Word: tachikawa
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...onto a Military Air Transport Service plane in Japan last month, unseating half a dozen Stateside-bound G.I.s. The general: Lieut. General Robert Whitney Burns, boss of U.S. military forces in Japan, who ordered the plane to return to its base and personally drove over to Tokyo's Tachikawa Airport to put the G.I.s back in their seats and to chew out Colonel Platt (TIME, April 13). As punishment for having commandeered six precious seats for himself, his wife and four children-all bound for a Hawaiian holiday-Platt was bounced out of his job as commander...
Like an eggbeater marching through a bowl of Wheaties, Air Force Lieut. Colonel Charles H. Platt Jr. led his wife and four children through the crowded, throbbing Military Air Transport Service terminal at suburban Tokyo's Tachikawa Airport, largest military airbase in Japan. MATS clerks straightened, for Colonel Platt was notable local brass: he was commanding officer of the MATS terminal. Off on a 14-day leave in Hawaii, Platt called for booking-six seats-on the Pacific Express, a 41-passenger C-118 due out within minutes on a U.S.-bound milk...
Grey -haired, cigar -chewing Bobby Burns, bemedaled 31-year Air Force veteran, heard Bell out, called the terminal to verify his story, then rang up Tachikawa tower. To the Pacific Express, already a hundred miles out, sparked a cryptic radio message: return to base. At first the pilot protested, but Tachikawa transmitted an unmilitary postscript: "You'd better do it, sir, or the general says he will have your plane brought back under air escort...
Large Legend. Turning back unescorted, the C-118 jettisoned 1,800 gallons of fuel so that it could touch down safely at Tachikawa. There it found a one-man, three-star welcoming committee on hand. General Burns had driven eight miles from his home in Fuchu to put the Platts off, put the bumped airmen back on, and order an investigation. Last week, the investigation over, a six-officer board blamed "administrative error," found Platt innocent of bumping the G.I.s, pointed to the fact that the Pacific Express had indeed gone off with eight empty seats-just as the colonel...
Broken rain clouds hung low over Tachikawa Air Base last week as the EUR-124 Globemaster, biggest of the Air Force's transport craft, lumbered to the end of the runway. Visibility was a safe 2½ miles, and the 122 Air Force and Army passengers chatted easily as the massive, two-deck plane made a perfect takeoff...