History
Narutō Station opened on 1 May 1897 as a Sōbu Railway station and is today a junction of the Sōbu Main Line and the Tōgane Line, which begins here. The railway was nationalised on 1 September 1907, taking the station with it. On 13 August 1945, two days before the end of the Pacific War, the station was strafed by US carrier aircraft; freight cars carrying anti-aircraft guns and ammunition caught fire, and a subsequent explosion killed 15 station staff and 27 soldiers. The station passed to JR East at privatisation on 1 April 1987, and the Sōbu Rapid Line began through-service in December 1999.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-18.
Notes
A memorial to the 42 victims of the 1945 air-raid bombing, including nine workers in their teens, was erected at the station in August 1957 and still stands within the station precincts.