Meiji-mura is an open air architectural park with dozens of architectural and still functional technological wonders from turn-of-the-century Japan. I came ready to see the era and even dressed in a yukata with fedora, like all the old Japanese men you see at festivals, and wore my reproduction 1930s U.S. Army boots since boots hadn’t changed much since the Meiji-era (1868-1912). I was ready to get my Meiji on. What I wasn’t expecting was the remnant of Nagoya’s garrison that survived the World War II air raids including an intended target of the 1942 Doolittle Raid, and a surviving part of the facility that was accidentally struck instead.

Went to a Victorian village, found World War II history anyway. Story of my life.

Nagoya Castle in January 2017; the 6th infantry regiment barracks would have been to the right of this image.

The Imperial Japanese Army 3^rd Division was established in 1871 and headquartered at Nagoya Castle. The venerable national treasure was built by the direction of Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa himself in 1612 and was one of Japan’s most beautiful and historically valuable castles. It was now encircled by regiments of the new army; the division’s 6^th Infantry Regiment was stationed on the castle grounds just to the south and east of the donjon.

The regiment’s barracks were based on a French design, though the roof is Japanese tile, and the particular barracks for the 6^th Regiment, 10^th Company, which stands today in Meiji-mura, was erected in 1873.

Nagoya Garrison Barracks

The 3^rd Division would participate in all of Japan’s major conflicts from the Sino-Japanese War to World War II. It seems to have done the bulk of its soldiering through the years in China.

Beside the barracks at Meiji-mura is the administrative office and a ward of the garrison hospital, which was also originally on the castle grounds. Like the barracks it was based on a Western design. The Meiji-era was a time of rapid modernization for Japan so its new military was based entirely on foreign models for everything from doctrine to the uniforms its soldiers wore. Initially the Japanese army modeled itself on the French, though after their defeat in the Franco-Prussian War Japan shifted to emulating the victorious Prussians.

Nagoya Garrison Barracks

The Doolittle Raid over Nagoya

War came to Nagoya on Apr. 18, 1942. In retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor and to boost American morale, the U.S. Army Air Forces and U.S. Navy worked together on an audacious plan to sneak an aircraft carrier task force thousands of miles into Japanese waters and launch 16 B-25B Mitchell medium bombers, led by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, from USS Hornet (CV-8) to strike industrial and military targets across Japan. Land-based bombers were generally too large to take off from carrier decks as they required more runway than a Yorktown-class carrier has to offer, but a stripped down B-25 could do it. Taking off 400 miles from Japan, they could attack their targets and land in friendly China.

Everything was going according to plan until the morning of Apr. 18 when the task force, TF-16, was spotted by a picket boat, a converted radio-equipped fishing trawler, which reported their position. The attack would have to launch 650 miles out and hope for the best.

View looking aft from the island of USS Hornet (CV-8), while en route to the mission’s launching point. USS Nashville (CL-43) is in the distance. Eight of the mission’s sixteen B-25B bombers are visible on the carrier’s flight deck. Aircraft at right is tail # 40-2250, which was mission plane # 10, piloted by 2nd Lieutenant Richard O. Joyce, which attacked targets in the Tokyo area. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.
NH 53421

USS Gwin (DD-433) approaches USS Hornet (CV-8) from astern, with USS Nashville (CL-43) beyond, while en route to the mission’s launching point. The ships are framed by the tail of a USAAF B-25B, parked on the rear of the carrier’s flight deck. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.
NH 53292

While Doolittle had his thirty seconds over Tokyo, other raiders struck Kanagawa, Kobe, Osaka, Yokosuka, Yokohama, and Nagoya. Maj. John A. Hilger’s B-25 No. 14 was aimed at Nagoya, his targets: barracks of the 3^rd Division military headquarters adjacent to Nagoya Castle, Matsuhigecho oil storage, Nagoya Arsenal Atsuta factory and a waterfront Mitsubishi aircraft factory. The bomber carried four 500 lb. M-43 incendiary clusters, one for each target.

Nagoya was the third largest city in Japan with its population of 1.5 million, and was vital to the war effort. It was home to numerous arsenals and other war-production facilities including the sprawling Mitsubishi aircraft plant and associated facilities. By the last years of the war it was estimated a quarter of the city’s population were involved with aircraft production and that around half of Japan’s military aircraft were built here and in the surrounding area.

It was a cloudless spring day over Japan. Bombardier Lt. James Herb Macia described the countryside as “beautiful” and with towns “like a children’s play garden.” They followed the coast from Chiba to Nagoya Bay, and though no Japanese fighters rose to meet them the low-flying bomber was clearly seen and even waved at by fishermen.

It was clear skies until an anti-aircraft battery opened up on the B-25 two minutes before lining up on its first target, the barracks. A second battery also greeted but the fire from both was erratic. Macia released the first cluster and its 128 four-pound bomblets separated over the target. Master Sgt. Edwin Bain reported 10-15 fires and more than 20 columns of greenish smoke from his position in the unarmed rear gun turret. (To save weight the turret’s machine guns had been replaced with black-painted broomsticks)

Nagoya 3rd Division Military Headquarters, clipped from a map in the US Strategic Bombing Survey. Here you can clearly see the 6th Infantry Regiment barracks and parade grounds adjacent to Nagoya Castle. The hospital is to the left and harder to define as it’s on the map edge.
Japan National Diet Library; originally from the US National Archives

The next three targets were struck in succession. As the final target, the Mitsubishi aircraft factory which turned out twin-engine bombers similar to the B-25, lit up the crew was amused to see an angry cleaning lady shake her mop at them.

