Ehime Special Attack Corps Monument
Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture
The erection in 2008 of the Special Attack Corps Monument at Ehime Prefecture
Gokoku Jinja was coordinated by the Tokkōtai Commemoration Peace Memorial Association and the Association to
Pass On the Japanese Spirit (Nihonjin no kokoro o tsutaeru kai) and was
supported by six organizations located in Ehime Prefecture. The
monument has a bronze figure of the front half of a kamikaze pilot standing on a
stone pedestal, and it honors 74 young men from Ehime Prefecture who lost their
lives in special (suicide) attacks during WWII. Similar
monuments have been erected at other shrines throughout Japan such as Fukui
Gokoku Jinja, Kagoshima Gokoku Jinja, and Setagaya Kannon Temple in Tokyo.
Prefectures in Japan generally have a gokoku jinja, which is a Shintō shrine dedicated to persons from that prefecture who died to protect the country. Each
gokoku jinja has
various monuments to remember those who died in
wars. Ehime Prefecture Gokoku Jinja also has the Navy
Yokaren (Preparatory Flight
Training Program) Monument to remember men from the Yokaren who died in battle,
many of them in suicide attacks as part of the Special Attack Corps.
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 following history is engraved on the right side of the monument base,
and the same words are also displayed on a sign behind the monument:
Special Attack Corps Monument
Near the end of 1944 as the situation of the Greater East Asia War continued
to grow worse, over six thousand brave men lost their lives in battle in the
southern ocean as Air Special Attack Corps members. We will never forget that
the peace and prosperity in Japan today are built on their pure patriotism and
love of family. Here we erect a monument for the 74 men from Ehime Prefecture
who died. We want to pay tribute to their accomplishments and to pass down
their spirit to future generations
April 2008
It is not certain what is the monument's source of the number of "over six
thousand" who lost their lives as Air Special Attack Corps members. The Tokkōtai
Commemoration Peace Memorial Association has a plaque next to the
kamikaze pilot statue at Yasukuni Jinja Yūshūkan
in Tōkyō
that displays numbers that are inconsistent with this total on the Ehime Special
Attack Corps Monument. That plaque, put up in 2005, states that 5,843 total men
died in special attacks, and only 3,946 men were Air Special Attack Corps
members who died in special attacks if the Naval Air Corps, Army Air Corps, and
Giretsu Airborne Unit are included. The other men who died used something other
than aircraft, such as shin'yō explosive motorboats, midget submarines, and
kaiten
manned torpedoes.
The following last letters were written by Special Attack Corps members from
Ehime Prefecture who died in special attacks:
A Zero fighter propeller is on display next to the Special Attack Corps
Monument with the following information sign behind it:
Japanese Navy Zero Fighter Propeller
This propeller is a variable-pitch type (constant speed propeller) that was
used for the Japanese Navy's Zero fighter, which played an active role as most
cutting-edge fighter of its time during the Pacific War.
A constant speed propeller had a mechanism that would quickly adjust the
propeller pitch automatically based on changes in speed in order to maintain the
engine's nominal rotation speed. This propeller was at the highest level in
those days.
In October 1968, Tsutomu Katō of Jindengawara in Uwajima City recovered the
propeller in a fishing net in the western Uwa Sea, and he donated it then to the
Japan Ground Self Defense Force (JGSDF) Matsuyama Base.
(moved to Ehime Prefecture Gokoku Jinja in September 2001)
Zero Fighter Constant Speed Propeller
on display at Ehime Prefecture Gokoku Jinja
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