Kumamoto into a garrison city (軍都). The castle survived the July 1945 firebombing raids but the original headquarters building was destroyed; its site is now part of the restored Kumamoto Castle Park. The castle's concrete-reconstructed main tower (1960) sustained severe damage in the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes and was fully restored in 2021.
Kure Naval Cemetery (Nagasako Park)
旧呉海軍墓地（長迫公園）
A former Imperial Japanese Navy cemetery, established in 1890 in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture. Now preserved as Nagasako Park, it contains 157 individual graves and 80 cenotaphs honoring crew members of warships including battleship Yamato. The 2.9-hectare site also holds pre-war gravestones of foreign sailors and serves as the annual venue for a joint memorial service for the naval war dead.
Kushira Naval Air Base Ruins (Kushira Peace Park)
串良海軍航空基地跡（串良平和公園）
Ruins of one of Japan's major kamikaze sortie bases, now Kushira Peace Park. The former 1,300 m east-west and 1,200 m north-south runways are lined with cherry trees, and a memorial tower honors the 363 special attack aviators and more than 200 conventional attack aviators who perished. An underground telegraph command room used to receive final transmissions from departing pilots is preserved on site.
Kyoto Imperial University — F-Go Nuclear Research Project
京都帝国大学理学部（F号研究）
Site of the F-Go Project (F号研究), the Imperial Japanese Navy's secret nuclear weapons research program conducted at Kyoto Imperial University from 1943 to 1945. Led by physicist Bunsaku Arakatsu, the project pursued uranium-235 separation via ultracentrifuge technology. The team included future Nobel laureate Hideki Yukawa. The project never achieved a working weapon before Japan's surrender.
Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan University
立命館大学国際平和ミュージアム
A university peace museum in Kyoto examining imperial Japan, wartime violence and the experiences of victims. Renewed in 2023, it includes a Kyoto gallery of works by fallen art students.
Kyushu University Vivisection Incident — Faculty of Medicine
九州大学生体解剖事件（九大医学部）
Site of the Kyushu Imperial University vivisection incident (May–June 1945), in which eight captured American B-29 crewmen from the 29th Bombardment Group were subjected to live experimental surgeries — including lung removal, seawater blood injection, and organ excision — at the university's anatomy department. All eight died. In 1948, thirty defendants faced a B/C-class war crimes tribunal in Yokohama; twenty-three were convicted. The Kyushu University Medical History Museum on the Maidashi campus now documents the atrocity as part of its medical ethics and peace education mission.
Manmo Pioneer Peace Memorial Museum
満蒙開拓平和記念館
The only museum in Japan dedicated to the history of the Manchurian-Mongolian colonization program. Located in Achi Village, Nagano Prefecture — the prefecture that sent the most emigrants to Manchuria — the museum commemorates the approximately 270,000 Japanese agricultural settlers dispatched to Manchukuo under government schemes from the 1930s onward. Of these, an estimated 80,000 perished from starvation, disease, Soviet attack, and mass suicide following the Soviet invasion of August 1945, when the Kwantung Army abandoned the defenseless settlers.
Matsuyama Air Raid Site
松山大空襲跡
Site of the devastating firebombing of Matsuyama City on July 26, 1945, when 128 B-29 Superfortress bombers of the 73rd Bombardment Wing dropped 896 tons of incendiary munitions over approximately two hours, killing 251 people and destroying 55% of the city's housing. The raid displaced 62,200 residents — 53% of the city population — and reduced much of the castle-town center to ashes, though Matsuyama Castle on Mount Katsuyama survived the firestorm.
Miho Naval Air Base
美保海軍航空基地
Miho Naval Air Base was an Imperial Japanese Navy airfield constructed from 1939 on the Yumigahama Peninsula in Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture, under the jurisdiction of the Maizuru Naval District. Commissioned in October 1943 as the Miho Naval Air Group (美保海軍航空隊), it served primarily as a preliminary flight training base for naval aviation cadets, processing up to 1,200 trainees from the Yokaren (予科練) Kō-class 13th intake. A second unit, the 2nd Miho Naval Air Group, was established in January 1944 for elementary flight training. The base was attacked once by USAAF B-24 Liberator bombers in July 1945. After Japan's surrender, it was occupied by the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), with RAAF No. 77 Squadron stationed there until 1950, followed by USAF units during the Korean War. Returned to Japanese control in 1957–58, it became JASDF Miho Air Base, currently the only transport aviation base in western Japan, operating C-2 and KC-46A aircraft.
Misawa Naval Air Base
三沢海軍航空基地
Imperial Japanese Navy air base in northern Honshu, constructed from 1938 and operational by February 1942. According to U.S. Air Force histories of the base, nearby Lake Ogawara served before the Pacific War as a torpedo-bombing practice site for the Pearl Harbor attack because of its similar shallow depth. The base housed the Misawa Naval Air Group (三沢海軍航空隊), which deployed to the South Pacific as a core element of the Rabaul air forces. In 1944 the base was expanded with kamikaze Special Attack facilities. American air attacks destroyed about 90% of the base in 1945. Today it operates as a joint US Air Force / Japan Air Self-Defense Force installation, with the adjacent Misawa Aviation & Science Museum (青森県立三沢航空科学館) preserving the region's aviation heritage.
