Updated:August 7, 2017

Air Defense Command Post Site at Former Sasebo Naval Guard 

 

Airplanes were used for the first time for actual fighting during World War I. Then aeronautical technologies rapidly progressed and started to be a menace to war vessels and cities. Therefore Sasebo Naval District also performed practices predicting an air raid in 1924. From 1935, batteries for anti-aircraft guns were installed at full scale. In 1942, an air defense command post was also built underground of the naval district office building. This 2-story underground building of approx. 700㎡ in total was built to integrate information from the lookouts around the naval port, and to command gun fights using anti-aircraft guns.

 

Though the naval district office building was burned by fire at the Sasebo Air Raid in June 1945, the air defense command post survived. After the war, its interior was burned due to a suspicious fire, however the solid underground shelter itself still remains.