YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa -- A former Imperial Japanese military acoustic location station, a long disused and increasingly decrepit sentinel from the dark years of militarism and war, still sits in Tokyo Bay's Uraga Channel near the Kannonzaki Lighthouse here.

       The station, built in 1937 to detect submarines, is about 10 meters off the shore on the eastern tip of the Miura Peninsula. The closest land is managed by the ministries of defense and finance, adjacent to Kannonzaki Park. The concrete oval structure rises about 5 meters above the sea's surface. Many spots on its outer wall have crumbled under the steady toll of wind and waves, exposing rusting reinforcing steel.

       It was breathtaking to see this relic of war soaked in the midsummer afternoon sun, framed by the blue sky and blue sea.

       According to a history book compiled by the Yokosuka Municipal Government and published in 2012, the former Imperial Japanese armed forces began fortifying Tokyo Bay in the Meiji era (1868-1912), building artillery batteries at the bay's mouth along both the Miura Peninsula to the west and Cape Futtsu in Chiba Prefecture to the east. The military built the acoustic location station in 1937 to catch the sound of enemy submarines accessing the bay, but it never entirely fulfilled its function.

       The Ministry of Finance, which inherited the station from the former military, says it has no plans to make the facility a public relic of war because of its aged condition and location in the sea.

       But as a witness to history, the facility's condition -- deteriorating without repair or conservation work -- is proof of the fact that this place was at war until 76 years ago.

       (Japanese original by Yohei Koide, Photo Group)

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