From here 439 of the army's 1,036 kamikaze pilots took off, almost half of the total.
The museum, opened in 1987 on the basis of an earlier, smaller exhibition, holds about 14,000 items, among them personal effects, photographs and farewell letters of the pilots who took off from Chiran airfield between 1944 and 1945. About 5,000 photographs and letters are displayed in chronological order by date of death; the items kept include an original Zero fighter. In 2019 TripAdvisor ranked it first among the museums of Japan in its annual ranking.
Chiran was one of the bases from which the special missions (特攻, tokkō) set out in the final phase of the Pacific War: about 439 army pilots took off from here, about 40% of the total of 1,036 fallen in the army's special missions. The nearby Peace Kannon Hall commemorates 1,028 fallen in all, from different bases.
ℹ️ Address: 〒897-0302 Minamikyūshū-shi, Chiran-chō Kōri 17881. Check opening hours and ticket price on the official site before your visit.
🚉 Tokko-kannon entrance · 4 min walk
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Nearby
Chiran Samurai Residence District2.3 kmphoto by René Haas · CC BY-SA 4.0
Kamafuta Shrine12.5 kmphoto by 矢野弘幸 · CC BY-SA 4.0