Ōzushima
Ōzushima, or Ozu Island, is an inhabited island in the Inland Sea, Japan. Administratively, it forms part of the city of Shūnan, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Ōzushima is also known as "Kaiten Island".
Geography
Situated in the Seto Inland Sea across the exit from Tokuyama Bay and formerly two islands, Ōzushima and Mashima are said to have become one some four hundred years ago. Gently curved, long, and thin, and with a outline that somewhat resembles a misshapen Y, today's Ōzushima extends some from north to south, and has an area of. There are a number of small settlements along the coast, including Setohama and Kario, the centres for the island's masons and stoneworkers, the farming communities of Motoura and Amagaura, and the fishing hamlets of Yanagigaura and Mashima. Parks on the island include Ōzushima Park and Mashima Park, while part of the island and its surrounding waters is protected within Setonaikai National Park. The southern coastline is suffering from severe coastal erosion.Flora
On Mashima, the southern end of the island, may be found a five-petalled variety of narcissus known as yama-suisen. Bulrushes grow a short distance from Setohama port in paddies that were brought into cultivation during the Edo period but now lie abandoned, while at Amagaura there is a Kyoju or celebrated old-growth tree, a Camellia japonica'' some three hundred years old, in height, and in circumference.History
The name of the recently formed city of Shūnan, in which Ōzushima is located, is a portmanteau of two characters that denote its situation in the south of old Suō Province. In early-modern times, Ōzushima formed part of Tonda, a flourishing market town along the San'yōdō in Tokuyama Domain, the daimyō of which came from a branch of the Mōri clan, lords of Chōshū (or Hagi) Domain.Like nearby Kurokami-jima, Ōzushima is a good source of high-grade granite, which was quarried for Ōsaka Castle: one block. With its origins as a testing range from 1938 for the Type 93 "oxygen torpedo", for construction of the Kaiten base, eight large caissons were towed over from Ōita Prefecture, the first in October 1943, the last in October 1944, with five further small caissons produced on Ōzushima. Opening in September 1944, this base was the first of what would be four such facilities. Remains of the base on Ōzushima include a tunnel in length and in height, cut through the rock and used to transfer Kaiten by a rail tack to and from the maintenance area, maintenance facilities that extend from the port area of Mashima to the now closed Ōzushima Elementary School, an electricity transformer station, concrete bridges, staircases, an observation station on a rise overlooking the torpedo testing area, a firing test evaluation office, a storage facility for hazardous materials, kitchens, and barracks; there was also a seaplane hangar, while walls were built to keep out the islanders and maintain secrecy as to the operations within. As confirmed by base members and attested by archive materials, the Yamato could be seen clearly from the torpedo observation station at her final anchorage some off the southeast coast before departure on her final mission. Also on the island, and surviving in part, developed between November 1941 and May 1943 to protect Tokuyama Port and other nearby military facilities, on the summit of Mount Ōzu, the island's highest point, was an anti-aircraft battery, which in 1943 had five guns and a detail of fifty-four men.
In recognition of its historic significance, the Ōzushima Former Kaiten Firing and Training Base was in 2006 listed as a Civil Engineering Heritage Site by the Japan Society of Civil Engineers. Also, it is due to this element of Ōzushima's past, commemorated at the Kaiten Memorial Museum, surrounded by cherries that flower and fall in the spring, that the island is sometimes referred to as "Kaiten Island".
Post-war and in recent decades, the demographic changes affecting the country have seen Ōzushima's population decline from a few thousand to a couple of hundred, with many of those remaining of retirement age.
Intangible Heritage
Heike Odori dances, performed for the souls of the vanquished Taira (Heike) clan, some of the survivors having settled on ŌzushimaŌzushima Nagamochi-uta song: documentation and performance activities are being carried out by a preservation society- Okō ceremonies for Bunshichi, a pauper, but honest and with a strong faith, who poured himself into carving Buddhist statues, and thus at least became rich in merit
- The legend of Santarō, the master mason, who, when the locals were at a quandary as to how best to go about transporting the stones for Ōsaka Castle, fanned them with his fan, at which point, as if rising up and floating, they spontaneously betook themselves to and piled themselves upon rafts along the shore