Naval Air Corps Memorial

A monument on the slopes of Kunniu Mountain (睏牛山) marking the spot where a Japanese naval aircraft crashed on November 26th, 1937. That day six Mitsubishi G3M (九六式陸上攻擊機) aircraft of the Kanoya Naval Air Group (鹿屋海軍航空隊) flew from Taichū Airfield (臺中飛行場) to bomb Hankou (漢口), part of the many raids on China early in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Dense cloud over the target forced the formation back, and on the return trip two aircraft struck high ground in northern Taiwan, killing seven airmen each, with the other crash commemorated by the Jianshanhu Memorial. The roughly 3.5-meter marker here was erected on the first anniversary in 1938, its base once mounted with the wreck’s propeller and a landing wheel, both now missing. Remote enough to escape the post-war removal of Japanese monuments, it stood forgotten for decades until mountaineers relocated it.