Cultural Properties of the Munakata Region
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Oshima During Wartime |
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Due to Oshima’s proximity to international waters, the island held strategic importance in Japan’s coastal defense network. Across the island are signs of its modern wartime past, from commemorative monuments to twentieth-century military installations.
During the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), the decisive naval Battle of Tsushima was fought near Okinoshima. Japan’s victory was celebrated throughout the country, and monuments to the war were built on Oshima. At the entrance to Nakatsu-miya a second torii gate was erected to memorialize the battle, alongside a cannon shell-shaped monument inscribed with the names of some of those who served. Within the shrine grounds are lanterns engraved with the calligraphy of Admiral Togo Heihachiro (1848–1934), the victorious commander.
In the 1930s, amid rising tensions in East Asia, a battery was constructed on Oshima’s northwestern hill as part of a defense network protecting the Shimonoseki Strait, the waterway affording access to Japan’s key industrial and military centers. The battery included four gun emplacements, an ammunition storehouse, and an observation post. The 15-centimeter cannons were dismantled after the war, but the site remains and can be explored today. |
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