Yokota History Article Part 7: The 1980s to the Present

  • Published
  • By Dr. John Treiber
  • 374th Airlift Wing History Office
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan --  The frenzy of activity at Yokota during World War Two, the Occupation, the Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War, and the Kanto Plain Consolidation Plan (KPCP) construction boom contrasts greatly with the relative calmness and stability of the subsequent decades. That said, Yokota saw continued improvement of its infrastructure during the 1980s but especially in the 1990s as older wooden structures - many dating from WWII -- gave way to new concrete facilities. During the 1990s alone the following were built: Wing headquarters, Mission Support Group building, Maintenance Group building, the west side apartment towers, concrete garden units in the south, north and west housing areas, various concrete multi-story barracks, and the Samurai Cafe. At the tail end of this activity the University of Maryland building, the Yokota Community Center (YCC), Friendship Avenue (including the Tomodachi Statue), the 374th Operations Group building and the newly remodeled flightline garden were also in place by the early 2000s. Overall it is fair to say that this sustained post-KPCP modernization of the base's built environment is characteristic of present-day Yokota.

One area that saw relatively few changes in the decades following the 1970s was flying operations. The early to mid-1970s marked the start of C-130 tactical airlift and UH-1 helicopter operations at Yokota, missions that have continued nonstop into the present. On 1 October 1989 the Military Airlift Command's (MAC) 374th Tactical Airlift Wing (374 TAW) arrived at Yokota from Clark Air Base, Philippines as a tenant unit under the 475th Air Base Wing (475 ABW). It brought two more C-130 squadrons and a C-9 "Nightingale" squadron whose aero-medical mission ended in September 2003. C-21s also flew out of the base from 1985 to 2007, replaced by the wing's current C-12 mission. Meanwhile, AMC's strategic airlift presence at Yokota has remained consistent from the Vietnam War period right down to the present. Of notable historic importance, in April 1992 the 475 ABW was inactivated and the 374 TAW was re-designated as the 374th Airlift Wing under the 5th Air Force and Pacific Air Forces, becoming Yokota's base operating unit.

Relations with our Japanese hosts have always been excellent, and throughout the base's history Yokota's residents have been active in the local community. Those warm feelings have likewise been reciprocated by our neighbors, but statistics show an unusual amount of interest in Yokota among the Japanese populace during the 1980s and 1990s. This was seen most clearly during the annual Friendship Festivals that routinely welcomed hundreds of thousands of guests to the base for that two-day event. In 1987 alone the base Public Affairs office reported that 600,000 guests came on base to look at aircraft and sample American culture, while in 1986 Yokota welcomed 500,000 people. The Friendship Festival, which became a firmly established tradition by the late 1970s, remains a popular Kanto Plain event to this day. Meanwhile, Yokota began participating in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's annual Disaster Response Exercise starting in the early 2000s, an event that the 374 AW actively supports each year.

Following the 9-11 terror attacks Yokota and its Airmen played their part in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines, and Operation Iraqi Freedom/New Hope. Sometimes the wing only sent personnel, while other times the wing deployed its C-130s and C-12s and aircrews. Despite being in Japan the 374th Airlift Wing has been fully involved with these major 21st-century events. From a longer perspective, a salient feature of the post-1970s era has been Yokota and the wing's involvement in numerous regional humanitarian operations, including Operation Sea Angel (1991), Operation Fiery Vigil (1991), the Indian Ocean tsunami relief Operation Unified Assistance (2004-05), Operation Caring Response following the Burma cyclone (2008), and Operation Damayan in the Philippines (2013). Most unique to Yokota and the wing was the central role they played in handling Operation Tomodachi in the wake of the 11 March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power-plant disaster. This included supporting eleven diverted civilian aircraft (the first of which landed less than one hour after the earthquake), bedding down hundreds of deployed personnel and multiple aircraft, donating a fire truck for use at the Fukushima Dai'ichi site, flying dozens of military support and humanitarian relief missions, and supporting the Department of Energy's aerial and ground scanning missions.

Of the highest significance in Yokota's post-1970s history was the March 2012 opening of the Japan Air Self Defense Force's (JASDF) Air Defense Command (ADC) headquarters, which not only resulted in new, large-scale construction across the base, but also marked the first time that the Japanese military had been stationed at Yokota since the end of WWII. Among the facilities constructed leading up to 2012 were the ADC headquarters and other JASDF buildings (including a large barracks), a new control tower and RAPCON, a new fire station, a new First Term Airmen's Center (FTAC), a new Child Development Center (CDC), a shoppette and gas station in the main base, a Chili's restaurant, and two multi-level parking garages. Among the facilities demolished to make way for the ADC project were the Wilkins Park baseball field, the old CDC and FTAC buildings, and a couple of WWII-era hangars.

Yokota's long history that started back in 1940 -- first as a Japanese air base and then an American one - consists of events great and small. Its population of Airmen, civilians, Japanese national employees, and dependents throughout the decades have witnessed and participated in events that have importance far beyond the confines of the base; yet seemingly mundane daily activities and construction projects have also been part of the fabric of Yokota's history. And it is not over yet, for if there is one thing I have learned as the 374 AW historian during the past six and a half years it is that every day is potentially a historic moment at Yokota Air Base, Japan.