Arriving in Kyoto as a tourist, the sheer array of heritage sites and memorials can be dizzying. For example, the UNESCO World Heritage designation of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto covers 198 buildings and 12 gardens which are visited by millions of tourists annually; in addition, there are thousands of unlisted pre-modern buildings around the city. With so much "ancient" history, the permanent exhibitions of local museums tend to end their timeline in the mid-19th century just as the nation began to industrialise and modernise. It is no wonder then that one shrine, one temple, and three memorials might get overlooked on the average itinerary. Nevertheless, these five war heritage sites, shown on the map below, capture several perspectives of Kyoto's Asia-Pacific War history.

Over the course of the Asia-Pacific War, starting with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, young men were sent off from the city in the thousands to fight across Asia, expanding the territories claimed by the Japanese Empire. Read their stories preserved in memorials tucked away in the heritage-rich touristic district of Higashiyama.

While Kyoto was spared the mass destruction seen in the neighbouring industrial cities of Osaka and Nagoya, the city and its people nonetheless lived under perpetual fear that the bombers flying overhead might drop their payload on them. Those spared the draft endured starvation, poverty-inducing requisitions, and children sent to air raid-targetted factories. Read more about life under total war in Kyoto from firsthand accounts.

In the final years of the conflict, aerial attacks finally came to Kyoto through three US air raids which killed 92 and injured up to 352, bringing widespread destruction to residential areas and affecting thousands of citizens. However, while attacks devastated local communities, they were lost in the broader public history and memory of Kyoto. Explore the memorials which mark these suppressed histories and the struggle of survivors to make their stories heard.