Home Front & Mobilisation
銃後の国民生活
Civilian life under total war: evacuation, student mobilisation and rationing.
History
This theme covers the places that record everyday life and mobilisation on the home front (jūgo, "behind the guns"). Total war was fought not only at the front: it reached into every household through rationing, labour and student mobilisation, the evacuation of schoolchildren and air-defence drills, experiences that form most Japanese people's direct memory of the war.
After war broke out with China in 1937 the government launched the National Spiritual Mobilisation Movement, and the National General Mobilization Law of 1938 gave it broad powers over labour, materials, prices and expression. In 1940, under Home Ministry direction, block and village associations and the tonarigumi neighbourhood groups beneath them were organised nationwide; rationing, bond subscriptions, metal collection, air-raid drills and send-offs for departing soldiers all ran through this system, which also fostered mutual surveillance. Rationing widened step by step: sugar and matches were issued by coupon from 1940, rice was rationed in the six largest cities from April 1941 and then nationwide, followed by clothing and other goods. As men were called up, women and students filled the labour gap. Student deferments were ended in 1943 for universities and colleges; from 1944 pupils of secondary schools and above were mobilised almost year-round to factories and farms, and unmarried women were enrolled in the Women's Volunteer Corps. From the summer of 1944 several hundred thousand primary-school children from the big cities were evacuated in groups to temples and inns in the countryside to escape air raids, and from spring 1945 classes above the primary level were in principle suspended.
The history of the home front shows how war reorganised society, and how ordinary people were at once objects of mobilisation, victims of bombing and participants in the wartime system. Speech and thought were watched by the Special Higher Police and the military police, newspapers and radio carried controlled war news, and food shortages caused widespread malnutrition from the last year of the war into the early postwar period. Some wartime arrangements, such as the block associations and the food control system, persisted in altered form for some time afterwards.
Under this theme visitors will find air-raid shelters and caves dug by pupils, temples and lodgings used for evacuated children, the sites of factories where students worked and memorials to those killed there, remains of school facilities such as the hōanden portrait repositories, and peace and local-history museums displaying ration coupons, thousand-stitch belts, comfort bags and national civilian dress.
Related sites (29)
Himeyuri Monument & Himeyuri Peace Museum
ひめゆりの塔・ひめゆり平和祈念資料館
Memorial and museum commemorating the 136 Himeyuri Student Corps members — schoolgirls and teachers mobilized as frontline nurses during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa — who perished in the final weeks of the war.
Gakuto Shutsujin Send-off Site (Former Meiji Jingu Gaien Stadium)
出陣学徒壮行の地（明治神宮外苑競技場跡）
Site of the iconic October 21, 1943 student-soldier send-off ceremony (学徒出陣壮行会), where approximately 25,000 university students marched in heavy rain at the Meiji Jingu Gaien Stadium before being dispatched to the front lines. The event, broadcast live on national radio, symbolized total mobilization as Japan conscripted its university students after revoking their draft deferments. The former stadium was demolished in 1956 and replaced by the National Olympic Stadium (1958), which itself was rebuilt as the current Japan National Stadium (2019). A stone monument, "出陣学徒壮行の地," erected in 1993 near the Sendagaya Gate, commemorates the thousands of students who never returned.
Metabaru Airfield Ruins
目達原飛行場跡
Former Imperial Japanese Army airfield in Yoshinogari Town, Saga Prefecture, established in 1943 as a branch of the Tachiarai Army Flight School. The base trained student pilots and served as a staging point for Army special attack (tokubetsu kōgeki) operations during the final months of WWII, with the 273rd Shinbu Squadron and other kamikaze units departing via Metabaru en route to forward bases in southern Kyushu. The site is now JGSDF Camp Metabaru, with the former main gate pillars and a 1992 memorial monument preserved outside the base perimeter.
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.
