Turning point for the U.S. Navy in Yokosuka during the 1970s

Photo By Ryo Isobe | USS Midway (CV 41) arrives at Yokosuka Oct. 5, 1973; From Midway cruise book 1973  

YOKOSUKA, KANAGAWA, JAPAN

04.15.2022

Story by Ryo Isobe 

Commander, Fleet Activities Yokosuka

There are no “what ifs” in history unless you are a dedicated fan of alternative history fiction. We are, however, sometimes engaged in imagining “what if it (fill in the blank) had happened? Where would we be now?” Speculating on “might have been” results in considering a world that would be completely strange and unrecognizable compared to the reality we exist in.
We might be tempted to think of those alternate histories when we look closer at some of the old plan that leaders had for the U.S. military facilities in Japan during the 1970s. Can you imagine a world where Yokosuka Naval Facilities, including Commander, Fleet Activities Yokosuka no longer existed?
In 1970, U.S. officials seriously considered changing U.S. military operations in Japan. In a Memorandum from the Executive Secretary of the Department of State (Theodore Eliot) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Henry Kissinger), the U.S. and Japan discussed “a reduction of approximately 9,000 Japanese employees and some 10,000 U.S. service personnel. The major U.S. naval base at Yokosuka will be nearly closed with most of its principal functions transferred to Sasebo, including COMSEVENTHFLT headquarters.”
As part of the so-called Nixon Doctrine put forth in 1969, which aimed at ending the Vietnam War, the U.S. was forced to make a political change in its approach to diplomacy and military activities in Asia. This included the use of alternative solutions to support U.S. global strategy due to a loss of over 70,000 Americans in the South East Asia theaters, and a rise in negative public opinions. Additionally, the Vietnam War was far more expensive than the U.S. had anticipated.
According to the memorandum mentioned above, Armin H. Meyer, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, presented an outline of the plan to Japan’s foreign minister in November of 1970, and “while a bit surprised at the plan to close Yokosuka, [he] undertook to study the package carefully.” And in Nov. 21, the Public Information Bureau Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs publicly announced subjects discussed in the package plan, which included down-sizing the Yokosuka Naval Facility with a large number of layoffs and a significant reduction in the facility scale. According to the memorandum, the plan was supposed to be carried out by June, 1946.
This was unexpected news in Yokosuka, and even much more so to those who worked at the U.S. Navy base. The impact was huge, especially on the Ship Repair Facility (SRF) which boasted more than 4,000 employees who specialized in ship repair and maintenance for decades.
The plan also scheduled a substantial reduction in operational and logistics activities with the proposed realignments affecting around 12,000 U.S. military personnel, along with U.S. civilian employees and dependents.
SRF’s Reduction in Force (RIF) notification was posted Jan. 18, 1971 and as a result, 872 Master Labor Contract employees at SRF, which provided their status as working for the U.S. military installations, left CFAY for other places. Prior to that realignment, SRF even held their “last” New Year’s ceremony in preparation for their disestablishment in June.
In SRF’s internal newspaper the Anchor, Hiroshi Honda, a budget analyst, expressed his defeat and disappointment at SRF’s closure in the last page of his business log, Jan. 19, 1971:
“Now, I am writing the final page of this diary in the chaos of SRF’s phase down. It has been more than two months since the notification of SRF’s closure. We have been confused on SRF’s future and how the facility would be treated after the closure, etc. Actually, the phase down has temporarily been postponed. Someone says it will be postponed again ... but, I don’t know whether it will happen or not…. We had faced unaccountable numbers of RIFs and lays-off. In fear and despair, SRF employees are working hard without complaints. They are the driving force of SRF. Without their existence, SRF would have never gain an excellent reputation.”
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Henry Kissinger, commented that “the political impact within Japan of reductions in the U.S. military presence would be mixed: the firings of Japanese employees in rural areas would have negative effects, whereas the reduced number of bases would lessen the frictions produced by U.S. military involvement in Japan.”
History, as always, is a witness to unpredictable twists and turns. In the case of the Yokosuka’s RIF, the tide was turned quite significantly. Not only was Yokosuka’s RIF postponed, it left room for further augmentation of the Navy’s capabilities in Yokosuka.
On March 30, 1971, a joint U.S.-Japan statement announced that the actions planned for Yokosuka and Yokohama had been postponed or modified. Consequently, about 4,000 Japanese employees in the area would continue to be employed past the originally determined 30 June 1971 separation date, states the Command History 1971 of Commander in Chief in Pacific.
As is shown in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and National Policy 1969-1972, when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Thomas Hinman Moorer visited Japan, Japanese officials showed a strong preference for retaining Yokosuka as the primary U.S. Navy complex in Japan. Officials from both the U.S. and Japan officially announced an agreement to continue the U.S. Navy’s presence on March 30, 1971.
Around the same time, the idea of harboring a forward-deployed U.S. aircraft carrier in Yokosuka was discussed unofficially between Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, and Director General of the Japan Defense Agency Yasuhiro Nakasone. And in 1972, the forward deployment of USS Midway (CV 41) was unofficially agreed upon between the two countries. As a result, Midway pulled into Yokosuka, Oct. 5, 1973, which marked the first forward-deployment of a full-fledged carrier task group complete with Carrier Air Wing 5 to a U.S. Navy facility in Japan.
Even though Yokosuka had seen several port visits of various aircraft carriers in its history, such as USS Constellation (CV 64) and USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV 42), permanently accommodating an aircraft carrier caused considerable concern within the Japanese public, which led to fierce opposition when the ship’s homeporting was announced.
On the other hand, the carrier’s homeporting in Yokosuka was highly beneficial for the U.S. on many fronts. The fuel needed for an aircraft carrier to transit the Pacific was no longer needed, which was a significant savings as well as the additional morale impact relocating families of afloat Sailors which the Navy believed would help maintain the morale of Sailors even while they were in a foreign country.
And the rest is history, which has led us to a point where we can look back and reflect upon the path we have followed up to now. As we have seen, Yokosuka has increased its strategic and logistic importance over the years, having survived crises and a sometimes precarious existence. For decades, Yokosuka has been a lynchpin in the Pacific in terms of security and stability in the western Pacific region for Japan and its ally, the United States.

• Date Taken: 04.15.2022
• Date Posted: 06.14.2022 01:45
• Story ID: 422874
• Location: YOKOSUKA, KANAGAWA, JP