Bansei Tokkō Peace Museum | |
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万世特攻平和祈念館 | |
Airmen from Bansei Air Base before their mission taken on May 26, 1945. Front row, reading left to right: Tsutomu Hayakama, Yukio Araki, and Takemasha Snda. Rear row, reading left to right: Kaname Takahashi and Takahashi Mineyoshimi. Each of these young men were corporals. At 17, Yukio Araki is the youngest known Kamikaze pilot to die in the war. In this photo, he had one day to live and that may have something to do with his solemn expression.
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General information | |
Address | 1955-3 Kasedatakahashi |
Town or city | Minamisatsuma, Kagoshima Prefecture |
Country | Japan |
Coordinates | 31°26′14″N 130°17′43″E / 31.43722°N 130.29528°ECoordinates: 31°26′14″N 130°17′43″E / 31.43722°N 130.29528°E |
Opened | 1993 |
Bansei Tokkō Peace Museum (万世特攻平和祈念館 Bansei Tokkō Heiwa Kinenkan?) opened in Minamisatsuma, Kagoshima Prefecture, on the western side of the Satsuma Peninsula, Japan about a kilometer (.6 American miles) from the East China Sea. The museum opened in 1993 to commemorate the lives of the 201 airmen from the Bansei Air Base (万世飛行場?) who died in "special attack" operations in the final months of the Pacific War. Hichiro Naemura, a flight instructor at the Bansei base in 1945, spearheaded the effort to establish this institution as a memorial to his fallen comrades.