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2008 May 28 - June 3 [US FORCES]

Under U.S. aircraft’s combat exercises

Akahata ‘Morning Breeze’ column

Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo’s birthplace in Gunma Prefecture is located within a flight training area used repeatedly by U.S. military aircraft.

Sunohara Tsuyoshi revealed this fact in his book Zainichi-beigunshireibu (U.S. Forces in Japan Command) based on his interviews with U.S. military officials.

The airspace covers a vast area that includes northern Tokyo, Saitama and Gunma. It is a flight training area under the control of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces but is actually reserved exclusively for U.S. military flight training.

Ishikawa Iwao, a former reporter for the daily Asahi Shimbun, describes in detail how U.S. aircraft carrier-borne airplanes based at the U.S. Atsugi Naval Air Facility in Kanagawa Prefecture are flying to Gunma Prefecture’s capital city of Maebashi and many other districts for very specific flight training. He wrote the article based on research he carried out in those areas and published it in the June 2008 issue of Gunji Kenkyu (Japan Military Review). The report reveals some horrific facts.

In mid-January, 133 U.S. military planes flew to Maebashi City during five days. They were there for a bombing training mission, and the “target” supposedly chosen for the bombing was the 32-story Gunma Prefecture office building. In later research, he found that their actual “target” was an indoor bicycle racetrack near the prefecture office building. “If I was an editor, I would have reported on the extraordinary flight training exercise by so many U.S. military aircraft on the front page of a national newspaper.” Ishikawa said.

According to Gunma Peace Committee Chair Oda Akio, U.S. aircraft training exercises for combat in the airspace in the prefecture increased last October. It was related to the fact that U.S. forces are intensifying the “aerial war in Iraq” killing many Iraqis under the pretext of “fighting terrorists”.