By TATSUYA SHIMADA/ Staff Writer
April 10, 2023 at 18:21 JST
People walk along a row of cherry blossom trees in Kanoya, Kagoshima Prefecture, on April 2. The area used to be part of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s base during the war. (Tatsuya Shimada)
KANOYA, Kagoshima Prefecture--Where warplanes once took off from, the two roads here today are home to about 1,000 cherry blossom trees that were enjoyed by visitors in early April.
The roads now are famed as a cherry blossom viewing spot, but the area used to be a runway at a former Imperial Japanese Navy base.
Shigeyuki Shimonaiji, who is now 86, was 8 in 1945. He grew up in Kushira, which is now part of Kanoya.
Invited by older children, he used to come to the side of the runway and wave goodbye to naval aircraft as they departed.
An Imperial Japanese Navy base was built in Kushira during World War II, where pilots and maintenance workers were trained.
As the war worsened, the base and other bases nearby such as Kanoya and Chiran became a staging point for suicide attack units.
In April 1945, the U.S. military started landing on Okinawa’s main island.
Kamikaze departed from many locations in Kyushu, aimed at U.S. ships in waters adjacent to Okinawa.
By the end of the war, 363 people from the Kushira base died in such desperate missions.
The war was everywhere in life.
Kushira was close to Shibushi Bay, where the U.S. military was expected to land in an invasion of the Japanese mainland.
Therefore, the Imperial Japanese Army dug trenches everywhere in town.
Japanese soldiers sometimes came to Shimonaiji’s home to use his family's bath.
When Shimonaiji played near his home, a U.S. ship-based aircraft strafed him.
He hurriedly fled without injury. There were many bombing raids, too, which created holes in the fields.
Shimonaiji continually wished for the war to end. Then, it did.
In the spring of 1955, Shimonaiji moved to Osaka for work.
During a period of high economic growth, many from Kushira moved to Kansai.
They established a group there called Kansai-Kushira-kai to serve as an anchor for their hometown.
In 1971, the group donated cherry blossom nursery trees to the town, hoping to make a row of cherry blossom trees along the roads diverted from the base’s runway.
A war memorial for the war dead had been built in the area around the former base.
A project had also been launched to make the area a “peace park,” telling the sad tale of the war and ensuring lasting peace.
But after about 50 years since the first planting of the nursery trees, some of the trees got sick and died.
In 2016, powerful Typhoon No. 16 landed on Osumi Peninsula in southern Kyushu, destroying about 300 of the cherry blossom trees.
Since then, locals have been planting nursery cherry blossom trees.
“By maintaining the row of cherry blossom trees, the history and stories of the war will also be kept alive,” said Shunichi Sueyoshi, who has been involved in a project to maintain the area.
Shimonaiji has refrained from visiting his hometown because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He hopes to visit the area again sometime in the future when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom.
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