Air Force plans return to WWII-era Pacific airfield on Tinian

Editor’s Note: This piece by Seth Robson features quotes from CSP Senior Fellow, Grant Newsham.

The U.S. Air Force is bringing the island airfield that launched the atomic bombings of Japan back into service as it seeks bases where its Pacific forces can disperse in wartime.

Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of Pacific Air Forces, told Nikkei Asia for a Dec. 13 report that North Airfield on the island of Tinian is being reclaimed from jungle that has overgrown it since World War II.

In 1945, the airfield included four 8,500-foot runways that launched B-29 Superfortress bombers against Japan.

…

The airfield will be a useful part of the Air Force network, although not a game changer, Grant Newsham, a retired Marine colonel and senior researcher with the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo, said in an email the same day.

“The new Philippine airfields to which [the Air Force, Navy and Marines Corps] have access are also very useful and allow more effective cover of the South China Sea and even Taiwan,” he said. “Each location or facility plays a certain role — and they tend to be mutually reinforcing. You can launch and attack from many different directions — and that makes things difficult for an enemy.”

Read more.

“The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.”