Former Komatsu Naval Air Base Revetment
旧海軍小松航空基地 掩体壕
A WWII-era reinforced concrete aircraft revetment (entaigo) surviving within the grounds of JASDF Komatsu Air Base in Ishikawa Prefecture. Built around 1944 by the Imperial Japanese Navy Maizuru Naval District to shelter Zero fighters and Saiun reconnaissance aircraft, this covered shelter is one of very few remnants of the Komatsu Naval Air Station — a late-war dispersal base on the Sea of Japan coast. Originally the base had 35 medium covered shelters, 40 medium open shelters, 31 small covered shelters, and 15 small concealed positions; today only a handful survive. The JASDF has preserved this revetment as a heritage monument, housing a camouflage-painted T-6G trainer inside to honor wartime aviators.
Fukuromachi Elementary School Peace Museum
袋町小学校平和資料館
A hibaku (A-bombed) building located just 460 meters from the hypocenter, where the reinforced concrete West Building of Fukuromachi National School survived the atomic bombing of August 6, 1945. The charred interior walls preserve chalk messages written by survivors desperately seeking missing family members, rediscovered decades later behind plaster during renovation. Opened as a peace museum in April 2002.
Mukyudo Cave (Eternal Cave Air-Raid Shelter)
無窮洞
Mukyudo ("Eternal Cave") is a massive air-raid shelter hand-dug by elementary school students and teachers of Miyamura National School in Sasebo over nearly two years (August 1943 – August 1945). Roughly 5 meters wide, 19 meters deep, and 8 meters high, the shelter accommodated approximately 600 students during air raids and contained a classroom, kitchen, toilets, food storage, and an Imperial portrait room. It is the only known school-style air-raid shelter in Japan built entirely by schoolchildren, and stands as a powerful testament to the civilian — especially children's — experience of strategic bombing on the home front.
Mitsubishi Nagoya Engine Works (Daiko Plant)
三菱重工業名古屋発動機製作所（大幸工場）
Japan's largest aero-engine production complex during WW2, located in Higashi Ward, Nagoya. Established on July 1, 1938, when the engine division was separated from the Mitsubishi Nagoya Aircraft Works (Oe Plant). The Daiko Plant produced over 40% of all Japanese aircraft engines — a staggering total of 48,996 powerplants including the Mitsubishi Kinsei (Venus), Kasei (Mars), and Zuisei (Auspicious Star) radial engines that powered fighters, bombers, and reconnaissance aircraft across both the Navy and Army. From December 13, 1944, to April 7, 1945, the plant was targeted in seven devastating B-29 precision bombing raids involving over 600 sorties and 1,700+ tons of ordnance, killing more than 2,600 factory workers, mobilized students, and volunteer corps members. The factory was completely destroyed. The site is now occupied by Vantelin Dome Nagoya (formerly Nagoya Dome), built in 1997 on the former factory grounds.
Aichi Aircraft Funakata Plant (Atsuta Air Raid Site)
愛知航空機船方工場（熱田空襲跡）
The original airframe factory of Aichi Tokei Denki / Aichi Aircraft in Atsuta-ku, Nagoya. On June 9, 1945, B-29s obliterated the Funakata factory complex in approximately 10 minutes, killing 2,068 workers including mobilized students. A memorial Jizo statue and bombed canal embankment survive at the former factory gate as solemn reminders of one of the deadliest single industrial air raids of the Pacific War.
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.
Former Ministry of Education Site
旧文部省跡
Site of the former Ministry of Education (文部省) in Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo — the wartime nerve center of Japan's education control apparatus. The Ministry directed the 1935 Kokutai Meichō Statement (國體明徴声明), enforced thought control through the Teaching Bureau (教学局), nationalized all textbooks, converted elementary schools into National People's Schools (国民学校) in 1941, and orchestrated the 1943 Gakuto Shutsujin (学徒出陣) student conscription. The original 1933 reinforced-concrete building survived the war and air raids; its Sakurada-dōri facade was preserved as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2007 when the site was redeveloped into the Kasumigaseki Common Gate complex.
