The old days around ECL


(ECL:Electrical Communication Laboratory, Musashino R&D Center) 

The main gate before the construction of the new huge building began.
    Japanese

1: Midori-cho was a desolate plain.
2: Kichijo-ji village was formed by enforced evacuation.
3: The 'Gomonso' demonstration; .part 1.
4: The 'Gomonso' demonstration; part 2.
5: 'Gomonso' demonstration; part 3.
6: The Seikei Gakuen (Academic Park) and the Nakajima aircraft company move to Musashino.
7: Nakajima aircraft company; part 1.
8: Nakajima aircraft company. part 2; An aerial photograph of the factory complex.
9: The Nakajima aircraft company; part 3; The underpass and the gingko tree.
10: The Nakajima aircraft company; part 4.
11: Short lived the Green Park baseball stadium.
12: Get off at Mitaka to go to Musashino.
13: The U.S. lodging plan was altered.
14: How many times did B29 bombers come to Musashino?.
15. sourse

1: Midori-cho was a desolate plain.

 Let's recall the old days in Midori-cho of Musahino-city where ECL is now located.
 Because there are many references in the old chronicles to Kokubunji and Huchu and much earthenware has been found there, the history is understood to some extent, but that of Musashino which has no river is hardly known. At that time Musashino must have been a desolate plain.
The city has little literature or material evidence left over from the old days, because the land lies on the 'Kanto' loam stratum called 'Musashino-daichi' and there was no river.
 After the Tamagawa brothers laid the course of waterway called the 'Tamagawa-josui', and the village chief Hachiroemon Kawasaki laid the branch course of the waterway called 'Senkawa-josui' then the village people began to cultivate the land. It was not until about 1696 that many people started to settle down here.

2: Kichijo-ji village was formed by enforced evacuation.

 In the area of present day Musashino city there were four villages, Kichijo-ji, Nishikubo, Sekimae and Sakai village. Kichijo-ji was named after the Kichijo-ji temple, (ji:temple, ji means temple in Japanese.) Kichijo-ji was a huge temple in Edo (old name for Tokyo), that used to be at Hongo-motomachi (machi:towns) which corresponds to the north side of present day Suido-bashi in central Tokyo.
 There was a big fire called the "Furisode-kaji" (furisode:long sleeve kimono, kaji:fire) in Edo in January of Meireki 3rd (1657). Almost all of the city including the main building of the Edo castle were burned. The population of the temple town suffered greatly from the fire. The next New Year there was another big fire called the Great Kichijo-ji fire, and this time the Kichijo-ji temple also burned. As a result the temple was moved to Komagome.
 After the "Furisode-kaji" and the Great Kichijo-ji fire the shogunate forced the population of the temple town to evacuate to a village in present day Musashino called Kichijo-ji.
 The Nishikubo village is also named after Nishikubo shiroyama cho (cho:town) of Edo which is present day Nishikubo Tomoe cho in Minato-ku. Many farmers moved here from there because of a big fire in Keian 3rd (1650).

3: The 'Gomonso' demonstration; part 1

 The Musashino area was under the control of Shinagawa prefectural government in year 2 of Meiji era (1869).
Although people hoped their lives would improve after Meiji Ishin (Meiji Restoration when the shoguns were overthrown), but there were few changes.
 Ippei Koga, the prefectural governor at the time, decided to force the farmers to deliver an allotment of rice to the government ostensibly to be used as a food reserve for farmers in times of famine. This was called the 'shaso' system. There was also a 'shaso' system before this, in the older days, but mainly large-scale farmers contributed while small-scale farmers were except.
 The new 'shaso' system, however, was different. This time even small-scale farmers were forced to contribute, and what was worse the rice was sent to the Shinagawa prefectural government which was unlikely send it back even in a famine. In other words, this was a new tax--- a back-handed way of increasing the land tax. A movement against the new share system began and spread rapidly over 13 villages.

