This series is about the Japanese home front in and around Sasebo, Japan during World War II. It is not a condemnation or critique of actions taken by either side during the war but rather a look at the civilian perspective of the war and the still surviving facilities that supported the war effort.

Hario Wireless Transmitting Station

Niitakayama Nobore 1208.

It was the message that set a war in motion, and it’s believed to have been sent from a forlorn set of ferroconcrete towers in a rural, forested part of Sasebo. It marks the beginning of the Pacific War and located not far away is a bookend to the war, the Sasebo Repatriation Center where millions of defeated Japanese troops and colonists came home to a burned out country under occupation and an uncertain future.

Hario Wireless Transmitting Station

The Imperial Japanese Navy’s Hario Wireless Transmitting Station were among the most powerful radio transmitters in Japan as they were built to help keep communication with the Japanese fleet as it ranged across the Pacific.

The impetus for building the towers had its origin in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, though construction action wasn’t taken until after World War I. Japan was an active participant in World War I, fighting the Germans in Tsingtao, taking the German Marianas Islands and her Sailors performed convoy duty protecting Allied merchantmen as far as the Mediterranean. By the end of the war, Dai Nippon’s sphere of influence and control had grown and the Hario Wireless Transmitting Station was a natural evolution in maintaining that extended grasp.

The Imperial Japanese Navy spent four years building Hario from 1918-1922 and spent millions on creating a modern, technologically advanced facility that today is an important cultural asset because it’s a fine example of the era’s engineering and technology.

It’s also example of history not looking the way you may expect. I’ve seen radio towers before, but these look like a set of smoke stacks. The ferroconcrete stacks were actually the protective outer cover for the usual steel girders that are thought of and the equipment inside.

Like a technological dinosaur it’s impressive in its size yet all that remains are the facility’s bones. The triangular transmitters atop each tower and their connecting cables have been removed, and the interior of the stacks have been gutted of equipment; leaving only a metal skeleton and ferroconcrete shell.

As well as the three 446-foot tall towers, the transmission room  and a few other smaller buildings still stand as well as the gate. Unfortunately none of these are open to visit, which is a shame because the transmission room would make a good museum space if it wasn’t condemned.

The transmission building, set in the center of the towers is covered in the greenery that has over overrun most of this facility, giving it a neat abandoned ruins vibe, though the area itself is maintained and monitored by on-site staff.

As for its place in history, it’s really just an educated guess that the order to attack Pearl Harbor came through this station. The order originated on the battleship Nagato, was sent to Tokyo and then is believed to have passed to Hario which sent it Formosa (Taiwan) before it went to the fleet at sea. Hario was a powerful transmitting stationed built to send such long distance messages, so it’s a logical assumption. It may never be proven true or otherwise because the station’s records were burned by the Japanese at the end of the war.

During the latter part of the war, these towers had a direct link to the Sasebo Air Defense Command Center and were used in defending the nation by assisting in the coordination of air defenses.

Inside a tower, the radio equipment has long since been removed.

A testament to its longevity, the station was in service until it was decommissioned in 1997, though by then the towers had ceased to be used. Today the site is still owned by the Japan Coast Guard.

Due to their rather stand out nature, three dominating towers built on the high ground and surrounded by a forest that is shrub-like in comparison, there are many nice spots to take pictures of them from afar. The most obvious and best spots are located near the Saikai Bridges and the observation point on the Saikai side, especially during cherry blossom season because nothings says “Japanese,” like cherry blossoms and World War II radio towers. Another good photography spot is from atop Osaki Hanto in Kawatana.

Admission is free and brochures are in English.

Uragashira Repatriation Center Peace Museum

A few miles away from the Hario Wireless Transmitting Station is a small hilltop museum dedicated to the people who passed through the Sasebo Regional Repatriation Center, where many Japanese came home after the war was over.

It’s an aspect of the war that doesn’t see much print, but after the fighting stopped the men who did it had to be brought home. In even greater numbers, the civilian colonists had to return as well. Japan had built an empire and places such as Formosa (Taiwan) and Korea had been home to Japanese colonists for decades. During the thirties, many poor Japanese farmers were offered farmland in the puppet state of Manchuko (Manchuria, China) and left in hopes of creating a better life for themselves. Like many Americans a century prior, when told “go west, young man,” they did. Their country gambled on success, and in the end they personally lost nearly everything.

Occupation currencies from Japan’s former colonies on display.

And as the Japanese came home to a country destroyed by the Allies, the thousands of Chinese and Korean slave laborers used for everything from construction to farming had to be sent back home as well. Like the Japanese, they too had no idea what to expect as much of China had been destroyed in Japan’s eight-year long war of attrition over their homeland.

The Sasebo Regional Repatriation Center at Uragashira was set up by the U.S. Marines days after they landed on Kyushu in 1945. By Sept. 26, 1945, a mere three weeks since the end of the war, they were receiving and processing nearly 3,000 repatriated and demobilized Japanese troops a day.

