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Chiba Special Attack Corps Monument
Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture

The Special Attack Corps Monument at Chiba Prefecture Gokoku Jinja is the 10th one erected nationwide with support from the Tokkōtai Commemoration Peace Memorial Association. The bronze figure of the front half of a kamikaze pilot honors young men who died in battle while carrying out special (suicide) attacks during the latter stage of the Pacific War.

A gokoku jinja is a Shintō shrine dedicated to persons from the prefecture who died in wars to protect Japan. The Chiba Prefecture Gokoku Jinja has several monuments to remember those persons who died during wars. Replicas of the standing kamikaze pilot have been erected at other gokoku jinja such as those in Gunma, Miyagi, and Nagano.

The monument has a plaque on its right side with the following explanation:

Chiba Prefecture Special Attack Hero Monument

Between 1941 and 1945, our country Japan fought the Greater East Asia War with the United States, Britain, China, the Soviet Union, the Netherlands, and Australia. It was for our own country's security and in order to free Asia from colonial rule of Europe and the United States. The fighting brought the region under Japanese control with consecutive victories as far as the South Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, but we permitted enemy counter-attacks in the Philippines and Okinawa due to poor supply of goods to our troops.

At this time hisshi (certain-death) special attack battle tactics, unprecedented in history, were adopted to make taiatari (body-crashing) attacks on a ship with an aircraft or a boat. Even though there was a deficiency in aircraft, it was the painful choice of a proud people. As they put their hands together in prayer, the people gave young men about 20 years old send-offs at their departures to death.

We place here that valiant figure. Present-day people who were brought up in a country that lost the war and who have been cut off from history, what would you try to protect in exchange for your lives? We hope that you will keep asking this figure. On May 3, 1951, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, testified to the U.S. Senate Armed Forces and Foreign Relations Committees that Japan's war was for self-defense [1]. Japanese people, remember this fact.

The plaque on front of the pedestal of the Special Attack Corps Monument reads "Ā tokkō" (Ah, Special Attacks) and "we certainly will never forget you."

The left side of the monument base has engraved the following words:

We humbly erect here the "Chiba Prefecture Special Attack Hero Monument" with support and cooperation of the Tokkōtai Commemoration Peace Memorial Association and Yasukuni Shrine and with heart-filled donations from bereaved families, comrades, and admiring individuals and organizations in order to honor publicly the virtues of the many spirits of the war dead from Chiba Prefecture who made sorties as Special Attack Corps members and died gloriously in battle.

May 26, 2011

Chiba Prefecture Special Attack Hero Statue Erection Committee
Chairman, Hideo Usui

The following last letters were written by Special Attack Corps members from Chiba Prefecture who died in special attacks:

Note

1. MacArthur was relieved of his position as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces on April 11, 1951, so his testimony to the U.S. Senate was when he was no longer in this position. His actual statement was the following: "They feared that if those supplies were cut off, there would be 10 to 12 million people unoccupied in Japan. Their purpose, therefore, in going to war was largely dictated by security." This quotation comes from p. 97 of United States Congress, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Inquiry into the military situation in the Far East and the facts surrounding the relief of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur from his assignment in that area (Washington, DC: Ward and Paul, 1951).


Figure of special attack pilot on
Chiba Special Attack Corps Monument