Word: iwakuni
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Helicopters, it turns out, do not fly upside down. I know this by hard, albeit simulated, experience. I was on the stick of an MH-53 helicopter, a 21-ton flying monster that is one of the largest craft of its type in the world, at the Iwakuni Air Base in western Japan. My co-pilot and instructor-an officer in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF)-guided me as I lifted the copter off the ground and pointed it toward the Akinada Sea. A little spin over the water, no problem, and then my instructor asked...
...That change is slowly playing out at Iwakuni. The seaside MSDF facility not far from Hiroshima was a main Japanese air force base through World War II, before it was eventually taken over by the Americans, and the grounds are now shared with the U.S. Marines. It's in the midst of a $1.9 billion expansion program, paid for by the Japanese government, and its contingent of U.S. planes will eventually double to over 100 as part of a global realignment of American forces. There's a reason for the move-Iwakuni is within striking distance of every potential...
...specter of a rearming and aggressive Japan gives the rest of Asia flashbacks to the war, but the truth is that Iwakuni, like all Japanese military facilities, is still far more defensive than offensive. While missile-armed F/A-18 Hornets launch daily from the American side of the base, Japan's hangars are filled with support craft like the MH-53, which sweeps for mines, and the US-1A, a giant propeller-powered flying boat used for sea rescues. The division of labor is obvious at Iwakuni in other ways. The U.S. keeps nearly half of the base to itself...