Japan Press Weekly

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2014 May 28 - June 3 [US FORCES]

US increasing training drills of cargo planes over Tokyo

The U.S. Air Force has been stepping up training operations of its transport aircraft deployed to the U.S. Yokota Air Base in Tokyo.

The U.S. military conducted training exercises of C-130 cargo planes that included parachute drills and formation flights seven times in 2012, and six times in 2013. This year, they already held such drills six times by the end of April. Local residents near the base are suffering from falling plane parts and accidental drops of military materials, along with the noise pollution caused by the aircraft.

The U.S. government started to deploy C-130 transport aircraft to the Yokota base in 1975 after the Vietnam War ended. They moved the aircraft to the Yokota base from Vietnam and the Philippines.

In 2009, the U.S. Air Force assigned C-130 cargo planes a new role of rapidly deploying on a global scale. A pamphlet issued by the military says that they will send the transport aircraft anywhere at any time in order to transport necessary goods.

The U.S. military has been reinforcing the Yokota base as a hub base for transporting military personnel and materials around the Asia-Pacific region.

In fact, the C-130s from the base have been dispatched frequently throughout the region. The recent examples are as follows: rescue operations on the Palau Islands in the western Pacific hit by a typhoon (December 2011); aerial delivery drills in Bangladesh (November 2013); airborne operations in the Philippines struck by a super typhoon (November 2013); and U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises in South Korea (April 2014).

If Japan is allowed to use the right to collective self-defense as Prime Minister Abe Shinzo claims, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces will inevitably be mobilized for U.S. military operations abroad.

Past related articles:
> Yokota base holds practical parachute drills [December 24, 2013]
> 1,000 people call for removal of US Yokota base [October 13, 2013]