Taichung Prefectural Hall
台中州庁
Baroque-Mansard government building designed by Moriyama Matsunosuke (森山松之助) and constructed 1913–1934 as the administrative headquarters of Taichū Prefecture (台中州) during Japanese colonial rule. Designated a national monument (國定古蹟) in 2019, the hall served as the wartime seat of the prefectural governor overseeing mobilization, rationing, and civil defense across present-day Taichung, Changhua, and Nantou. After 1945 it became the Taichung City Government office.
Taihoku Imperial University (now National Taiwan University)
台北帝国大学（現・国立台湾大学）
Taihoku Imperial University (台北帝国大学), established on March 16, 1928, was the seventh of Japan's nine imperial universities and the highest institution of learning in colonial Taiwan. Located in Taihoku (Taipei) with faculties of Literature & Politics, Science & Agriculture, Medicine (1936), and Engineering (1943), it served as the academic center for Japan's "southward advance" (南進) policy. Wartime research institutes — the Tropical Medicine Research Institute (1939), the Southern Humanities Research Institute (1943), and the Southern Resources Science Research Institute (1943) — conducted strategic studies on tropical diseases, Southeast Asian resources, and ethnography to support the empire's expansion into the South Seas. Students were mobilized under the 1943 gakuto shutsujin (学徒出陣) conscription. The university hospital was damaged during the May 31, 1945 Taipei Air Raid. After Japan's surrender, the university was renamed National Taiwan University (國立臺灣大學) in November 1945 under ROC administration.
Hikari Naval Arsenal
光海軍工廠
Hikari Naval Arsenal was the Imperial Japanese Navy's seventh naval arsenal, established in Hikari City, Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1940. The sprawling 4-square-kilometer coastal facility produced steel, torpedoes, engines, cannon, and bombs, and from 1944 housed a training and sortie base for kaiten human torpedoes. At its peak the arsenal employed approximately 30,000 workers including 6,500 mobilized students. On August 14, 1945 — the day before Japan's surrender — 167 B-29 bombers devastated the complex in five waves, killing 738 people.
Honkawa Elementary School Peace Museum (A-bombed School Building)
本川小学校平和資料館（旧本川国民学校 被爆校舎）
The closest school to the atomic bomb hypocenter in Hiroshima, located just 410 meters away. Completed in 1928 as the city's first reinforced concrete school building, it partially survived the August 6, 1945 blast while nearly all of its approximately 400 students and 10 teachers perished. The preserved basement and structural shell were opened as a peace museum in 1988.
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.
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.
Shiraume Memorial Tower (Shiraume Student Nurse Corps)
白梅之塔（白梅学徒隊慰霊碑）
The Shiraume Memorial Tower (白梅之塔) in Itoman City, Okinawa, commemorates the Shiraume Student Nurse Corps (白梅学徒隊), composed of 46 fourth-year students from Okinawa Prefectural Second Girls' High School who were mobilized as auxiliary nurses for the Imperial Japanese Army's 24th Division First Field Hospital during the Battle of Okinawa. Twenty-two of the students perished during the battle, many killed during the chaotic retreat southward after the hospital was dissolved on June 4, 1945. Originally erected as a simple stone marker in January 1948, the memorial was rebuilt in 1951 and renovated to its current form in 1992. The site marks the location of a natural cave (gama) in the Maesato district where surviving students took shelter during the final days of the battle. Though less internationally known than the Himeyuri Student Corps from a different school, the Shiraume Corps represents one of nine female student mobilization units in Okinawa and stands as an important testament to the tragic wartime exploitation of young women.
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.
Hiroshima Gokoku Shrine
広島護國神社
A Gokoku Shrine in Hiroshima dedicated to approximately 92,000 war dead from Hiroshima Prefecture, including about 10,000 mobilized students and Women's Volunteer Corps members killed by the atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. Originally founded in 1868 to enshrine Boshin War dead, it was destroyed by the atomic bombing and rebuilt within Hiroshima Castle grounds in 1956. It represents the nationwide Gokoku Shrine system used for wartime spiritual mobilization and remains a key site for peace remembrance ceremonies.
