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Ogasawara NP, Tokyo
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Hit north of Saipan in June 1944, the army-requisitioned Hinko-maru limped onward—then was torpedoed again near Chichijima in late July and grounded at Sakaiura. Its coral-covered hull now shelters fish.
In 1944, 6,886 civilians were forced from Ogasawara. After the war, only 129 Euro-American islanders were allowed back to Chichijima in 1946; others waited until Japan regained the islands in 1968.
Chichijima’s caves were more than shelters: tunnels and enlarged caves became barracks with electricity from gas generators, water cisterns and cooking areas—everyday necessities tucked inside wartime defenses.
On August 31, 1944, a bomb hit soldiers gathered outside the Naval Air Group cave as they watched an air raid over Futami Bay; 52 died. The Maritime Self-Defense Force still holds an annual memorial there.
Though Chichijima endured intense air raids, U.S. troops never landed there during the fighting; occupation forces arrived after Japan surrendered in 1945. Nearby Iwo Jima, by contrast, saw a major ground battle.
A barrel fragment at Daikonyama Park came from a 24-cm Type 45 howitzer moved from Shigureyama. Its name gives its bore width and 1912 adoption year; 4 such guns once stood at Omura battery.
Air raids destroyed Chichijima’s prewar St. George’s Church. A replacement was built in 1967, a year before Japan regained the islands, with help from U.S. forces and island residents.
Many of Chichijima’s wartime installations survived because the U.S. Navy left them largely untouched after 1945. When Japan regained the islands in 1968, bunkers, gun sites and trails remained.
