At the end of March 2015, in the Southern region of Kyushu Island, most of the tourist activity is spread around the big city of Kagoshima, with its active volcano Sakurajima, and to the south east toward the spa town of Ibuzuki. Chiran is found between the two. It seems that the west coast of Kyushu does not attract too many visitors at this time of year ... The clean, modern town of Kaseda seems half deserted and the hotels are closed for the most part. No indications or brochures in English anywhere. Having finally found an obscure tourist office at the end of the deserted corridor of the town hall, a panicked employee gives us all the brochures at his disposal. Attractive and freshly printed, they indicate a will to attract Japanese tourists to the region in the near future.
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| Flyer of the Kaseda region. On the right, the town of Kaseda with it's samurai district that runs along the stream, south of the city. |
... One can rent bicycles from the bus station, $ 5 a day, walk in an old and charming samurai neighbourhood with a few intact houses built along a small stone canal and visit a beautiful temple in an ancestral forest.
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| Shrine entrance - South of Kaseda city |
A bicycle path runs along the coast of the East China Sea. On one side; pinewoods and large sand dunes, on the other; well-ordered cultures. The ride is very pleasant. Unfortunately, spring cleaning has not yet been done on the beach, it's a real dump. This pollution is attributed to the Chinese, according to the locals. Shanghai is only 2 hours away by plane. One can very well imagine here the state of the surrounding ocean waters…
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| the beach ... |
After crossing a nice sport complex, a park and a cultivated plain, you arrive at the Peace Museum of Bansei nestled in a pine forest at the foot of the great dune of Fukiage.
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| An ad on the way to the Bansei Air Base museum sets the mood for the museum visit ... |
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| Head stripe written with blood - Bansei Peace museum |
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| Kamikaze Pilots - Bansei Peace museum |
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| Air base uniforms and artefacts - Bansei Peace museum |
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| Zero wreck found in the ocean near Kaseda - Bansei Peace museum |
The Bansei Air Base in Kaseda was the last special attack air base installed by the Imperial Japanese Army. It was build at the end of 1944 at the great Fukiage Dune on the West coast of southern Kyushu, some 16 kilometers from Chiran Air Base. Some 120 Kamikazes pilots, the youngest being 17 years old, set out for Okinawa to protect the motherland.
The base was only used for 4 months before the end of WWII; it has been called the “Phantom special attack air base” because only a few people knew about it during the War. The Japanese Army tried to keep its existence a strict military secret. The Americans started bombing the base in March 1945 bringing the casualties to 201 dead. The Japanese fighters are commemorated in the Museum. The Bansei Peace Museum facade is designed after the dual-winged training aircraft called the Red Dragonfly, which the boys yearned to pilot. The museum displays memorabilia of the base and commemorative portraits of all the Bansei fighters dead in service. The museum is not of major interest especially if you have already visited the Chiran peace museum. But contrary to the other Kamikaze museums, here it is allowed to take pictures of the displays, including the famous photograph showing the five young pilots of the base, taken the day before their suicidal sortie.
This photograph was taken at the Bansei Air Base and it is widely publicized in todays Japanese Museums and medias. It is in part responsible for the myth that Japanese Kamikaze pilots were volunteers for suicide missions and were supposedly flying to their death with smiles on their faces. We see in this picture five very young men smiling as the pilot in the middle of the photo cuddles a puppy: he was 17-year-old Corporal Yukio Araki. (When selected as a Kamikaze, young men were automatically ranked as officers, this would insure their families a higher social status and a more substantial pension from the government).
An Asahi Shimbun (Main Japanese newspaper) photographer took this picture in front of the command headquarters at Bansei Air Base on may 26 1945, the day before the five pilots sortie. The five young men died in action. It has been speculated since that on May 27th Corporal Yukio Araki was flying a Tachikawa Ki-54 twin engines training aircraft, which was one of the two aircrafts that struck the destroyer USS Braine, killing 66 of its crew. However, the ship didn’t sink. Having witnessed more than once the rewriting of history by Japanese medias and government (see the MEXT controversy), I am questioning the credibility of these speculations. In contrast with this picture largely publicized, here below are still shots of a video displayed in the Kanoya Air Base museum (not many foreign tourists around there). It's the only document I have personally seen that witnesses the moments just before a suicidal sortie: not a single smile here. This makes much more sense.
My sources: Bansei Air Base Museum, Kanoya Air Base Museum and “Kamikaze images” and “Rare Historical Photos” Web sites.
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