Special Attack (Kamikaze) Units
特攻
Bases, training sites and memorials of the special attack units of 1944–45.
History
This theme covers the airfields from which the special attack units of the Japanese Army and Navy sortied in 1944–45, the bases where they trained, and the museums and memorials that record the pilots and crews. "Special attack" (tokkō) meant attacks premised on the death of the operator, who crashed his aircraft or craft into an enemy ship. From October 1944 the Army and Navy organised special attack units: aircraft, the Ohka rocket plane, Kaiten manned torpedoes, Shinyo explosive motorboats (and the Army's equivalent), and Fukuryu divers armed with pole mines.
Organised special attack began in the Philippines campaign. Vice Admiral Ōnishi Takijirō of the First Air Fleet formed the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps, and on October 25, 1944 the Shikishima unit led by Lieutenant Seki Yukio struck U.S. escort carriers off Leyte. The Army formed its own units and the tactic became routine. During the Battle of Okinawa from March to June 1945 both services flew repeated mass sorties from bases in southern Kyushu — Kanoya, Chiran, Bansei, Kokubu, Kushira and Miyakonojō — and from Taiwan; Kaiten were carried by submarine from bases such as Ōtsushima in Yamaguchi, and Shin'yō and Fukuryū units were deployed along the home coasts to meet an invasion. Counts of airmen killed in special attacks vary slightly, but the total for both services is generally put at about 4,000. The attacks sank or damaged a considerable number of Allied ships but did not change the course of the war.
Special attack remains among the most contested parts of Japan's war memory. Most of the men were around twenty, among them university students called up as officers and teenage graduates of the Yokaren; participation was formally voluntary, but within the military organisation and social climate of the time refusal was extremely difficult, and the degree of coercion in practice varied by unit and period. Postwar accounts have been pulled between mourning the individual dead, questioning the responsibility of those who gave the orders, and resisting their glorification as models of patriotic sacrifice. The dead included men from Korea and Taiwan.
Under this theme visitors will find runways, aircraft shelters, magazines and half-buried barracks at former special attack bases; training bases, launch sites and storage tunnels for Kaiten and Shin'yō; and museums displaying last letters and personal effects, such as the Chiran Peace Museum, the Kanoya Air Base Museum and the Kaiten Memorial Museum. Their approaches differ, and it is worth noticing the perspective each one takes.
Related sites (51)
Chiran Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots
知覧特攻平和会館
The Chiran Peace Museum commemorates the 1,036 Imperial Japanese Army pilots who flew kamikaze missions during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, many departing from the adjacent Chiran Airfield.
Yamato Museum (Kure Maritime Museum)
大和ミュージアム（呉市海事歴史科学館）
The Yamato Museum in Kure features a 26.3-meter 1/10 scale model of the battleship Yamato, Zero fighter aircraft, Kaiten human torpedoes, and artifacts from Japan's largest wartime naval shipbuilding center.
Yokaren Peace Memorial Museum
予科練平和記念館
A peace museum in Ami, Ibaraki Prefecture dedicated to the memory of the Naval Aviator Preparatory Course (Yokaren) trainees — boys aged 14 to 17 who were recruited and trained as Imperial Japanese Navy pilots from 1930 to 1945. Of approximately 240,000 boys enlisted over 15 years, 24,000 completed combat training; about 80 percent of graduates perished in battle, many as kamikaze pilots. Opened in 2010, the museum stands on the grounds of the former Tsuchiura Naval Air Corps, the central Yokaren training facility.
Kanoya Air Base Museum
鹿屋航空基地史料館
The principal Imperial Japanese Navy base for kamikaze sorties during the final months of WWII. Almost half of all naval kamikaze attacks departed from Kanoya between March and August 1945. The site is now a JMSDF air station with a museum housing over 5,500 artifacts.
Kaiten Memorial Museum
回天記念館
Museum on Ozushima island dedicated to the kaiten human torpedo program — the Imperial Japanese Navy's underwater special attack weapon. Located at the site of the first and best-preserved kaiten training base (est. September 1944), the museum houses over 1,000 artifacts including farewell letters, uniforms, and personal belongings of the young pilots who perished. Access requires a ferry from Tokuyama Port.
Usa Naval Air Base Ruins
宇佐海軍航空基地跡
The best-preserved WWII naval air base ruin complex in Kyushu, with approximately 10 concrete aircraft revetments (entaigo) still standing amid rice paddies. Established in 1939 as a training base for carrier-based attack and dive-bomber crews, it later became a kamikaze staging base whose special attack units sortied in April 1945 — 81 planes and 154 airmen never returned. The devastating April 21, 1945 air raid killed over 320 personnel in just 11 minutes. The Jōi No. 1 Revetment, a city-designated historic site, and the Usa City Peace Memorial Museum now anchor the preservation effort.
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.
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.
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.
Izumi Naval Air Base Ruins
出水海軍航空基地跡
Former Imperial Japanese Navy air base in Izumi City, Kagoshima Prefecture, which served as a major kamikaze staging base in the final months of WWII. The site preserves well-maintained aircraft revetments (entaigō), an underground command bunker, and a guard tower with visible bullet damage. Over 200 special attack pilots departed from Izumi between March and April 1945.
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.
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.
Shinyo Special Attack Base Ruins (18th Shinyo Squadron, Nominoura)
震洋特攻基地跡（第18震洋隊・呑之浦）
Ruins of the 18th Shinyo Special Attack Squadron base at Nominoura inlet on Kakeromajima Island, part of the Amami archipelago in the Nansei Islands. Established in November 1944, the base housed 52 explosive motorboats and 186 personnel under the command of Toshio Shimao, who later became one of Japan's most celebrated postwar novelists. Twelve concrete storage tunnels carved into the hillside survive, one containing a full-scale Shinyo replica. The squadron received sortie orders on August 13, 1945, but the war ended before the attack could be launched.
Miyakonojo Airfield Ruins (East & West)
都城飛行場跡（都城東・西飛行場）
Site of two Imperial Japanese Army airfields in southern Kyushu from which 79 Shinbu (Army special attack) pilots flew Ki-84 Hayate fighters on 17 kamikaze sorties against the U.S. fleet off Okinawa between April 6 and July 1, 1945. The West Airfield (built 1934, expanded to 1,200 m runway by 1945) launched the first mission on April 6; after devastating air raids on April 27–28 destroyed it, operations shifted to the East Airfield (built 1944 on converted rice paddies by the Navy, later transferred to Army use). Today, stone monuments at both former airfield sites and the Hayate Shinbu Special Attack Corps Memorial in Toshima Park (former Army cemetery) preserve the memory of the young pilots, most aged 18–23, who never returned.
Tokushima Naval Air Group Ruins
徳島海軍航空隊跡
Former Imperial Japanese Navy air training base in Matsushige, Tokushima Prefecture, where the Shiragiku Special Attack Unit was formed in 1945. Trainee pilots flew obsolete Kyushu K11W Shiragiku trainer aircraft on one-way kamikaze missions against Allied ships off Okinawa. Of the 108 men who perished, 56 were killed in special attack sorties launched from Kushira Air Base between May and June 1945. The site is now shared by Tokushima Airport and JMSDF Tokushima Air Base, which houses a small memorial museum with a Kannon statue honoring the fallen.
Taisha Naval Air Base Ruins
大社海軍航空基地跡
Former Imperial Japanese Navy air base in Hikawa-chō, Izumo City, Shimane Prefecture, constructed March–June 1945 and described as the largest military base in western Japan at the time. The base housed the 762nd Naval Air Group with Ginga (P1Y) bombers and stored 50 unassembled Ohka suicide weapons. Surviving structures include portions of a 1,700m concrete runway — one of Japan's largest war relics — plus aircraft revetments and tunnel storage facilities in the surrounding hillsides.
Haranomachi Army Airfield
原町陸軍飛行場
Former Imperial Japanese Army airfield in Minamisōma, Fukushima Prefecture, established in 1936 as the Hibarigahara Airfield and converted to a military flight training facility in 1940. During the final year of the Pacific War it served as a kamikaze special-attack training base, training pilots of 14 tokkōtai units that fought in the Philippines, off Okinawa and in the homeland. The Nakoso Fu-Go balloon bomb launch base lay about 90 km to the south on the same Hamadōri coast, though no operational link between the two is documented. A memorial at Jingasaki Park Cemetery, erected in 1971, records 71 airmen from the airfield who died in special-attack units.
Bansei Tokko Peace Museum
万世特攻平和祈念館
War museum in Minamisatsuma commemorating the 201 airmen who died at Bansei Air Base, the last airfield built by the Imperial Japanese Army and a special attack (kamikaze) base. The museum displays the salvaged wreck of an Aichi E13A1 reconnaissance seaplane — the only surviving example in Japan — recovered from the nearby sea floor in 1992, along with farewell letters, photographs, and personal effects of the pilots, including the iconic 1945 photograph of 17-year-old Corporal Yukio Araki holding a puppy with his 72nd Shinbu Squadron comrades the day before their final mission.
