戦災建造物 東大和市指定文化財 旧日立航空機株式会社変電所（英語/English）

Substation - Formerly Known as Hitachi Aircraft Co., Ltd.

Please feel free to vist historical war site, which opens on every Wednesday and Sunday, from ten thirty in the morning to four in the afternoon.　No reservation is required and admission is free. If any school or group visits are planned, please give us a call and inform in advance. Any inquiries can be refered to Kyoudo-Museum, contacted at 042-567-4800.

 

Free Guidance

Free guidance is given twice a day and starts at ten fourty-five in the moning and two in the afternoon. Both guidance will take about 45 minutes and anybody is welcomed to take part in. Please kindly understand if guidance cancellation may happen for any reasons, such as weather conditions.

Lighting Up

Historical war site was severely attacked three times by air force on February 17, April 19 and 24, 1945. In order not to forget the incidents, the substation will be lightend up and illuminated on those days. The lightend-up substation can be viewed from the outside but not allowing viewers to enter the inside.

 

Short Movie

• Short Movie: Historical War Site "Substation - Formerly Known As Hitachi Aircraft Co.,Ltd"（外部リンク）
  Historical war site is located in Higashiyamato City of Tokyo. Five-minutes short movie will introduce you a brief story of historical war site.

Brief Introduction About Substation

Substation For Arms Plant (Military Factory)

A huge arms plant, designed for the mass production of aircraft engines, was built at the current location in 1938. The plant expanded its scale to meet more prodution and gained plant workers up to 13,000 by the year 1944. The substation played an important role in order to convert electricity into different voltages, connet power sources to the grid and keep the system runnnig smoothly.

 

Attacks By Air Force

Since most of arms plants in Tama area were the target of air attacks around the end of World War II, the plant was not an exception and was attacked three times on February 17, April 19 and April 24, 1945. Unfortunately, lives of 111 people, including not only workers but also residents nearby, were lost and over 80 percent of the plant were destroyed. However, the substation was fortunately survived in spite of harsh attacks, such as machine gun and bombing, without fatal damage. 

 

Operation After The War

The plant transformed its operation into non-war production and continued to operate until the year 2000, while experiencing the merger and resulting into a new corporate identity. On the other hand, the substation kept focusing on performing its duty until 1993 - simply convert electricity and transmit to the plant, leaving all the evidences of war such as bullet holes or traces of bombing untouched at all.

 

Valuable Cultural And Historical War Property

Even though Tokyo Metropolitan Government planned to scrap and design a public park where all these historical war incidents had happened, the substation finally remained unchanged thanks to an enthusiastic campaign to preserve by whom once involved with the plant and earnest local neighbors.

Higashiyamato City assigned the substation as a valuable cultural property in 1995. The subustation speaks no words but tells the story of what happened right here, right back then. It is greatly appreciated if you could touch and feel how horrible the war was and how prescious the peaceful world is.

 

Directions

It will take about 5 minutes by walk from Tamagawa-Josui Station with Seibu Haijima Line / Tama Monorail Line.