I was stationed at Yokota from Dec 1968 till Dec 1970. Best two years I had in the Air Force. From looking at these photos not much changed from the 50s till I got there.
Awesome - what memories! I played women's softball at Wilkins Park, was a volunteer instructor at the Pool for the kids under 5 - worked with Yokota Players....so nice to have the memory jogged with those photos. THANKS!
We were there 62-66. Used to have brunch at the O club every Sunday after church. Learned to swim at the O club pool. Remember getting my green patch so I could go to the deep end unsupervised. Had 4 birthday parties there too. Lived in the last duplex in North Area near the flight line. Remember the windows rattling all the time when the jets took off. I can't remember exactly if they were 101's, 102's and or 105's. Loved it there. Thanks for posting.
Outstanding work Tom! Thank you for putting this together. It was great to see several locations that my father had in his photo album from his time at Yokota.
Excellent job, Tom. Your choice of background music evokes feelings of nostalgia. I lived in Momote Village 1953 - 1964, but seeing the housing areas at Yokota could be almost any housing area in Japan and brought back such wonderful memories.
Even then it was like small town USA paradise. "Monsoon rains"...It sure doesn't rain like that anymore in Tokyo. Now a days some days during rainy season can be more pleasant than summer.
We were there too at that time on Tachikawa. I had Kanto Plain fever which is a form of pneumonia. Apparently it was due to the air pollution. The ambulance used to come out to bring me penicillin shots. We were moved to Kyoto where I loved the gardens. I have a photo with my sister and I are wearing our kimonos sitting with the Japanese house maid. She was wonderful. I think her name was Miyko.
My family was stationed at Yokota during the years 1972-74 attended Johnson High School at Johnson Air Base .. was some of the best years of my childhood…
In 1952 during the Korean War, my dad was stationed in the 343rd Bomb Squadron. I was delighted to find a shot of his squadron headquarters as well as get a feel for where he was. Thanks.
Dad was there as a munitions officer 63 - 66. Base much as I remember (I was in middle school at Johnson. It was a Tactical Air Command base then with F-105’s.
So strange I thought when I arrived That i having a B29 specialist licens was sent to Tachikawa right by Yokota that had B29s when our group arrived in japan. in 48 but due to what happened with korea was glad of it and to be sent home before that war after what i saw in Korea on our kempo flights in the C46. .
A few errors here. During the Korean War, Yokota AFB was a TAC base, home to the 15th Tactical Squadron “Cottonpickers”among others. They flew F-86s and RF-84’s into Korea on tactical and recon missions. B-29s had a very limited involvement due to being so obsolete in a jet environment. The “remote control models” being flown were actually wire control models. I helped my dad build several of these when he was stationed there during the Korean Conflict. One of the things they glossed over was the fact that the family housing units all had “Fox holes” dug in front of each unit. We used to play in them as kids. Also, just as a bit of added trivia, base schools used to have annual evacuation/Broken Arrow drills where the students were put on buses and driven into countryside away from the base in case of Chinese/Korean attack. We were that close to Korea in Japan.
There were three wings, meaning just under 100 B-29’s, actively bombing Korea, at least the first year of the war. Two were at Kadena, and one that Dad described as being at ‘Tokyo’, which was likely this base. The one wing on Honshu had been under direct control of MacArthur, the only full wing not directly under control of SAC. The 307th got to Kadena within a few weeks of the start of the war. I don’t know about the other two. The front was then the Pusan (now Busan) perimeter. They bombed in daylight for about half a year, then after one particular bad mission, switched to exclusively night bombing. Dad flew forty-four missions in B-29’s. Dad said for a couple months on the Yalu they’d see the MIG’s miles away, before they started making passes. Initially escorts were F-80’s and F-84’s. F-86’s came later. Of course once the MIG’s started making passes they learned the computer based turrets on the B-29’s were ineffective on jet fighters. Dad said they’d really run out of B-29 targets by then anyway. They’d destroyed all the electric plants. Bridges. Any factories. Burned Pyongyang and other cities. There were down to bombing gravel runways and rail yards, with 50% time delay bombs, and the fourth or seventh pontoon bridge at places like Sinjuiju. Presumably repairs were well underway by the time they’d landed at Kadena six hours later. Other propeller based aircraft included F-51’s and B-25’s. Corsairs? The RAAF showed up in Spitfires, but fairly quickly switched to F-51’s. A few times they flew missions out of Kadena, landed on Honshu, then several days later flew from there to Korea and landed back at Kadena. They also retreated to a base near Tokyo when storms were going to sweep over Okinawa. Usually. I assume it was this base. Supporting B-29’s on the ground was a real specialist operation. There were also a few RB-29’s and RB-50’s. Their missions included overflights of China and the USSR. You can easily online find total tonnages of bombs dropped by the B-29’s on Korea. Always less than 100 ships, compare to tonnage dropped on Germany or Japan in the war that ended five years before. Oh, baseball. They flew B-29’s from Kadena north to Japan, and as far south as Formosa (Taiwan) and Manila to play baseball. 307th’s wing commander was big on baseball. I believe he was deputy commander on the Doolittle raid.
Probably because the military awarded a contract to a company called Wary Civil Engineering that contracted to build pretty much all military housing post WWII. The contract was later assigned to Capehart Construction. They were all cookie cutter construction. While Wary housing is mostly two story townhouse types, Capehart were mostly single story, single unit ranch style.
Absolutely incorrect. Japan colonized most of Asia and the South Pacific prior to and during World War II. Unlike its war-time ally the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, the United States merely occupied Japan after its surrender. The San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed by 48 nations on September 8, 1951, officially ended Japan's position as an imperial power, provided compensation to those who had suffered in Japan during the Second World War, and terminated the Allied post-war occupation of Japan. Japan officially regained its independence in 1952. In sharp contrast to the U.S., the Soviet Union (now Russia) has refused to return the Kuril Islands, the northernmost chain of islands, to Japan despite repeated demands since 1945.
Under its constitution Japan is not permitted a military of its own, only a defense force. The U.S.-Japan Security Treaty permits the presence of U.S. military bases on its soil and to assist in its defense.