Table 1
Villages where the farmers took part in the 'Gomonnso' demonstration against the shaso system.
(from "The Musashino city history")

village name at that time present day
city name

Niiza Country Kami-Hoya-shinden Hoya city
Tama Country Sekimae-shinden Musashino city
Tama Country Kajino-shinden Koganei city
Tama Country Sekino-shinden Koganei city
Tama Country Suzuki-shinden Kodaira city
Tama Country Ohnumata-shinden Kodaira city
Tama Country Naka-shinden Kodaira city
Yozaemon group
Tama Country Naka-shinden Kodaira city
Zenzaemon group
Tama Country Naka-shinden Kokubunji city
Rokuzaemon group
Tama Country Tokura-shinden Kokubunji city
Tama Country Naito-shinden Kokubunji city
Tama Country Yanagikubo-shinden Higashi-
kurume city
(Tanashi-shinden dropped out at the stage of gate appeal.)
Migori-basi bridge locates north to the NTT R&D Center. Migori means three villages in old Japanese.

4: The 'Gomonso' demonstration; part 2.

 Village officials proposed a modified shaso which decreased the burden on small-scale farmers, but their proposed was rejected by the government. The government seemed to be afraid that the farmers would gain too much self-confidence if it granted their request under pressure.
Upon the news that a village officer who went to negotiate with the governor was not allowed to return and was detained in the governors house, the farmers made up their minds to fight. They wrote "The fact that the officer has not been allowed to come back until now, means that the government has betrayed the people. So we are going to appeal directly to the governor."
 The number of the demonstraters was said to be between 500 and 1000. Since the number of the houses in all the 13 villages at that time was recorded to be only 533, in fact virtually all the people in the villages must have taken part in the struggle.
 On January 10th of Meiji 3rd year (1870) the front yard of the prefectural government filled with farmers.
 They came in their farmer's clothing and hats and petitioned. "We are the farmers of the 12 villages, in Musashino-shinden, please allow us to speak to you. We have suffered bad harvests for several years, and barely have enough food for daily life, so please have pity on us, and excuse us from contributing to the "shaso" (food reserve)." The governor invited the farmers to enter the gate. If the farmeres had appealed within the gate, they would have committed 'goso'(petition by force) which was a severely punishable offense.

5: 'Gomonso' demonstration; part 3

 The farmers realized it is a provocation and didn't enter the gate. The governor said to farmers, "Then do you ask the governor to come out here?" "Yes, we do sir," the farmers replied. As soon as the governor received this answer, he shouted, "You are insulting the governor!"   "Slaughter them as far as a sword lasts." Thereupon mounted soldiers and infantry with swords, who were waiting within the gate stormed out and attacked the farmer demonstrators. Even a cannon was fired. Of course the farmers tried to scatter in all directions, but it was night and they were unfamiliar with the area, so 51 farmers were caught. In the melee the vice governor happened to die and a sickle was found stuck into his stomach, so the authorities severly punished the demonstrators, and many farmers were died in jail.
 The new 'Shaso' system, however was not established.
Although the sacrifice was grave the farmers' demand was thus realized. In the Sekimae district of Musashino city a farmers memorial was built.

6: The Seikei Gakuen (Academic Park) and the Nakajima aircraft company move to Musashino.
A row of zelkova trees still stand within the Seikei Gakuen.


 To the south of ECL runs Itsukaichi-kaido avenue. On this avenue there used to be a row of zelkova trees and through the trees Mt. Fuji could be seen. Many of them were cut down in order to widen the road, but within the Seikei Gakuen, a row of zelkova trees still stand reminding us of the old days.
 Seikei Gakuen moved to its present location in April of Taisho 13th year(1924). At that time the land price was only 6 yen per "tubo"(3.3 square meters). This favorable developement is said to be in answer to a prayer from the "Oinari-sama", shrine.
 ECL is located in the old site of the Nakajima aircraft factory. It is said that the reason this site was selected for a factory was that a brother of the president of the company was advised to go west in a dream.
 Then what kind of divine message caused ECL to move here?

7: Nakajima aircraft company; part 1

 All the present land of ECL, the Midoricho housing complex and Green Park (present day Musashino Central Park ) used to be an engine factory of Nakajima aircraft company.
 Airplanes had played important role in the World War I and the aircraft industry expanded rapidly. Kiyoichi Nakajima, the younger brother of Chikuhei, the president of Nakajima aircraft manufacturing company began to build the engine factory here in Musashino in July of Showa 12th year. He chose Musashino because he could get a spacious site near Tokyo. The land on the Musashino loam stratum retained too little water to be useful for farming, and a much of the land was left unused, luckily for Nakajima.
 The total number of airplanes produced here numbered more than 26 thousand.(Cf. table 2)

Table 2: The airplanes and the engines manufactured by Nakajima.
Army planes: 40 models including Hayabusa, Shoki, Donryu, Hayate etc.
Navy planes: 65 models including Gekko, Rei-sen (Zero fighter:Original design was by Mitsubishi, engine was by Nakajima, Nakajima also constructed 6000 bodies). Tenzan, Saiun, Ginga, Renzan etc.
Commercial planes: 21 models including Nakajima version AT, Nakajima version DC-2type, Douglas DC-3 type etc. total 26868
Engine: more than 20 models including Sakae, Homare(same type as ha-45), ha-109 etc. total about 50000.

