About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Naval Air Facility Atsugi

Encyclopedia : N : NA : NAV : Naval Air Facility Atsugi

is a naval air base located in the cities of Yamato and Ayase in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is the largest  United States Navy air base in the Pacific and houses Carrier Air Wing 5, which deploys with the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk.  CAW 5 shares the base with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. Servicemembers stationed at Atsugi also work in conjunction with the Kamiseya Naval Radio Receiving Facility.
The Imperial Japanese Navy constructed the base in 1938 to house the Japanese 302 Naval Aviation Corps, one of Japan's most formidable fighter squadrons during World War II. Aircraft based at Atsugi shot down more than 300 American bombers during the firebombings of 1945. After Japan's surrender, many of Atsugi's pilots refused to follow Hirohito's order to lay down their arms, and took to the skies to drop leaflets on Tokyo and Yokohama urging locals to resist the Americans. Eventually, these pilots gave up and left Atsugi.

General Douglas MacArthur arrived at Atsugi on 30 August to accept Japan's surrender; it was his first trip to Japan. During the occupation, the base housed the overflow from nearby Camp Zama; it was not refurbished to handle military air traffic until the Korean War. The Seabees swarmed the base in 1950 and prepared it for re-opening that December as Naval Air Station Atsugi.

NAS Atsugi was a major naval air base during both the Korean War and Vietnam War, serving fighters, bombers, and transport aircraft. One of the aircraft based at Atsugi was the U-2 spy plane piloted by Gary Powers, which provoked an international incident when it was downed over the Soviet Union.

In 1972, the U.S. and Japanese governments agreed to share ownership of the base.

Lee Harvey Oswald, the presumed assasin of John F Kennedy, was stationed at Atsugi for several years during the 1950s

The Jinkanpo Incinerator

NAF Atsugi and the people stationed there gained notoriety in the 1990s (stemming from near-daily reports in the Pacific Stars and Stripes newspaper) due to their proximity to the Jinkanpo incinerator, which blew toxic and cancerous emissions over the high-rise buildings in its immediate vicinity. The incinerator's owners, arrested and jailed for charges of tax evasion, left its regulation in jeopardy. The pollution has become so much of a health problem for residents that if they show signs of adverse health effects, the base allows them to leave early; usually one is stationed at the base for a tour of three years. Many servicemembers reported sickness and a few died from cancer shortly after moving back to the United States. The base now requires servicemembers to undergo medical screenings before being stationed, in order to ensure that their bodies can handle the poor air quality. In spite of these, servicemembers still developed health problems, such as acute cases of asthma.

Operations

The U.S. Navy conducts nighttime landing practice at NAF Atsugi. Noise from this activity has been a concern of residents of Ayase, Yamato and nearby communities for many years. During the 1990s, the U.S. Navy and the Government of Japan nearly agreed to move nighttime landing practice to another location, but as of 2004, no such move has taken place. Leading candidates were Miyakejima (in the Izu Islands) and Iwo Jima (in the Ogasawara Islands), both run by Tokyo but well separated from the mainland of Honshu. The former plan has been abandoned, and in fact volcanic activity forced the evacuation of Miyakejima.

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: