Coconut Bomb Shelter Introduction
After 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor led to US military reprisals with bombings targeting Taiwan's important military supply factories, power plants, railways, and significant offices. The Zhu Shan County Office was located between the two mountains at the entrance of the Zhuoshui River, serving as a forward operating point for the bombing of the Jiji railway and Sun Moon Lake reservoir. When the "air raid alert" sounded, employees of the county office and Japanese military personnel in the surrounding dormitories rushed to hide in the air raid shelters. The shelters behind the county office were heavily forested, providing cover from US aircraft. The current site of the air raid shelter is now abandoned and has lost its function, with six tall king coconut trees and phoenix trees growing on top, becoming a place for children to play hide and seek. Next to the shelter remain the old dormitories from the Japanese colonial period and the current police station's old quarters. The design of the entrance to the shelter was a pull door instead of a push door because the outer door opened outward during normal times. When the air raid alert sounded, everyone rushed in, and it was not known how many people crowded inside. Overcrowding in the shelter could lead to suffocation, and the design of a pull door was intended to allow those inside to be pushed outside for a chance to survive, as experience indicated that suffocation could be a more significant risk than being killed by a bomb. Another explanation suggests that during bombings, the pressure from explosions outside could be blocked by a pull door, protecting against blast pressure and debris.
