Unveiling ceremony held to mark lawsuit victory over U.S. military jet crash

Japan Press Weekly

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Unveiling ceremony held to mark lawsuit victory over U.S. military jet crash

Thirty-two years after the U.S. military aircraft crash in Yokohama killing four citizens, a ceremony was held on September 27 to unveil a monument built to mark the victory in the lawsuit filed by family members of the victims.

The monument was constructed recently in a park at Nagasawa Hill in Yokosuka City in Kanagawa. It stands next to a carved monument of a mother Doshida Kazue and her two children, then 3-year-old Yuichiro and 1-year-old Yasuhiro, who were killed in the 1977 crash. The mother died in 1982 from burns suffered over her entire body.

Aircraft from the U.S. aircraft carrier Midway homeported at Yokosuka crashed just after taking off from the U.S. Atsugi Naval Air Station in Kanagawa.

One of Doshida's neighbors, Shiiba Etsuko, was hospitalized with extensive burns. Then her family members, including her husband Shiiba Torao, filed a civil lawsuit in 1980 against the Japanese government and the U.S. pilot concerned, demanding a thorough investigation into the incident, an inquiry into their responsibilities for the case, and compensation for damages.

The Yokohama District Court in 1987 ordered the state to pay about 45.8 million yen to Shiiba and others. This was epoch making in that a court on a civil lawsuit for the first time referred to state responsibility for accidents caused by U.S. forces in Japan.

The stone monument states; "The trial was supported by various democratic organizations, individuals, and more than 300 lawyers, who founded a joint organization. They won an epoch-making victory that could be, though tiny, a blow to the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty setup.

"I wish that the victory will be a milestone toward eliminating U.S. military bases and damages caused by them," Shiiba stated while standing in front of the monument.

Hatano Kimie from the Japanese Communist Party Kanagawa Prefectural Committee also attended the ceremony.

- Akahata, September 29, 2009