Coconut Bunker Introduction
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japan's surprise attack prompted the U.S. military to retaliate with bombings targeting Taiwan’s important military supply factories, power plants, railroads, and key offices. The Zhushan District Office is located between the two mountains at the entrance of the Zhuoshui River, serving as an outpost for bombings near the Jiji Railway and Sun Moon Lake Reservoir. When the "warning bell" sounded, employees of the district office and surrounding Japanese military and civilians would desperately run to shelter in the air raid shelters. The air raid shelter behind the district office, surrounded by dense trees, provided cover from American aircraft. The current site of the shelter has lost its function and has been abandoned, with six tall coconut trees and a phoenix tree on top, now serving as a play tunnel for children. Next to the shelter are old dormitories from the Japanese colonial period and the current dormitories for police officers on duty. The design of the entrance to the shelter was a pull door, not a push door, because the shelter door opened outward under normal circumstances. When the warning bell rang, everyone rushed inside, and it was unclear how many people were hidden inside; overcrowding might lead to suffocation. The design allowed a person on the outside to pull the door, potentially saving those inside by pushing them out to escape instead of risking suffocation, as experiences indicated that deaths by suffocation could be more common than those caused by bombings. Another theory suggests that during bombings, explosions outside the shelter created pressure, and a pull door could block the blast and debris from entering.
