Navy Underground Headquarters

photo by 663highland · CC BY 2.5

photo by Toshihiro Matsui · CC BY-SA 3.0

In the command room the grenade fragments are still in the wall.

You go down one hundred and five steps and the air changes. The route covers three hundred of the four hundred and fifty metres dug with pickaxes between August and December 1944, and on the ceiling you can still see the marks of the blades. In the commander's room the wall is riddled with holes: it was there that Admiral Ōta Minoru and his officers killed themselves with hand grenades, on 13 June 1945. Above, in a room, is the telegram that Ōta wrote beforehand.

It was the headquarters of the Japanese Navy during the Battle of Okinawa, dug in four months by soldiers with hoes and pickaxes under a hill in Tomigusuku. The tunnels have been left as they were then. The memorial tower that stands above dates from 1958, and the commander's bones were collected in 1952; the site has been open to the public since 1970.

ℹ️ Open every day, 9:00–17:00, last ticket at 16:30. Six hundred yen, three hundred for children, half price with a disability certificate, free for preschool children. Free car park for one hundred cars and ten buses. You go in down a steep flight of steps and come out by a ramp; there are two wheelchairs. ⚠️ There are no toilets inside the tunnel and the climb back up is long: it is best to go before you descend. By public transport the bus stop is at the foot of the hill and you walk up through the park. Panels in Japanese and in English.

🚉 Oroku Iriguchi · 19 min walk

Sources: kaigungou.ocvb.or.jp · okinawa.stripes.com · 4travel.jp

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