Okegawa Flight School Peace Memorial Hall

The Okegawa Flight School Peace Memorial Hall is reopening on Tuesday August 4th 2020 from 1 pm.  Five of the buildings at the site were designated cultural assets of Okegawa City in 2016. At that time they decided to carry out some restoration work to improve the appeal of the historic site. The restoration work started in 2018.

Okegawa Flight School Peace Memorial Hall

The English name is a translation of the Japanese name 「桶川飛行学校平和祈念館」. However, somebody else came up with an alternative English name “Remains of the Okegawa Flying Training School”. Which would be fine except for incorrect use of “Flying training”! But you can find a few bits (mainly photos) on the web with that term. Unfortunately, if Okegawa City have given it an official name in English I can’t find it. We call them either Aviation School or Flight Academy in Ireland, but it seems there are several ways to refer to them.

Regardless of what you call it  what is at the site in Okegawa is a former school that taught cadets how to fly. It was established in 1937. It was a branch school of present day Kumagaya Air Base, which opened in 1935. Students came from all over Japan to learn how to fly army planes, before participating in World War II. After the war the building was used as municipal housing for repatriated people. They have incorporated a peace hall into the former school to promote and respect peace.

It is really small and you wouldn’t need long to visit it, but it is free and interesting. It is very close to Shiroyama Park. Furthermore, if you visit in June there is a beautiful safflower field nearby. Enomoto Farm is also relatively close by car or bicycle. Moreover, just over the Tarouemon bridge in Kawajima there is the active Honda airport. The airfields are actually in Okegawa, but the airport is in Kawajima. It is a tiny airport and heliport, but if you like aircraft and / or want to jump out of a plane – this is the place for you!

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