Yokota History Part 1: Yokota during WWII

  • Published
  • By Dr. John Treiber
  • 374 Airlift Wing History Office
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan --  Yokota Air Base was originally constructed by the Imperial Japanese Army as a maintenance training base and secret aircraft test and evaluation center. The military started surveying and purchasing 2,000 hectares of land in 1939, construction soon began, and personnel transferred from Tachikawa Air Base to their new buildings in April 1940. Air operations on the 1,200-meter (3,937 feet) runway began in August 1940.

The base was originally named Tama Air Field, though among employees and in the local area it was also called Fussa Air Field. It sat on the western edge of the Kanto Plain at the point where the plain slopes into the Tama River valley, and in 1940 the surrounding area consisted of little more than farms, forest and wasteland, plus an occasional small village. In the center of the base was the Seimei Gakuen reform school, and just south of the property was a military fuel depot that was later absorbed into the base during the postwar period.

Despite its relative proximity to Tokyo, Yokota's location in the early 1940s was still fairly remote as befitted a base with such a sensitive mission. The nearest settlement - Fussa Town - was separated from the front gate by a mile of fields. On top of that industry was virtually non-existent, and the surrounding roads were made of dirt and gravel. Testament to Yokota's top secret mission and the general wartime environment, commuters riding on the nearby north-south Hachiko rail line were required to close their window blinds when passing the base.

As such the general population would have known little about Yokota and its purpose. On the other hand Emperor Hirohito made an official visit to the base in 1944 symbolizing the Yokota's importance. A large maroon-colored boulder known as the Kofu Rock was placed at Tama Air Field in commemoration of the emperor's visit, and it can still be viewed today in the flightline garden area.

Yokota's remote conditions helped the base remain hidden for much of the war. After all this was the age before satellite photography, and because of the airfield's relative newness Yokota did not appear on any American-owned maps of Japan. Therefore the US military only learned of base and its 1,200-meter runway through aerial reconnaissance in late 1944. Sometime after its discovery the American military began to call it "Yokota," a name that almost certainly came from a nearby hamlet north of the base that would have appeared on the flight crew's maps of the area.

This lack of knowledge about Yokota partially ensured that it suffered almost no damage during the war, and in fact B-29s never bombed the base during their regular air raids on Tokyo starting in 1945. Whether intentional or not, this preserved Yokota's infrastructure intact and allowed the occupying US Army to immediately take over and use all of the base's wartime facilities starting in early September 1945. Among the many buildings occupied by the army were a series of flightline hangars, some of which are still used by the Air Force today.

Next Article: Yokota during the Occupation