War Museums

Hi,
I've been living in Japan for a few years, but I have a question. My grandfather was in the Australian Air Force (from 1958-1978) and has a strong interest in war aircraft. He has recently become unwell, so I was going to send him a few things from Japan. I would really like to be able to take some photos of some Japanese war planes (zero, hayabusa, etc.) to mail him. Does anyone know if/where i can do this? I live in Osaka, so somewhere nearby would be preferable.

Not in Osaka, but if you can get to the Yasukuni Jinja in Tokyo the Yushukan has a Mitsubishi Zero fighter.

Yasakuni Shrine in tokyo has its own adjacent museum, OP, and it has a detailed website you can see...It may not be on the scale of the Canberra War Museum but there is more than enough stuff there to fit your needs and justify the visit, very reasonable admittance charge...there is even a "Long Lance" torpedo there, so its a reasonably serious display...it covers all of Japans modern wars, too, not just WW2 but the earlier wars with Czarist Russia.
the whole thing including the Shrine itself is a must for anyone interested in MilHist..

Assuming you ever get back to australia, I can recommend Tindal RAAF museum in Darwin in particular for its Japanese-based memorabilia...pieces of not only Zeros but even Dinahs..and a lot of written material.

Why not go to the International Peace Centre/Peace Osaka in Osaka to see whether they can help:

http://www.peace-osaka.or.jp/pdf/pamphlet_en.pdf

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4005.html

Thanks a lot everyone.
I'm sending him a few things from Japan, but his number 1 love in life is old planes so I thought I would try and find some information and take some photos for him. I can't really get too much time off to travel though unfortunately. I'll go and talk to the Osaka Peace Museum.

I believe they have a zero at the Yamato Museum in Kure.
http://yamato.kure-city.jp/english/e-index.html
There is a JMSDF museum next door that isn't as interesting though they do have a full-size submarine you can walk around in.

I don't know if it's open - and it's not really English-friendly, but the Memorial hall at the Naval Academy at Eta Jima is fascinating. I was trying to find some web info about Eta Jima and stumbled on this site, very interesting:
http://www.pacificwrecks.com/restore/

just reviewing what Yasakuni has on that Pacific Wrecks website, theyve got some sweet stuff.

an Ohka "Baka" manned rocket bomb.
Kaiten human torpedo/midget sub
A Long Lance torpedo as noted.
Chi-ha Type 97 tank.
a train or loco from the Burma railway.
a fair bit of artillery stuff.
the Zero fighter is one of the later Type 52 A6M5s..so that is choice.Ive only ever seen A6M2s. There is an A6M3 Hamp apparently at an airport terminal somewhere in Japan.Even rarer square-wingtip zero.

but piece de resistance rare bird:
a Yokosuka "Judy"

Not bad. Your old man would dig some pics and if there are souvenirs from there, many of the exhibits are described in detail in Japanese only, apparently, which is unfortunate.

The photo was taken at the Dobbins AB airshow in Marietta, GA, but it is of a Mitsubishi Zero that is in working condition.

http://tinyurl.com/d2fktr

This photo shows the plane (engine running) taxiing for take-off at the end of the air show.

http://tinyurl.com/d6a4tc

The plane is part of the Confederate Air Force out of Peachtree City, Georgia.

look at this, is one of my faves, these were said to be one of the most beautiful aircraft of WW2...the Germans were so impressed with it and it filled a gap in their lineup that it is one of the few foreign airplanes that the Germans sought to buy..but the Japanese never quite granted a manufacturing permit for it:
http://www.vectorsite.net/avdinah.html

that one is the only one in one piece in the world, and is in an RAF museum in England.
There are smithereens of one of them in the Darwin air museum...they were particularly active over Northern Australia.
It is like the Japanese equivalent of the Mosquito.Some units had a large prowling tiger emblem at 45 deg on the tail fin, it looked quite stunning.
One of the best places in the world for Japanese WW2 wrecks is Guadalcanal/Honiara in the Solomons, there are G4M Bettys,Val, US P38s and P39s, Japanese tanks, the lot,some lying where they fell, some dragged to museums, but sadly the place is too politically and law and order unstable unsafe for last few years to encourage visitting.

Again, thank you very much everyone! This is great!

I just checked the web addresses I posted and found that they didn't take you to the photos. Just click on view Paul's gallery and look for the Dobbins Air show album. The Zero photos are towards the bottom of the page. Click on the photos for a better view.

Sorry.

When I went to the museum next to Yasukini shrine in 2007, you were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum. Don't remember if they had a gift shop or not, b/c did not go look for one, but they might have books or postcards if they have a gift shop. Excellent museum though with replicas of the Zero and even a kamikaze submarine.

The peace museum in Chiran, Kagoshima Prefecture, displays aircrafts and other weapons used in suicide attacks:
http://www.city.minamikyushu.lg.jp/cgi-bin/hpViewConten...

re: "tokko submarine"

"Kaiten"...just reading about them yesterday in Zenji Orita's "I-boat Captain" , a superb book I can recommend , probably the definitive memoir on Japan's submarines in general.

Last night our SBS channel ran a documentary on the Kamikaze, by Edgewood pictures productions, and was by far best I have ever seen. During the course of it, they visited several small but high quality little museums specialising, the contents in background seemed superb, was the real thing, probably each was as good or better than Yaskuni museum. They were identified in end credits, most have websites..unfortunately the yokaren museum wherever that is, has website only in Japanese script ( do they really think foreigners do not want to visit these places????) ...the first one they went to was identified vaguely on screen as the Pilot Academy Museum, it has a large aircraft engine and propellor near front door and looks to be in a leafy little cul-de-sac...perhaps some of the Japanese posters recognize this place.
It seemed a major treasure trove of stuff inside.
Here is the actual list of places the producers gave at the end.
http://www.edgewoodpictures.com/wingsofdefeat/links_ifr...#

Can anyone please locate this place for me, and any other important basic details for visitors, the site is Japanese characters only.

http://www.yokaren.net