8: Nakajima aircraft company. part 2;An aerial photograph of the factory complex.

The Nakajima aircraf company was a big enterprize having nine factories with one in Ota city, Gunma prefecture, and otheres in Tokyo, Musashi, Koizumi, Handa, Omiya, Utsunomiya, Hamamatsu and Mishima. The company had 250 thousand employees and a capital fund of エ3600 million. The Musashino factory occupied area of 182 thousand square meters (55 thousand 'tubo') at present site of ECL. The factory worked twenty four hours a day with two shifts 25 thousand members each.
I have an aerial photograph of that shows a complete view of the Musashino factory. This photograph was taken at the B29 pilot during the first air raid on the mainland of Japan. After the end of the war a US Air Force commission of inquiry on the effects of the bombing on Japan visited the ruined Musashino factory. Mr. Hassaku Shiino, who guided the commisson at the factory found the photograph among the check sheets and was given it. By the way this photograph was used when the ECL buildings were designed.

9: The Nakajima aircraft company; part 3; The underpass and the gingko tree

The Nakajima aircraft factories were all connected with each other by underpasses. There are said to have been 6 main underpasses from north to south, and 4 from east to west, with 1 connection between the Tama-factory and the Musashino-factory. No small number of people must have seen the underpass when building No.1 was constructed and when building No.4 was removed at ECL.
There are many theories about why they made so many underpasses: to enable the factory workers to reach to their work station quickly, for protection from bombing, or for the removing trash from the factories.
There are several large gingko trees south of the ECL main gate and on both sides of the road through the Japan Housing Corporation apartment. The trees, which have many nuts in autumn, are said to have been there since the Nakajima days. Since gingko trees are known to be resistant to fire, the trees was able to survive the air raids and the fires of the war. During the transitions from a munition factory, to a baseball stadium and to the present housing complexes, the environment changed drastically, but the trees survived. If they had a mind, I wonder what they would think.

10: The Nakajima aircraft company; Part 4.

In Showa 19th U.S. air force began full-scale B29 bombing raids on Japanese mainland using Saipan Island as a base. The first air raid on the Nakajima factory was on the 24th of November. On the 3rd of December intensive attacks by 10 squads of 70 planes took place and 220 people were killed.
At first the bombs were rather small, 250kg or 500kg, and only light damage was inflicted. Later, however, bombs as large as 1 ton were dropped and the buildings were badly damaged. The scene of destroyed buildings surprised the construction crews at ECL, and was astonishing even five years after the end of the war.

11: Short lived the Green Park baseball stadium.

There used to be a baseball stadium named the Green Park in the neighbourhood of ECL on the land presently occupied by the Japan Housing Corporation apartments since Showa 27th year(1952) till 35th (1960).
The baseball stadium was one of the facilities planned for the land of Nakajima airplane factory by Shigeyoshi Matsumae, who used his influence to lure ECL to its present site.
A track was even laid by the National Railways Corporation from Mitaka station, and night lighting was installed. The nominal capacity of the stadium was 70 thousand and said to be the biggest in the East after the Jingu baseball stadium, which was requisitioned by U.S. Army.
Although the Green Park stadium was named as the home stadium of Kokutetsu Swallows, actually it was used only two or three times for professional baseball games, but many high school baseball games were held there.
Dust and wind. The Giants were invited for the opening game but an early spring wind caused a dust storm and the players were unable to keep their eyes open and the game was ruined. The stadium was not very popular and audiences were small so it was pulled down and a housing complex was built. The housing complex has a circlar shape and in the center is a little hollow reminiscent of a baseball stadium.