Former 32nd Infantry Regiment Barracks Site (Kajō Park)
旧歩兵第三十二連隊兵営跡（霞城公園）
The former garrison site of the Imperial Japanese Army 32nd Infantry Regiment, located within the Ninomaru (second bailey) of Yamagata Castle (also known as Kajō, "Mist Castle"). The regiment was formed at Akita in 1896 and brought to Yamagata in 1898, after the city purchased the castle grounds and donated them to the Army; it kept the castle as its home garrison for nearly half a century until Japan's surrender in 1945. The 32nd Regiment fought in every major conflict of modern Japan — the Russo-Japanese War, the Siberian Intervention, the invasion of Manchuria, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and ultimately the Battle of Okinawa, where the regiment was virtually annihilated. After the war, the military land was transferred to Yamagata City and opened in 1949 as Kajō Park. Today the park preserves the reconstructed Ninomaru Higashi-Ōtemon Gate (1991), the Honmaru Ichimonji Gate, stone monument markers for the 32nd Regiment, and approximately 1,500 cherry trees originally planted by returning soldiers in 1906. It remains one of the most significant former military garrison sites in the Tōhoku region.
Ashiya Air Field
芦屋飛行場
An Imperial Japanese Army airfield in Fukuoka Prefecture, built around 1940 and established as an Army air base by 1942, used for fighter interception of B-29 raids and as a staging base for Army kamikaze (Shinbu-tai) special attack sorties during the final months of WWII. Now the JASDF Ashiya Air Base.
Oppama Naval Air Technical Arsenal
追浜海軍航空技術廠
The Imperial Japanese Navy's premier aviation research and testing facility at Oppama, Yokosuka, where nearly every naval aircraft — including the legendary A6M Zero — underwent prototype evaluation and test flights. Established in 1912 as a naval aviation research committee and expanded into the Naval Air Technical Arsenal (Kaigun Koku Gijutsu Sho) by 1939, the site was the birthplace of Japanese naval aviation technology. Today the grounds are occupied by the Nissan Motor Oppama Plant.
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.
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.
Tsuiki Naval Air Base
築城海軍航空基地
Imperial Japanese Navy air base in northeast Kyushu, completed in 1942 as a carrier fighter pilot training facility. The Tsuiki Naval Air Group trained Zero fighter pilots and later staged kamikaze sorties — on March 18, 1945, six Ginga bombers departed on a special attack mission against the US task force southeast of Kyushu, with five aircraft and 15 crewmen lost. On August 9, 1945, ten fighters scrambled from Tsuiki in a failed attempt to intercept the B-29 carrying the Nagasaki atomic bomb. Reinforced concrete aircraft shelters (entaigo) survive in nearby Inadou, Yukuhashi City, with the Inadou No. 1 Revetment designated a Fukuoka Prefecture historic site in 2023. The base is now JASDF Tsuiki Air Base, home of the 8th Air Wing.
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.
Hotarukan Tomiya Shokudo
ホタル館 富屋食堂
Restored wartime military dining hall in Chiran, Kagoshima, originally run by Tome Torihama (1902–1992) — known as the 'Mother of the Special Attack Corps' (特攻の母). During 1945, the Tomiya Shokudo served as the designated army restaurant for kamikaze pilots departing from Chiran Air Base. Torihama provided emotional support, home-cooked meals, and motherly care to young pilots on the eve of their final missions, often forwarding their last letters to families. The building was faithfully reconstructed and opened as a memorial museum displaying photographs, personal effects, and stories of the pilots and Torihama's lifelong dedication to preserving their memory.
Tainan Airfield (present-day Tainan Airport)
台南飛行場（現台南空港）
Major Imperial Japanese military airfield in southwestern Taiwan, operational from 1937. Home of the elite Tainan Air Group (台南海軍航空隊) whose Zero fighter pilots — including aces Saburō Sakai, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, and Junichi Sasai — launched the devastating December 8, 1941 attack on Clark and Iba airfields in the Philippines. The base remained a naval air station (765th Naval Air Group from February 1945) while Taiwan's airfields served as staging points for special attack (tokko) sorties during the 1945 Okinawa campaign. Repeatedly bombed by American B-24 and B-25 aircraft from March to July 1945.
