18 hours ago
'Silent storytellers': 11 aircraft shelters in southwest Japan city recall wartime history
USA, OITA -- Eleven "entaigo" concrete bunkers, which were built to protect military aircraft from air raids, still remain in this southwestern Japan city.
Visiting the places where warplanes were once housed in Usa, Oita Prefecture, this Mainichi Shimbun reporter found they are now being used as sheds and tractor garages. These wartime facilities have blended into the peaceful landscapes of modern life.
The Usa Naval Air Corps was established in 1939, and around 800 personnel were stationed at the base, which was centered in the Yanagigaura area. As the war situation worsened, the base became a site for special suicide attack units in 1945, and many young men departed from there to the skies over Okinawa Prefecture.
The base was targeted in air raids, and many service members and civilians lost their lives there. The concrete shelters with roofs were apparently covered with grass and other materials to make them harder to spot from the air and avoid becoming targets.
The Joi No.1 entaigo bunker in the city's Joi district has been preserved as a park. It is believed that Zero fighter jets were stored there during the war, and the shelter now displays a Zero engine and propeller that were recovered from the waters off Kunisaki in northeast Oita Prefecture.
A 62-year-old woman who lives near the bunker says her grandmother often talked about sharing dried sweet potatoes with kamikaze pilots. She said, "When I was a child, we used to climb on the shelters and play. It was such a normal part of the landscape. Now, young people go out of their way to come see them. As fewer people who actually lived through that time remain, I think these shelters serve as silent storytellers."
(Japanese original by Kaho Kitayama, Fukuoka Photo and Video Department)