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.
Mitsubishi Arms Sumiyoshi Tunnel Factory Ruins
三菱兵器住吉トンネル工場跡
Remains of an underground torpedo factory built in 1944 by Mitsubishi Arms inside six parallel tunnels in northern Nagasaki. Located 2.3 km from the atomic bomb hypocenter, the tunnels survived the August 9, 1945 bombing largely intact and served as emergency shelters. Two tunnels are now open to the public as a peace memorial site.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Kumamoto Aircraft Works
三菱重工業熊本航空機製作所
A major wartime aircraft factory built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Kengun, Kumamoto City, as a dispersed branch of the Nagoya Aircraft Works. Operational from January 1944, the plant assembled 42 Ki-67 Hiryu (Flying Dragon) heavy bombers before war's end. The factory complex, designated the 9th Manufacturing Works (第九製作所), was a government-built, privately-operated (官設民営) facility occupying approximately 1.4 million tsubo in what is now JGSDF Camp Kengun. Subjected to devastating American air raids in March and May 1945, the factory also incorporated underground dispersal facilities at Yoneda. The sole surviving assembly building — a distinctive iron-frame structure with triangular sawtooth roofing — remained within Camp Kengun as a war heritage site until plans for its demolition due to aging were announced.
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.
Moji Port (Former Moji Customs & Mojiko Retro)
門司港（旧門司税関・門司港レトロ）
Imperial Japan's most critical continental gateway port, handling over 2 million troops and vast quantities of military supplies shipped to Manchuria, China, and Korea from the 1930s through 1945. The 1912 Renaissance-style red-brick Former Moji Customs building — designed under the supervision of master architect Tsumaki Yorinaka — survives as the district's iconic landmark. After the war, Moji Port served as a major repatriation port receiving hundreds of thousands of returning soldiers and civilians. Designated a Japan Heritage site as part of the "Nostalgic Kanmon Strait" cultural landscape.
Mugonkan Memorial Museum for Fallen Art Students
戦没画学生慰霊美術館 無言館
A memorial art museum in Ueda preserving paintings and personal belongings of art students killed in the Sino-Japanese and Pacific wars. The main museum and neighbouring second gallery form one visitor site.
Muroran Naval Bombardment Memorial
室蘭艦砲射撃跡
Memorial site at Muroran Hachiman Shrine commemorating the July 15, 1945 naval bombardment of Muroran by a US Navy task unit of three Iowa-class battleships. The bombardment targeted the Japan Steel Works and Wanishi Ironworks, firing 860 sixteen-inch shells that killed 485 people including 439 civilians and devastated much of the city. It was one of the few Allied naval bombardments of Hokkaido.
Mutsu Memorial Museum
陸奥記念館
Museum on Suo-Oshima island in Yamaguchi Prefecture commemorating the battleship Mutsu (陸奥), a Nagato-class dreadnought that mysteriously exploded and sank at the Hashirajima fleet anchorage on June 8, 1943, killing 1,121 of the 1,474 men aboard. The museum displays salvaged artifacts from the wreck including hull sections, personal effects of the crew, ship fittings, and a Shin Meiwa PS-1 flying boat. A memorial service is held every June 8.
Nagaoka Air Raid Site & Yamamoto Isoroku Memorial Park
長岡空襲跡・山本五十六記念公園
Site of the devastating August 1, 1945 air raid on Nagaoka — the hometown of Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku — where 125 B-29 bombers dropped 163,000 incendiary bombs, killing 1,488 people and destroying up to 80% of the city. The Yamamoto Isoroku Memorial Park, built on the site of his former family home which was destroyed in the raid, preserves a reconstructed birthplace and bronze bust of the admiral.
Nagasaki Medical College (Atomic Bomb Ruins)
長崎医科大学（被爆遺構）
Nagasaki Medical College, established in 1923 as the successor to Japan's oldest Western medical school (founded 1857), stood just 600 meters from the hypocenter of the atomic bomb dropped on August 9, 1945. The blast and fires destroyed all campus buildings and killed 892 faculty, students, nurses, and staff. Today, the tilted stone gate pillars of the former campus survive as a nationally designated historic site — part of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Ruins — serving as a physical measure of the bomb's blast pressure and a memorial to the devastated medical community.
Nagoya Castle
名古屋城
Nagoya Castle, built in 1612 by Tokugawa Ieyasu as one of Japan's finest castles, was designated a National Treasure before the war. Its main keep, small keep, Honmaru Palace, golden shachihoko (dolphin-tiger roof ornaments), and northeast turret were all destroyed in the U.S. incendiary bombing raid of May 14, 1945. The castle was reconstructed in reinforced concrete in 1959 and a full-scale wooden reconstruction of the Honmaru Palace was completed in 2018. The main keep is now slated for wooden reconstruction to restore its original form.