Yokosuka's "Statue Of Liberty"

On the bluff overlooking Yokosuka City's downtown & naval port area, a park called: "Chuo Ko-en" (横須賀中央公園 -- Central Park) is located on what used to be a Japan Imperial Army training area.

It was an excellent location for looking out at Tokyo Bay, and the Japanese Army's Yokosuka Heavy Artillery Regiment would conduct canon firing practice from that spot/facility.  (Subject for a different post in the future.)

Yokosuka's museum and cultural center/civic auditorium are located within the Central Park grounds.

Of interest, there are also some statues located on a green area next to the museum.

And one of them is called "The Statue Of Liberty," and looks like this:

        












This statue was built in 1960, by a famous Japanese sculptor Seibo KITAMURA, and was moved and erected in Yokosuka's Central Park in 1977, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the City's foundation.

KITAMURA-san, who passed-away in 1987, is most famous for a large statue he built for the Atomic Bomb Peace Park in Nagasaki City, which most people have seen, and looks like this:

  














Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Yokosuka's political leaders (and many citizens of the post-World War II generation,) never wanted Japan's military to become powerful again, and they were intent on developing Yokosuka into a "Peace City" -- and lessen its dependence on the naval harbor complex, from which the U.S. Navy and Japan Maritime Self Defense Force operated (and also served as the City's largest employers.)

KITAMURA's "Statue Of Liberty" -- built on a base of stones from Hiroshima -- was intended to send a message of "love and happiness" to the people of Yokosuka.

(Note:  There is another, more notorious, Statue of Liberty, which is located on top of the Love Hotel "Goddess," located right across the street from (and facing towards) Yokosuka U.S. Navy Base --- It has been there for decades, and I am not sure what it is intended to mean ... ?)