Hualien Harbor Airfield (Karenko Airfield)
花蓮港飛行場
A major Imperial Japanese Army airfield on the east coast of Taiwan, established in 1936 as a dual military-civil airfield. During the final months of WWII, it served as one of Taiwan's principal kamikaze staging bases for Operation Ten-Go (天號作戰). Between April and July 1945, eleven kamikaze sorties launched from Hualien, sending 25 special attack pilots on one-way missions against Allied forces at Okinawa — by some accounts second only to Hakkachō Airfield in total kamikaze departures from Taiwan. The site is now ROCAF Hualien Air Base.
Huwei Sugar Factory Dormitories
虎尾糖廠宿舎群
Japanese colonial-era sugar factory dormitory complex in Huwei, Yunlin County, Taiwan, whose buildings are said to have been used in the final months of World War II to lodge special attack (kamikaze) pilots from the nearby Huwei Naval Airfield, although the sources consulted do not document this. The Huwei Naval Air Group (虎尾海軍航空隊), established in May 1944 to train roughly 260 flight cadets, was dissolved in February 1945 due to fuel and materiel shortages; its aircraft were then transferred to the Chūsei-tai (忠誠隊) special attack squadron for suicide missions against American ships near Okinawa. The sugar factory's First Official Dormitory (第一公差宿舍, also called Taishunkan / 臺春館), built in 1916, and its surrounding Japanese-style residential quarter are the buildings associated with this account. The dormitory complex (reported as 11 to 12 surviving buildings) was designated a county-level historic monument in 2015.
Yilan North Airfield (Giran Airfield)
宜蘭北飛行場
One of three Japanese military airfields in Yilan, Taiwan, the North Airfield (Giran Airfield) was established in 1936 and became a major staging base for kamikaze special attack squadrons during the final year of WWII. Sixty-two special-attack aircraft sortied from the Yilan airfield complex between April and June 1945. A number of hardened aircraft shelters survive in the area, and remains of the airfields are protected as registered historic buildings.
Taichung Shuinan Airfield
台中飛行場
The Imperial Japanese Army's largest airfield in central Taiwan, established around 1936–1940 in Taichū Prefecture. The airfield served as both a military base and the only civilian airport in the prefecture, operating scheduled flights to Japan proper. During the final months of the Pacific War, Shuinan hosted kamikaze special attack units and was heavily bombed by U.S. carrier aircraft on January 3, 1945. A surviving WW2-era machine gun bunker (機槍堡) is designated a historic building. The former airfield site is now the Shuinan Economic and Trade Park (水湳經貿園區).
Huwei Airfield
虎尾飛行場
A major Imperial Japanese Navy airfield in Huwei, Yunlin County, Taiwan, established in 1943-1944 for pilot training. After the training unit was disbanded in February 1945 the field was turned over to operational units and its abandoned trainers were passed to the Taiwan-based special attack unit Chūsei-tai; the nearby Huwei Sugar Factory produced anhydrous alcohol for fuel.
Longtan Airfield
龍潭飛行場
A concealed Imperial Japanese Army airfield constructed in the second half of 1944 in Longtan (龍潭), Taoyuan, northern Taiwan (Formosa). The base housed the 20th Fighter Squadron and the Makoto 16th Special Attack Squadron, operating 26 Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa and 14 Ki-84 Hayate fighters. During Operation Ten (天號作戰) in spring 1945, at least one special attack (tokkou) mission departed from Longtan. After the war, the site became the Republic of China Army Aviation 601st Brigade base (龍城營區), which remains an active military installation.
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.
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.
Akae Airfield Revetments
掩体壕群・赤江飛行場跡
Surviving WWII aircraft revetments from the former Imperial Japanese Navy Akae Airfield in Miyazaki City. Seven concrete shelters remain from the approximately 50 originally built in 1944, making them among the best-preserved examples in Japan. The airfield served as a major staging base for kamikaze operations during the final months of the war.
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.
Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal
横須賀海軍航空技術廠
The Imperial Japanese Navy's premier aviation research and development center, established in 1932 at Yokosuka. Renamed Kūgishō (空技廠) in 1939, it designed some of Japan's most iconic WWII aircraft including the D4Y Suisei dive bomber and the MXY-7 Ohka rocket-powered kamikaze weapon, though production was outsourced to manufacturers like Aichi and Nakajima.
Chiran Dispersed Kamikaze Staging Sites
知覧周辺特攻基地群遺跡
Scattered across the countryside around Chiran Airfield in southern Kagoshima, these dispersed wartime sites include aircraft revetments, the triangular barracks where kamikaze pilots spent their final hours, a radio communications bunker, ammunition magazines, and other infrastructure ruins separate from the main peace museum complex.
