Yonago Pilot Training School Monument
Yonago City, Tottori Prefecture
The Ministry of Communications and Transportation established 13 Pilot Training Schools before
the end of World War II. The first two, located in Yonago City and Sendai City,
were established in 1938 and served as training facilities for pilots who would work in
the Ministry of Communications and Transportation primarily to carry mail by plane. During the
Pacific War, the Army and Navy increasingly used these Pilot Training Schools as
sources for much needed trained pilots. The Army ran ten Pilot Training Schools
(year established in parentheses) in Sendai (1938), Yonago (1938), Niigata
(1941), Kumamoto (1941), Inba (1941), Kyōto (1942), Okayama (1942), Miyakonojō
(1942), Koga (1942), and Chikugo (1944). The Navy had three Pilot Training
Schools in Ehime (1942), Nagasaki (1942), and Fukuyama (1943).
From all of the 13 Pilot Training Schools, there were 3,200 men who
graduated, received supplemental flight training at Army and Navy training
bases, and became noncommissioned officers. As Japan's situation worsened toward
the end of the war, 162 graduates from Pilot Training Schools died in special
(suicide) attacks.
Camp Yonago of the Japan Ground Self Defense Force now occupies the location
of the Yonago Pilot Training School. There is a small museum at Camp Yonago
with artifacts from the Pilot Training School, Army Base, and Ground Self
Defense Force. The Yonago Pilot Training School Monument at Camp Yonago has a
plaque to the right of it with the following explanation:
Record of Monument Erection
On June 11, 1938, based on demand for pilots in those days, Ministry of
Communications and Transportation Pilot Training Schools were established as means to provide
locations for civilian aviator training. Training of pilots began and
continued until the end of the Greater East Asia War on August 15, 1945.
During that time over 1,000 young men shared their lives and dreamed with
aspirations of flying in the skies, and over 500 men worked at the school as
teachers and in other positions. We cannot contain our feelings of grief for
the many men who lost their lives in battle among those who attended the
school.
Thirty long years after the war's end, we erect this monument here
because of our feelings for those who died, and we leave it for future
generations
June 11, 1976
Yonago Pilot Training School Monument Erection Committee
Tadamasa Itatsu, first director of the Chiran Peace Museum for Kamikaze
Pilots, entered Yonago Pilot Training School in October 1943 and then
transferred to Tachiarai Army Flight School in Fukuoka Prefecture for
supplemental flight training. On May 28, 1945, he took off from Chiran Air Base
toward Okinawa as part of a special attack squadron, but his plane crash landed
on the island of Tokunoshima before he could reach enemy ships.
The following last letters were written by graduates from Yonago Pilot
Training School:
The historical information about the Pilot Training Schools in the first two
paragraphs is from page 360 of the following book:
Tokkōtai Senbotsusha Irei
Heiwa Kinen Kyōkai (Tokkōtai Commemoration Peace Memorial Association). 1990.
Tokubetsu Kōgekitai (Special Attack Corps). Tokyo: Tokkōtai Senbotsusha
Irei Heiwa Kinen Kyōkai.
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