Taiwan Governor-General Library Site
臺灣總督府圖書館跡
Site of the Taiwan Governor-General Library (臺灣總督府圖書館), the only official public library in colonial Taiwan, established in 1914 and opened in 1915 on Bo'ai Road, Taipei. Designed by architect Kondō Jūrō, the building originally served as the Governor-General's Lottery Bureau. By 1943, the library housed nearly 200,000 volumes, including invaluable collections on Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific that supported Japan's "southward advance" (南進政策) research. The building was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945, but the final director Yamanaka Shō evacuated approximately 190,000 volumes to four locations across Taipei before the destruction. After the war, the collections were transferred to the Taiwan Provincial Library (now the National Taiwan Library in Zhonghe). The original site is now occupied by the Ministry of National Defense Bo'ai Building.
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.
Taiwan Shonenko Memorial
台湾少年工記念碑
A memorial monument in the War and Peace Memorial Park in Kaohsiung's Qijin District, unveiled in 2023, honoring the approximately 8,400 Taiwanese teenagers (少年工/Shonenko) who were recruited from late 1942 and sent from 1943 onward to work at the Koza Naval Arsenal in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, manufacturing Raiden interceptor fighter aircraft during World War II. The boys, aged 12 to 19, left Taiwan from the port of Kaohsiung and endured wartime labor far from home.
Schoolchildren Evacuation Memorial (Matsumoto)
学童疎開の碑
A memorial in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, commemorating the wartime evacuation of schoolchildren (学童疎開, gakudō sokai) from Tokyo and other major cities to the Japanese countryside during 1944–1945. More than 400,000 elementary school pupils were relocated to rural areas to escape intensifying American air raids, with Nagano Prefecture serving as one of the largest receiving regions. Matsumoto City is reported to have taken in 14 schools comprising 4,437 children, housed primarily in hot spring inns and temples at Asama Onsen.
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.
Shōkeikan (National Museum for Disabled War Veterans)
しょうけい館（戦傷病者史料館）
Shōkeikan is a national museum in Chiyoda, Tokyo, dedicated to preserving and conveying the experiences of Japanese soldiers who were wounded or fell ill during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. Established by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and opened in March 2006, the museum collects oral testimonies, prosthetics, medical records, personal belongings, and documentary materials illustrating the physical and psychological hardships endured by war-injured veterans and their families during and after the conflict. Originally located in Kudanminami near Yasukuni Shrine and the Showakan (National Showa Memorial Museum), the facility relocated to Green Oak Kudan in Kudankita in October 2023.
Former Student Mobilization Factory Site (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nagoya)
旧学徒動員工場跡（名古屋三菱重工）
Site of the former Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Nagoya Aircraft Works and Engine Plant, where thousands of mobilized students (学徒動員) were conscripted to produce Zero fighters and aircraft engines from 1943 onward. On December 13, 1944, B-29 bombers killed over 300 workers including many student laborers. The Oe factory district in Minato Ward, Nagoya, now houses the Mitsubishi Oe Clock Tower Aviation History Museum, preserving the memory of wartime aircraft production and the student mobilization program that sent over 3.4 million Japanese students into military factories.
Former Shiroyama National School A-bomb Remains
旧城山国民学校校舎（城山小学校平和祈念館）
A surviving stairwell of Shiroyama National School preserves fire damage from the Nagasaki atomic bombing. Now a peace museum within an operating school, it is open during designated visiting hours.
Former Taishoya Kimono Store and Fuel Hall (Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park Rest House)
旧大正屋呉服店・燃料会館（広島市平和記念公園レストハウス）
The former Taishoya store became a wartime fuel-rationing office and survived the Hiroshima atomic bombing as a damaged shell. Its basement and exhibitions now convey the building's history and the life of the former Nakajima district.