Incoming commander Col. Daniel Mendoza, right, receives the 374th Airlift Wing guidon from 5th Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Joel Carey at Yokota Air Base, Japan, July 10, 2026. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan – A C-130J Super Hercules pilot who flew relief missions following a deadly 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan took command Friday of this airlift hub in western Tokyo.
Col. Daniel Mendoza took over the 374th Airlift Wing from outgoing commander Col. Richard McElhaney during a ceremony presided over by 5th Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Joel Carey inside Yokota’s largest hangar.
American and Japanese airmen, local officials and family members gathered in the hangar, which bears the recently painted wing motto, “Swift to Fight.” Out front stood one of each aircraft based at Yokota: C-130J Super Hercules, CV-22 Osprey, C-12 Huron and an RQ-4 Global Hawk drone.
The new wing commander was commissioned in 2002 through ROTC at Florida International University and served with the 36th Airlift Squadron at Yokota from 2008 to 2012, according to his official biography.
“This was my first flying assignment, and this is where I witnessed, first-hand, the indomitable will and spirit of the Japanese people as I flew Yokota C-130s into Sendai to deliver aid and supplies during Operation Tomodachi,” Mendoza said in his remarks.
Operation Tomodachi was the relief effort involving 24,000 U.S. troops launched after a magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan’s northeastern coast on March 11, 2011.
The two-pronged disaster killed nearly 20,000 people and triggered one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents.
Incoming commander Col. Daniel E. Mendoza renders his first salute to the airmen during a change-of-command ceremony at Yokota Air Base, Japan, July 10, 2026. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)
Marines and soldiers – the largest contingent of U.S. ground troops assigned to the operation – cleared a runway and nearby roads at Sendai Airport, in Miyagi prefecture, so that supplies and personnel could reach disaster victims.
The men and women of the 374th Airlift Wing are part of a dream that began for Mendoza 24 years ago as a cadet, he said.
“Growing up as a kid in Miami who learned English as a second language I never in a million years would have believed that the son of undocumented immigrants from Bolivia would one day be here and have the incredible opportunity and privilege to lead the most talented and dedicated people in our United States Air Force,” he told the assembled airmen.
Mendoza last served as deputy commander of the 36th Wing at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. His 2,100 flight hours include more than 390 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn in Iraq.
The wing will be involved in a continued effort and focus against an ever-growing threat, Carey said at the ceremony.
The general did not specify a threat but U.S. forces in Japan train to deter China’s rapidly growing military, nuclear-armed North Korea and Russian forces the Far East.
“We must build, we must train and we must prepare better, faster and in more innovative ways and we must do it now,” Carey said.
Carey awarded McElhaney the Legion of Merit for his work at Yokota over the past two years, which included disposing of contaminated water, creating a logistics quick reaction force and improving quality of life with updated fitness and lodging facilities.
McElhaney’s next assignment will be as deputy commander of the 18th Air Force at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., Carey said. The unit provides U.S. Transportation Command and the joint force with air mobility forces.
AloJapan.com