From Hiroshima: Private Kure Naval & Submarine History Tour

Travel by train from Hiroshima to Kure and uncover Japan’s naval and shipbuilding history through the Yamato Museum, a real submarine, historic residences, and an active harbor.
Leave Hiroshima by local train and travel along the JR Kure Line to one of Japan’s most important historic shipbuilding cities.

Begin at the renewed Yamato Museum. Follow the development of Kure from a small coastal settlement into a major naval arsenal and later a center of postwar shipbuilding. See the detailed 1:10-scale model of the battleship Yamato, original materials, engineering displays, aircraft engines, and exhibits exploring the people and technologies behind the city’s industrial growth.

Continue to the JMSDF Kure Museum, known locally as the Iron Whale Museum. Learn how mines were cleared from Japanese waters after the war, examine submarine technology, and enter the former submarine Akishio. Walk through its narrow passageways, crew areas, control room, and living spaces to understand the practical realities of life beneath the sea.

Take a short break near Kure Central Pier before walking through the waterfront district. Pass large naval artifacts, red-brick spaces, sculptures, and streets created during Kure’s transformation into a modern military and industrial city.

Enter Irifuneyama Memorial Museum and visit the former official residence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Kure Naval District. Discover an unusual building that combines Western-style reception rooms with traditional Japanese residential spaces. See its decorative gold-colored kinkarakami wall covering and learn how senior officials lived during the Meiji period.

Walk along Museum Street and continue by local bus toward Kure’s active harbor.

Finish at Alley Karasukojima, where submarines and escort vessels of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force can often be seen from the waterfront. Historic brick warehouses, the former naval arsenal seawall, and an old torpedo-loading crane preserve the atmosphere of Kure’s working harbor.

Throughout the tour, your guide places the city’s military history within the wider story of industrial modernization, civilian life, wartime loss, engineering, and postwar reconstruction.

The guided tour ends at Alley Karasukojima. Your guide will explain how to return to Kure Station or continue exploring the harbor area.

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