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Tajimadake Naval Guard Station (Sasebo, Japan)


jakelives
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From the other side of the war, this is the former Tajimadake Naval Guard Station on what's now Yumiharidake (Mt. Yumihari). Once an anti-aircraft battery and radar site, it fired upon attacking American B-29s during the Sasebo air raids. Unknown to the Allies, Sasebo housed the secret underground air defense command center for all of Kyushu and southern Honshu. (American maps listed its entrance as simply 'air raid shelter.')

 

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Originally Type 3 8-cm guns were mounted in the pits, but after the first Sasebo air raid they were replaced with Type 98 dual-mounted 10 cm turrets originally intended for warships. (Sasebo was one of Japan's four primary naval arsenals.) In total there are three gun pits and an amphitheatre-like area that first housed giant tuba-looking acoustic locators and later a radar.

 

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This shallow amphitheatre contained a Mark 4 Model 1 fire-control radar, which was just a copy of the U.S. SCR-268 captured on Corregidor, Philippines in 1942.

 

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Magazine ruins near pit No. 1.

 

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The command bunker is a short drive away. The top has been converted into a picnic table.

 

 

 

To learn more about Tajimadake and related military memorials on Yumihari you can read my article:

Picnic among the Pits: Tajimadake Naval Guard Station and Submarine No. 43 Memorial

 

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