They accomplished their mission in eight minutes, sustaining no injuries and a single bullet near the left wingtip for their troubles. The fires they started burned for up to 48 hours; 23 buildings were destroyed and six others damaged. Despite the destruction no civilian or military casualties were reported. As they made their escape, Bain could still see a 6,000 foot black mushroom cloud rising from the city more than 30 miles away.

All the targets had been destroyed or damaged, except for one. The bombs dropped over the barracks missed and landed on the Nagoya Garrison Hospital next to it. Those fires destroyed 18 buildings including six hospital wards. The patients were all safely evacuated and with civilian assistance, the hospital fire was put out the following day.

B-25 No. 16 Bat Out of Hell, flown by 1^st Lt. Bill Farrow, was the last Raider to strike and also targeted Nagoya, dropping incendiaries on a Toho Gas Co. oil refinery and a Mitsubishi factory which built Zero fighters. Unlike Hilger’s more dramatic fires, the damage done was light but resulted in five deaths and 11 injuries.

15 of the 16 B-25s would crash or ditch over China and the last landed in the Soviet Union. Hilger and his crew bailed out over China and were able to make it back to friendly lines. Bat Out of Hell wasn’t so lucky and all five crewmen were captured, Farrow and engineer Sgt. Harold Spatz were executed.

Mission 174 (May 14, 1945)

Nagoya would suffer more air raids again beginning in 1944. Of the numerous air raids on Nagoya, the one concerning Nagoya Castle and the garrison came on May 14, 1945. Mission 174 saw 472 B-29s drop more than 2500 tons of incendiary bombs over the northern Nagoya urban area in a daylight strike. The Japanese sent 90 fighters against the bombers, the official report states they were aggressive, but uncoordinated and ineffective. They would shoot down one of the bombers, though a total of 11 would be lost to various causes. 10 aircrewmen were taken prisoner, seven of whom would be beheaded for the air raid.

On the ground, the Mitsubishi aircraft plant and Mitsubishi electrical plant were set ablaze along with the castle keep put up by order of the first Tokugawa shogun. Between this air raid and one two days later 7.4 miles of city burned. The Nagoya garrison was in the middle of a ring of fire set by the air raids but stayed almost untouched.

Nagoya air raid, May 14, 1945
U.S. National Archives, RG-342-FH-A3731, via JapanAirRaids.org.

After the war the old military facilities would eventually be demolished, today the 6^th Regiment grounds are a garden and gymnasium. The buildings now at Meiji-mura were dismantled and reconstructed in the 1960s due to their value as examples of Meiji-era Western military architecture.

New Life at Meiji-Mura

Because it’s been relocated to Meiji-mura the barracks has been set up as it would have been during the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. I don’t imagine it would have been terribly different in later years except for the slight upgrading of equipment. It is also scaled down to 70% of its original length, likely so it would fit on its little hilltop. Along with the nicely made racks and squared away kit are cases of army memorabilia and uniforms from the Meiji-era.

The hospital administrative office has a small museum on turn-of-the-century medical devices and the ward holds a collection of Japanese-manufactured X-ray machines from the same period which look like props from the original Frankenstein movie.

Garrison Hospital Administrative Building

Garrison Hospital Ward

Garrison Hospital Ward

Garrison Hospital Ward

Garrison Hospital Administrative Building

Garrison Hospital Administrative Building

Besides these history footnotes, Meiji-mura has a lot to offer and I recommend it to anyone who loves old architecture and the minutiae of an earlier age. Most of the buildings are restored on the inside and out, many serving as mini-museums to their former purpose, such as the two buildings I’ve discussed.  Visitors can also ride a c. 1910 Kyoto street car and in a c. 1910 passenger train pulled by a working steam engine, either an 1874 British engine or 1912 American engine built for Japanese service. Not necessarily World War II but these passenger cars likely served through the war as well.

A Kyoto tram still running 111 years later…

I know of one other military structure from the garrison that still stands and that is the Nogi ammunition depot warehouse on the Nagoya Castle grounds. By the time of World War II it was being used to store castle treasures, which saved them when the donjon burned down.

The details in the section specifically on Hilger’s attack relied a lot on information from James M. Scott’s Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid that Avenged Pearl Harbor and I recommend it to anyone interested in the story of the Doolittle Raid.

Meiji-mura
https://www.meijimura.com/english/
1 Uchiyama, Inuyama-shi, Aichi Prefecture, 484-0000

REFERENCES
Doolittle Raider Crew #14
https://childrenofthedoolittleraiders.com/crew-members/doolittle-raider-crews/crew-14/

Doolittle Raider Crew #16
https://childrenofthedoolittleraiders.com/crew-members/doolittle-raider-crews/crew-16/

Doolittle Raider History
https://childrenofthedoolittleraiders.com/doolittle-raiders-history/

Halsey-Doolitte Raid (Navy History and Heritage Command)
https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1942/halsey-doolittle-raid.html

How the Doolittle Raid Shook Japan (WWII Magazine)
https://www.historynet.com/aftermath-doolittle-raid-reexamined.htm

The Untold Story of the Vengeful Japanese Attack after the Doolittle Raid (Smithsonian Magazine)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/untold-story-vengeful-japanese-attack-doolittle-raid-180955001/

Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid that Avenged Pearl Harbor by James M. Scott
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L4HAW0Q

The cover image incorporates a photograph of a Doolittle Raid B-25B Mitchell taken from cruiser USS Salt Lake City (CA-25) after taking off from aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8).