There used to be a Japanese Imperial Naval Air Station in Usa City during the Great East Asian War, in which Kamikaze members had been trained. Now, there's their memorial monument at the site. Long straight roads run around there. If you don't know about the history, you'll wake up to the fact that some huge facilities used to exist there, because long straight roads are rare in Japan outside of Hokkaido. Around this air station, reinforced concrete bomb shelters for fighters called Entaigo were built, some of which are preserved even now. You can see one of them in the following pictures.
I found a flyer of the Usa Peace Memorial Museum there and visited it. Lots of things associated with the Great East Asian War and models of the zero fighter and its cockpit which were used in a movie set were exhibited. With the strong conviction that we had to absolutely avoid wars, I went out of the museum.
(Vocabulary)
Usa Naval Air Corps 宇佐海軍航空隊
宇佐市には大東亜戦争中に特攻隊員を養成した基地があった。今、航空基地は廃止され、追悼施設が作られている。周辺には直線の道路が作られているが、歴史を知らないものでも、過去に巨大な施設があったことがわかるだろう。北海道を除いて日本国内には直線道路が少ないのだ。ここには戦闘機を隠して置くための掩体壕と呼ばれる格納庫がいくつも残っている。
追悼施設にチラシが有り、宇佐市平和資料館のことを知った。現在施設の改装中だった。数年前に作られた映画で使われた模型の零戦や撮影に使われたセットがあった。戦争は絶対に避けなければならぬという思いを強くした。
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