On Kyushu, Uragashira was not alone in this task; even before the war ended Japan had begun repatriating Japanese from Korea and sending Koreans back to their peninsula through the ports of Hakata (Fukuoka), Moji (Kitakyushu) and Shimonoseki. The Marines shut down Moji and Shimonoseki due to their heavily mined harbor approaches and they took over the operation of Hakata.

The biggest issue with repatriation was shipping or the lack of it, to keep the humanity flowing. Six months into the occupation 3,000 Chinese and Koreans left and 6,000 Japanese returned through Uragashira every day. A truly busy day could see 20,000 people pass through the center.

A picture of repatriates at the museum.

To keep people moving every kind of ship available was used. Six months after the war ended, a total of 80 U.S. Navy landing ships, 160 Japanese naval transports and decommissioned warships, and 60 civilian ships were used to speed up the operation. Even a half-built minesweeper in the Sasebo Naval Arsenal was finished after the war to help.

Uragashira took its last boatload of repatriates on Apr. 25, 1950 and had processed 1.4 million people during its five years of operation. Hakata (Fukuoka) handled even more, taking in 1.3 million and sending home half a million. Initially there were ten repatriation ports and the last repatriation center, Maizuru, ceased operations in 1958.

Most of the repatriation center is on land now occupied by the Dutch-themed Huis Ten Bosch amusement park and the U.S. Navy’s Hario housing. The main body of the camp was composed of long military barracks-type buildings arranged in a neat rectangle, surrounded by the bay on one side and rice paddy terraced mountains on the other.

Those passing through Uragashira arrived in a crowded camp where they were de-loused with DDT, had their meager belongings checked for contraband, given a medical checkup and had their paperwork processed by Japanese under U.S. Marine supervision. The amount of money returnees could bring home was limited. Military officers could bring home 300 yen and enlisted men could keep 200 yen, the rest was confiscated to prevent war profiteering and to help fund Japan’s recovery.

She is enjoying delousing this soldier way too much.

After leaving the camp an endless stream of people could be seen walking with heavily loaded backpacks and bundles in a line that began at the camp gate and ended at Haenosaki Train Station, where they then waited for rides home, even if there was no longer one to return to. By this point they were processed and no longer the government’s problem and were on their own with just the things they could bring with them, enough cash for the train and a fine head of DDT. Some also had to carry back the ashes of loved ones who died on the voyage over and were cremated at Uragashira’s Hario crematorium.

More than 6.2 million people were repatriated in all, nearly increasing Japan’s population by 10% in a nation that was already overcrowded, short on food and living accommodations.

Japanese dog tags

The Uragashira Reparation Center Peace Memorial Park is a small affair that’s less like a full-scale museum and more a contained exhibit focusing on this on particular aspect of the war. It’s not much, but it tells this story well.

Seeing the personal effects, clothing and rough burlap sack backpacks of the people who came along with the stark black and white photos of people being processed really gives a sense of the hardship they had to endure. Not necessarily at the center, this was just a waypoint on their journeys, but imagining having nothing and trying to pick up the pieces of my life due to circumstances beyond my control.

The center also has a large topographical map with models that shows the routes people were moved to and from Uragashira.

Unfortunately nothing inside the museum is in English except for the yellowed documents and shot cards on display.

For those on Honshu who would like to visit a museum like this, there is one at Maizuru as well. Like Sasebo, Maizuru was a former Naval arsenal and is home to preserved red brick warehouses and a navy museum.

This isn’t the station building, but this is the best view of the old-fashion brick base of the station platforms.

Haenosaki Station

Barely more than a glorified pause on the JR Omura Line, the tiny Haenosaki train station is still in use. Maybe it was the lack of people, the unpleasant weather or lingering ghosts, it felt sad and a bit forlorn on my brief visit. Yes, the station is believed to be haunted.

The original 1898 building is long gone, replaced by a new but now vintage station, but it appears to still rest upon the original’s stone foundation. A few Japanese-language signs around the station share the story about the thousands that waited on this platform for the trains that would take them away from here.

Standing between the tracks, a friend pointed out the line leads to Nagasaki. Freshly irradiated, I wondered for how many people that was to be the final destination. 1,147 trains passed through Haenosaki for the sole purpose of moving repatriates, twice as many as regular trains that passed through during the same almost five year period. Doing the math, that works out to a slightly less than daily repatriate train, even as Uragashira perpetually pumped more people out and to it.

Haenosaki is the last stop in Sasebo; the next stop is in Kawatana, home of the “fish-shaped water bomb.”

Hario Wireless Transmitting Station
859-3452 Harionakamachi, Sasebo-shi, Nagasaki

Uragashira Hikiage Kinen Heiwa Koen (Uragashira Reparation Peace Memorial Park)
824 Hariokitamachi, Sasebo 859-3454 , Nagasaki

Haenosaki Eki
Haenosakicho, Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture 859-3236

The Japanese Homefront Series

The Sasebo Air Raid (Sasebo Peace Museum/Air Raid Reference Room)
Shizue-san the Welder
Sasebo Air Defense Command Center
From Beginning to End (Hario Wireless Transmitting Station and Uragashira Repatriation Center Museum)
Kawatana, Home of Shinyo and the Fish-Shaped Water Bomb
Safe at School (Mukyudo)