Byakkotai Graves, Iimori-yama

photo by alonfloc · CC BY 3.0

photo by Kounosu · CC BY-SA 3.0

At sixteen or seventeen they killed themselves believing the castle had fallen: it had not yet fallen.

On 23 August 1868, after defeat on the Tonoguchihara plain, a unit of the Byakkotai (samurai boys aged sixteen or seventeen) withdrew to this hill carrying their wounded. Seeing Aizuwakamatsu in flames in the distance, they believed Tsuruga Castle had already fallen and took their own lives on the spot: the castle, in fact, was still holding out. The graves of the nineteen who died here, together with those of thirty-one others who fell in battle elsewhere, remain on the hill; today an escalator (スロープコンベア) takes those who cannot manage the climb on foot up the flight of stone steps.

A memorial hill in Aizuwakamatsu linked to the ritual suicide of a Byakkotai unit during the Boshin War, with the graves of the nineteen who died and of other fighters from the Aizu domain.

ℹ️ Free entry to the hill; paid escalator for the climb. By train, the ‘Haikara-san’ sightseeing bus from JR Aizuwakamatsu to ‘Iimoriyama-shita’, then 5 minutes' walk; by car about 30 minutes from the Aizuwakamatsu interchange.

🚉 Aizu-Wakamatsu · 26 min walk

Sources: tif.ne.jp · dokodemogo.jp

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