TOKYO – U.S. troops stationed in Japan held multiple mock hydrogen bomb drills in the country’s southernmost Okinawa Prefecture in the early 1970s, eyeing its use against the Soviet Union or China during the Cold War, declassified diplomatic records showed Saturday.
The documents confirmed that members of the U.S. air force stationed in Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture held drills at least between 1971 and 1975 in Okinawa, highlighting the United States’ persistence in establishing a unit capable of using nuclear weapons despite Japan’s three non-nuclear principles of not possessing, producing or allowing nuclear weapons on its territory.
The United States occupied Okinawa from 1945 to 1972, with some drills conducted after the islands were returned to Japan in May 1972.
“This is the first time it has come to light that the U.S. military in post-reversion Okinawa had been preparing for a nuclear attack,” said Takuma Nakashima, professor of political and diplomatic history at Kyushu University.
It has already been revealed that a landing ship carrying nuclear weapons had been stationed off the U.S. base in Iwakuni, near Hiroshima Prefecture, which suffered a U.S. atomic bombing during World War II in 1945.
The documents — “Command Chronology” — from the command center in Iwakuni between 1970 and 1974 were analyzed by Kyodo News and Nakashima.
According to the records, the U.S. air wing embarked on the Single Integrated Operational Plan in July 1971, with multiple squadrons occasionally traveling to the then U.S. base at what is now Naha Airport to confirm nuclear weapon deployment procedures and conduct practice drops of mock hydrogen bombs.
A drill in September 1971 reports “14 aircraft were flown to Naha AB within 6 hours of call,” underscoring the military’s aim to improve responsiveness.
There were also mock hydrogen bomb drills held for a month from March 1973 and for over a month from March 1974.
The drills were not without incident, with a deployed aircraft crashing into the ocean about 75 kilometers west of Naha during training in April 1973. The pilot escaped and survived.
In response to questions in a parliamentary debate in April 1972, the Japanese government said it “could not confirm” the existence of any U.S. military units capable of deploying nuclear weapons. In March 1975, then Prime Minister Takeo Miki said he “did not believe” there were any.
AloJapan.com