Youth Pilots' Memorial Column
Musashimurayama City, Tokyo Prefecture
The grounds of Zenshoji Temple have an unusually shaped column to honor
Army Youth Pilot Program graduates who died in battle. The plaque on the wall
behind the column gives the following explanation of the monument's purpose
along with the history behind it:
The Army Youth Pilot system began with its 1st Class in February 1934 at the Tokorozawa [1]
Army
Flight School.
In 1938, due to expanding demand of the Army
Air Force, the Tokyo Army Flight School was established in Murayama [2], and the
6th Class started at the school. In addition, Army Youth Pilot schools were
established in Otsu and Oita, and training corps were formed in each place for
hurried training. Forty-six thousand young eagles left the nest through the
20th Class at war's end.
As the backbone of the Army Air Force's piloting, communications, and
maintenance, they went through the China Incident [3] and the Nomonhan Incident
[4] and took part in the Greater East Asian War. They actively participated,
risking their lives, at the battlefront of the skies north and south during
the crisis threatening the survival of Japan. Over four thousand five hundred
young eagles, including over four hundred fifty special attack force members [5],
gave their lives in the sky with concern for the peace and prosperity of their
country. They were still rosy-cheeked teenagers.
In 1963, a monument was erected on the site of the Tokyo Army Youth
Pilot School. Since then, every year survivors gather together for a
memorial service. Now, based on the care of these people, a memorial column
has been erected at this spot hoping for eternal repose of the departed.
This
memorial honors the great achievements of the war dead and embodies our hope
for eternal peace.
October 10, 1990
Graduates of Army Youth Pilot Training Program
Youth Pilot Association
Each support for the railing around the column has engraved on it the name of
one of the twenty classes that graduated from the Army Youth Pilot Training
Program.
Notes
1. Tokorozawa City in Saitama Prefecture is directly north of Musashimurayama
City, located west of Shinjuku and on the northern edge of the center part of
Tokyo Prefecture.
2. Murayama was the name of the village where the
flight school was located in 1938. The area became part of Musashimurayama City
in 1970.
3. The China Incident is the term used in
Japan to refer to the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945.
4. The Nomonhan Incident is the term used in
Japan to refer to the Battle of Halhin Gol in the undeclared 1939 war between
Japan and the Soviet Union over the location of the border between
Japanese-occupied Manchuria and the Soviet Union.
5. Although the Navy used the term
"kamikaze" to refer to most of their pilots who carried out suicide
attacks, the Army did not use this name to refer to their suicide pilots. The
general term used in Japanese to refer to men who committed suicide attacks in
World War II is "special attack force members" (tokubetsu kougeki
taiin, often shortened to tokkoutai).
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