12: Get off at Mitaka to go to Musashino

The Chuo Line, which used by about half of the ECL people, used be a private line called Kobu-Tetsudo. The company first applied for a permit to establish a horse carriage railway (in Meiji 17th year (1884)), but later changed the application to permit a steam engine railway. It was granted in March of Meiji 21st year (1881). With a capital fund of エ900 thousand they started construction in June of Meiji 21st and began service between Shinjuku and Tachikawa. The Mitaka station did not exist so people bourded trains at the Musashi-sakai station. The Kichijoji station was not built until 32nd (1899).
The inhabitants of both Mitaka and Musashino petitioned to have local stations built. After a competition between the two sites, it was finally decided to build a station at Mitaka, which opened Showa 5th(1930), July 15th. The main reason why the Mitaka site was chosen is that no south entrances to the train line existed till then. It was not until Showa 16th(1941) that the north entrance of Mitaka station was opened, when Nakajima aircraft factory was built.

13: The U.S. lodging plan was altered.
The lodgings for officers' families of US Army.

A plan to build lodgings for 4 thousand U.S. soldiers on the land of the Nakajima aircraft west factory at Musashino was unveiled in August of Showa 27th year (1952).
A housing complex had already been planned for Japanese, so people petitioned the mayor to scrap the U.S. plans. It turend out that neither the mayor nor the joint Japanese-U.S. committee had been informed of the U.S. plans to build military lodgings. Sinceone thousand million yen of the expences were to be paid by U.S. and two thousand million yen by Japan, many people firmly opposed the U.S. military lodging plan. They were disturbed by the prospect of a base like that in Tachikawa in the middle of the town, and worried about bad influences on their children. Sekimae Jutaku Shinwakai, Kitatama teachers union and the PTAs decided to oppose the base. The Musashino-Mitaka regional labor union conference, also organized an opposition movement together with many citizens, democratic groups and parties. A rally of inhabitants was held at the Musashino No.1 junior high school.
A famous Kabuki actor Kunitaro Kawarazaki ran to the rally in his stage costume and liven up them.
The ECL labor union adopted a resolution to oppose the plan at on early stage of the movement and requested the president of ECL to send an objection appeal to the mayor. At last the plan was altered from lodgings for 4 thousand soldiers to lodgings for officers' families. A market, a school, a barber and even a beauty shop were planned inside the institution in order to avoid friction with the local inhabitants. The construction was completed in the next year Showa 28th (1953).

14: How many times did B29 bombers come to Musashino?

How many times did B29 bombers visit the Nakajima aircraft factory here at the present ECL location? Some recall, "They came almost every day" but other said decisively, "It was every three days."
In the Musashino city records, eleven air raids are officially recorded. Around seven of these air raids were probably carried out by B29s. Six raids are officially recorded in the "Records of the Great Tokyo Air Raid and Fire", Volume 3. On the other hand, according to reports from the pilots who carried out the air raids, ("The operation of strategic bombing on Japan by B29 units") there were 11 air raids. This record list "3 air raids under a bad weather conditions" and "3 times with insufficient results," so we conclude that there were about 5 effective raids from this source. Comparing these three sources, the 6 times noted in the table seems about right.
The first raid occured on the 24th of November, the next time (November 27th) a B29 came but did not drop any bombs. The memory "every 3 days" is correct to this respect. As an air raid alarm was issued on both Nov. 25th and 26th, "It was almost every day", is also reasonable.

Table 3. Bomberdment at the Nakajima aircraft factory
date B29s bombs dropped napalm dead seriously injured injured
Nov. 24th in 1944 88 408t 17t 73 56 28
Dec. 3rd 75 99.3 42.3 55 58
Dec. 27th 250

26 of 500kg

244 of 250kg

5 32
Jan. 9th in 1945 48 42 4
Apl. 7th 103 97fighters 175 of 1t 4 only building was broken
Apl.12 100( including P51) 65 of 100kg

Broken buildings and reconstructing(right).

Photo of US force air raid.

A TV station took videos of underpass of Nakajima factory but it was never on air, for the time program was completely altered because of Showa emperor death.

15. source
This booklet was translated from the article " Tsuken shuhen sono mukashi (The old days around the ECL) " on a weekly newspaper of Japan Communist Party ECL branch: "Impeadance" Nos.317-344 (Feb. 2,1976 ~ Aug. 16,1976). Photos are
copies of several published documents of NTT. Illustrations are drawn by the editor. Michio Wakamatsu.

Though this booklet tells only the story of bomberdment of American Air force out of many aspects of the World War II, Editor think it is also important to remember that the war is the aggression by Japanese emperor government.