Wartime and Postwar Kitakyushu
We Remember You
A booklet for the 50th anniversary of the merger of Moji, Kokura, Tobata, Yawata, and Wakamatsu — 2013.
Towards the Future:
In 1963, the five cities of Moji, Kokura, Tobata, Yawata, and Wakamatsu merged to form Kitakyushu City. This booklet was published in 2013 to mark the 50th anniversary of that merger.
Read the original booklet (Japanese, PDF)
Through my project "I Have a Dream… Seina", I encountered a U.S. Marine veteran who had been captured in the Philippines during WWII. He was brought to Moji Port and forced to work as a prisoner of war in a coal mine in Fukuoka Prefecture.
Moji is my hometown. It was from this elderly American man that I learned the hidden pieces of the history of the city where I was born and raised.
This booklet documents not only the stories of Allied prisoners of war but also the broader history of Kitakyushu before and after the Pacific War. It is a tribute to those who lost their lives in my hometown and to the soldiers who departed from our shores for the battlefields of South Asia, never to return.
This is my message to the future: we must never forget this history.
Contents
- Introduction
- TIMELINE: war and events around Kitakyushu City
- KOKURA: Army Arsenal
- MOJI: Departure, Air Raids, and Allied POWs
- The Great Yawata Air Raid (Aug 8, 1945)
- The Atomic Bomb over Kokura: August 9, 1945
- KOKURA MEMORIAL CROSS | For Fallen Soldiers of the Korean War
- MOJI: World Peace Pagoda
- The friendship between Dutch ex-POWs and Mizumaki Town
- Towards the Future / Seina
Lecture at the University of Kitakyushu, July 8, 2013: presenting the wartime and postwar history documented in We Remember You.
Photography cooperation: Kazumichi Kidera (FU. photo & design)