Chikugo Pilot Training School Monument
Yame City, Fukuoka Prefecture
Japan's Ministry of Communications and Transportation established 13 Pilot
Training Schools before the end of World War II with the first two opening in
1938. These served as training facilities for pilots who would work in the
Ministry of Communications and Transportation primarily to carry mail by plane.
During the Pacific War, the Army and Navy increasingly used these Pilot Training
Schools as sources for much needed trained pilots. During the Pacific War, the
Army had ten of these schools, and the Navy ran the other three. The Army ran
Chikugo Pilot Training School, which was established in 1944.
From the 13 Ministry of Communications and Transportation Pilot Training
Schools, there were a total 3,200 men who graduated, received supplemental
flight training at Army and Navy training bases, and became noncommissioned
officers. As Japan's situation worsened toward the end of the war, 162 graduates
from Pilot Training Schools died in special (suicide) attacks.
The Chikugo Pilot Training School Monument was erected in 1983 just inside
the entrance of Nishinippon Junior College High School in Yame City. The
monument's front has the following engraved: "Chikugo Pilot Training School Site."
The back has the following inscription:
In April 1944, a Pilot Training School was established to train civilian
pilots here at this location in Chikugo and Yame [1]. This airfield was
constructed with land provided by local residents and volunteer labor of
district residents. We young men who yearned for the skies gathered together
here in those days from all over the country. We remember our joy as we worked
hard day and night in studying and training and lived together with our wings.
Now we erect here this monument with fond regard for the blue skies as we
remember the past and hope for eternal peace and prosperity.
August 21, 1983
All Chikugo Pilot Training School Trainees
Note
1. Chikugo and Yame are two small cities in Fukuoka Prefecture. The monument
is located in Yame near the border with Chikugo.
The historical information about the Pilot Training Schools in the first two
paragraphs is from page 360 of the following book:
Tokkōtai Senbotsusha Irei
Heiwa Kinen Kyōkai (Tokkōtai Commemoration Peace Memorial Association). 1990.
Tokubetsu Kōgekitai (Special Attack Corps). Tokyo: Tokkōtai Senbotsusha
Irei Heiwa Kinen Kyōkai.
Inscription on back of
Chikugo Pilot Training School Monument
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