Bansei Special Attack Monument
Bansei Air Base, constructed from the summer of 1943 to the end of 1944, served
as the sortie base for 121 kamikaze pilots during the Battle of Okinawa. The
Bansei Special Attack Monument, erected in 1972, stands in front of the Bansei
Tokko Peace Museum in Minamisatsuma City, Kagoshima Prefecture.
The monument has a bronze image of a pilot on its upper half. The
bottom half has the inscription "yorozuyo ni," which means
"forever." The name "Bansei" has the same kanji (Chinese
characters) as can be used for "yorozuyo." Although popularly
called the Special Attack Monument, it was erected not only to honor the young
men who died in suicide attacks but also the airmen based at Bansei who died in
conventional attacks (Naemura 1993, 384).
Hichiro Naemura, who served as an Army flight instructor in
1945 and spent much time at Bansei Air Base, led the efforts to construct the
Bansei Special Attack Monument and to open the Bansei Tokko Peace Museum. For many years after the end of the war people thought kamikaze pilots had
departed from Chiran Air Base, about 12 miles to the southeast of Bansei Air
Base, but actually some of them sortied from Bansei (Naemura 1993, 3). Since
the end of the war, Naemura has tried to make the public aware of the young men from
Bansei who died in the war.
Each year in April a memorial service is held at the site of the Bansei
Special Attack Monument and the Bansei Tokko Peace Museum.
Source Cited
Naemura, Hichiro. 1993. Rikugun saigo no tokkou kichi:
Bansei tokkoutaiin no isho to isatsu (Army's last special attack base: Last
letters and photographs of Bansei special attack corps members). Osaka: Toho
Shuppan.
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