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Hiroshi Tatano (blue jacket in center),
201st Air Group ground crew member,
looks at Zero fighter model hanging from
ceiling at Dizon Kamikaze Museum
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Dizon Kamikaze Museum
Angeles City, Philippines
This museum dedicated to Japanese kamikaze pilots has attracted quite a bite
of interest from the media over the years due to its surprising location in the
Philippines. Daniel Dizon, who has run the museum in his home in Angeles City
for many years, became very interested in learning more about kamikaze pilots
after reading The Divine Wind (1958) by Captain Rikihei Inoguchi and
Commander Tadashi Nakajima in 1965. Dizon, born in 1930, lived in the center of
Angeles Town near a Japanese base and in an area with several airbases, so he had
opportunities to meet several kind Japanese soldiers and airmen during the
wartime occupation for just over three years. American soldiers who came to
Angeles in 1945 talked about Japanese suicide squadrons, but he did not know
anything more about them at that time even though he lived close to airfields from which many
kamikaze pilots took off on suicide missions against American ships.
In addition to Dizon's home museum about kamikaze pilots, he has been
involved for several decades in the erection of monuments and historical markers
to remember Japanese kamikaze pilots in the Philippines. He convinced local
tourism officials in nearby Mabalacat Town to erect monuments at the former
sites of Mabalacat East
Airfield and Mabalacat West Airfield
from where the first official Kamikaze Special Attack Corps units carried out
successful attacks against the American fleet on October 25, 1944. He has
encountered negative opinions from fellow Filipinos regarding his desire to
honor the heroism and humanity of the kamikaze pilots, but he has maintained his
strong positive opinions about kind Japanese people he met during the war and
has continued his activities to remember the historical importance to the
Philippines of Japan's
Kamikaze Special Attack Corps.
The Dizon Kamikaze Museum occupies one large room off Dizon's living room and contains
a wide variety of artifacts, photographs, and drawings. Dizon studied, worked,
and taught in the visual arts, and the museum contains several of his drawings related to kamikaze and
to soldiers he met during WWII including the following:
- separate portraits of five members of the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps Shikishima Squadron led by Lt.
Yukio Seki
- Enriqueta (Dizon's wife) singing and dancing on wing of Zero fighter
- Dizon as boy playing on shoulders of Army Sergeant Yamazaki, who taught
Japanese at school
- Japanese Army bomber pilot in cold-weather flying suit and dress sword
- Dizon as boy with group of Japanese pilots listening to one pilot tell
about shooting down American fighter
After erection of the first kamikaze monument in Mabalacat in 1974, several Japanese people came
to visit Mabalacat and meet Daniel Dizon. Visitors included the widow of Vice Admiral Takijirō
Ōnishi (see photo at left) and Saburō Sakai, one of Japan's greatest fighter pilots. During the
1970s and 1980s, Dizon did historical research about kamikaze pilots in the
Philippines and collected Japanese military weapons, equipment, and other
artifacts that later became part of exhibits displayed in the Dizon Kamikaze Museum.
The museum exhibits include a mannequin dressed in a Japanese pilot flight
suit with a dress sword and hachimaki (headband), a Zero fighter model
hanging from the ceiling, bombs from the 201st Air Group stationed at Mabalacat,
and a small Japanese home altar with the characters of "kamikaze" written on
top. Various wartime photos displayed along the walls show
Filipino-Japanese friendships, kamikaze pilots at Philippine air bases such as
Mabalacat and Nichols, American ships with heavy smoke rising after kamikaze
hits, and kamikaze pilots at Japanese mainland bases during the Battle of
Okinawa.
Daniel Dizon with
widow
of Vice Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi,
founder of Kamikaze Corps (1976)
An exhibit above the kamikaze altar shows the photograph of kamikaze pilot
Masahisa Uemura holding his young daughter Motoko.
Below the photo is both the Japanese letter he wrote to his daughter and an
English translation. Dizon also
displays his 2007 autobiography Firipin shōnen ga mita kamikaze
(Kamikaze seen by Philippine youth). Two Japanese persons came from
Japan to his home to interview him each day for a couple of weeks to gather
material to ghostwrite this autobiography. The museum room also has a map of kamikaze
air bases in Pampanga Province
such as Angeles, Clark, and Mabalacat.
The glass display cases contain various items such as armament, military equipment,
Navy caps, and photographs of visitors from Japan with Dizon. One interesting photo
from 1978 shows Dizon dressed up as a Japanese pilot for a historical reenactment.
The public may visit Dizon Kamikaze Museum at no cost, but an appointment
must be made in advance for admittance. Daniel Dizon's contact information from
his business card (as of August 2014) is below:
Daniel H. Dizon, B.F.A.
Visual Artist, Collector, Local Historian, WWII Eyewitness, Writer, Reenactor,
Historical Researcher
Owner & Curator: Dizon Kamikaze Museum
E-mail: mayadnunag@yahoo.com
Telephone: 045 6247783
Date of visit: October 25, 2009
Daniel Dizon with wife Enriqueta
outside his Angeles City home
(October 25, 2009)
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