Kamikaze East Airfield Peace Memorial
Memorial on the site of the airfield where the first organised kamikaze mission took off on October 25, 1944, built as a call for peace.
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Photo: Judgefloro on Wikimedia Commons · Public domain / CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Overview
Mabalacat East Airfield, called Kamikaze East by the Japanese, was a wartime fighter strip east of MacArthur Highway. On October 25, 1944, the first organised kamikaze mission in the Philippines took off from here against US Navy ships off Leyte. The US Army captured the field in January 1945, and it was never used again.
Today the old runway is farmland. A memorial and sign put up by the Mabalacat tourism office mark the site, and Japanese visitors in particular stop here. The office states it is not meant to glorify the kamikaze but to use war history to promote peace and friendship among nations.
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