Fukuryu Special Attack Unit Training Base
伏龍特攻隊訓練基地
Training base at Yokosuka for the Fukuryu (Crouching Dragon) special attack unit — human mine divers equipped with explosive charges on bamboo poles, intended to destroy Allied landing craft during the anticipated invasion of the Japanese home islands. One of the most desperate suicide weapons conceived at the end of WWII, with training conducted at Nobi Beach in Yokosuka under the Yokosuka Anti-Submarine School.
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.
Beitou Public Bathhouse (Beitou Hot Spring Museum)
北投温泉公共浴場（北投温泉博物館）
The Beitou Hot Spring Museum, originally built in 1913 as the Hokutō Public Bathhouse — described as the largest and most lavish public bathhouse of its day, and often called the largest in East Asia — served multiple roles during the Japanese colonial era in Taiwan. During the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), the Imperial Japanese Army established a convalescent hospital in Beitou for wounded soldiers, and throughout the colonial period the hot spring district functioned as a rest and recuperation area for military personnel, government officials, and elites. During WWII, inns in Beitou are said to have hosted kamikaze pilots for their final meals, and wounded soldiers were treated in the district. Some accounts also associate the area with wartime comfort stations (慰安所). After decades of neglect following Japan's withdrawal in 1945, the bathhouse was restored and reopened as a museum in 1998.
Beitou Museum (Kazan Ryokan)
佳山旅館（北投文物館）
Originally built in 1921 as the Kazan Ryokan, a premier Japanese hot-spring inn in colonial Taiwan, this building is said to have served as a Japanese military officers' club during WWII and to have hosted kamikaze pilots for their final meals before missions. Now the Beitou Museum, it is one of Taiwan's finest preserved two-story wooden Japanese structures and a designated historic monument.
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.
Miyazaki Naval Air Group Ruins (Miyazaki Kamikaze Base Memorial)
宮崎海軍航空隊跡（宮崎特攻基地鎮魂碑）
Site of the Imperial Japanese Navy air group at Akae Airfield (now Miyazaki Airport), which served as a major kamikaze staging base from February 1945. Forty-seven Ginga bombers with 140 crew members, together with Suisei dive bombers carrying 19 crew, took off from here on special attack missions. A memorial monument (Chinkon no Hi) was erected in 1983.
Zuoying Old City (Old City of Fongshan County)
左営旧城（鳳山県旧城）
A Qing-dynasty walled city in present-day Zuoying District, Kaohsiung, first enclosed with earthen walls in 1722 and rebuilt in stone in 1825–26; it is often billed as Taiwan's first stone city, although Changhua's masonry walls are recorded as earlier. During the Japanese colonial period, the walled city was designated a military restricted zone to protect the adjacent Zuoying Naval Port from 1940 onward, with over fifty households forcibly relocated and the West Gate demolished. The Japanese Imperial Navy deployed Shinyo suicide motorboat squadrons within the old city area during WWII. Designated a first-class (now national) historic site in 1985, the East, North, and South Gates survive along with portions of the stone walls.
Hirao Kaiten Base Remains
平生回天基地跡
Remains of the Imperial Japanese Navy's third kaiten (human torpedo) training and launch base, established on the Atata Peninsula of Hirao Town in March 1945. The base dispatched submarine I-58 with six kaiten on July 18, 1945; five pilots were killed in action in the Philippine Sea. A memorial monument (erected 1959) and the Atata Exchange Hall (opened 2004) now preserve the memory of the nine men who died.
Jinhae Guard District (Chinkai Naval Base)
鎮海警備府
The Imperial Japanese Navy's largest naval base on the Korean Peninsula, established in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War on Jinhae Bay. Elevated to Guard District (警備府) status in November 1941, it served as a key operational hub for naval operations in the Sea of Japan and Korea Strait throughout the Pacific War. The site remains a major Republic of Korea Navy base.
Oga Kaiten Training Base Remains
大神回天訓練基地跡
Remains of a 1945 naval training base for kaiten manned suicide torpedoes on Beppu Bay. A public memorial park displays a full-size replica, while original support structures and storage tunnels survive at scattered locations.
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.
Okegawa Branch of the Kumagaya Army Flying School
旧熊谷陸軍飛行学校桶川分教場（桶川飛行学校平和祈念館）
The Army flying school's separate Okegawa campus preserves restored barracks and service buildings. It trained pilots before becoming a special-attack training facility in 1945 and later housing returnees.