United States nuclear weapons in Japan
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The Atomic age on Okinawa began on August 9, 1945 when Bockscar, the B-29 bomber which had just dropped the Fat Man nuclear weapon over the Japanese city of Nagasaki, sputtered to a stop at Yontan Airfield on Okinawa. The intensity of the fighting on Okinawa during WWII was part of the official justification to use atomic bombs on Japan to end the war. The high number of casualties in fighting on Okinawa formed the basis of the casualty estimates projected for Operation Downfall[citation needed] which included use of Allied chemical weapons pre-positioned in the Marianas. Planned widespread chemical warfare against Japan's population[1] and food supply[2] were averted by Japan's surrender.
After the Battle of Okinawa in World War II, where more than one third of the islands civilian population of 300,000 people, were killed, the United States Navy initially administered the Island of Okinawa. On September 21, 1945, Okinawa was placed under control of the United States Military Government of the Ryukyu Islands and an Okinawa Advisory Council was created. In 1952 Japan signed the Treaty of San Francisco that allowed the future control of Okinawa by the United States Military Government (USMG). The United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands (USCAR) was a subordinate civil affairs administration organization of the United States military and could overrule any decision made by the new Government of the Ryukyu Islands (GRI) until a reversion to Japanese Governance occurred on May 15, 1972 and the USCAR was abolished.[3]
"Okinawa is unique in that it is not a colony, a dependency or protectorate" said the American General who was the islands civil administrator. There was no ready-made word to fit its status and when asked if he would care to invent one he raised a defensive hand and said, "I should need a dozen Solomons to advise me on that." The right word to describe the arrangement seems to have been left out of Japanese peace Treaty. What it said was that the United States would be given all powers of administration, legislation, and jurisdiction, over the Ryukyu islands which include Okinawa. John Foster Dulles, then the U.S. Secretary of State coined a new phrase in world diplomacy when he said "residual sovereignty" over Okinawa rested with Japan.[4]
For many decades during the Cold War, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) paid bribes to the long ruling Japanese Liberal Democratic Party for the purposes of keeping them in power against opponents from leftist political parties, collecting information, recruitment,[5] influencing Okinawan politics,[6] and a secret agreement negotiated to allow the transit of U.S. nuclear weapons through Japanese territory and ports and provision for the return those weapons to bases in Japan under certain specific circumstances.[7]
A February 28, 1963 memorandum for the record of the meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the President on the section relating to discussion of Okinawa reveals that on the continued strategic essentiality of Okinawa to the U.S. military posture in the Pacific. The President expressed no disagreement, and indicated that he had no intention of giving up the island.[8]
A Central Intelligence Agency 1963 National Intelligence Estimate entitled Japans Problems and Prospects states that:
Continued US administration of Okinawa will probably not become an active political issue in Japan during the next few years. The present government and sophisticated opinion recognize the importance of Okinawa to the defense of Japan and non-Communist Asia. If the Japanese should come to believe that the rights or welfare of the Okinawans were being prejudiced or that the US intended to make the present administrative arrangements permanent, the leftists could whip up popular resentment, and the question of the return of the islands to Japan could become a major issue...US bases in Japan and related problems of weapons and forces will continue to involve issues of great sensitivity in Japan-US relations. The government is bound to be responsive to the popular pressures which the left can whip up on these issues. We do not believe that this situation will lead to demands by any conservative government for evacuation of the bases.[9]
As part of an ongoing controversy lasting for more than half a century, in 2016 it was learned that the 1960s requirement for a secret nuclear weapon storage depot at Oura Bay in Henoko was an original purpose of the still highly controversial decision to expand Camp Schwab.[10] The decision to expand Camp Schwab has also been tied to the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
Post-war secret agreements for nuclear weapon storage and transit
Secrecy typically surrounds revealing the presence of weapons of mass destruction and especially those based in foreign territories where the political fallout of such disclosures can carry severe political complications for both allies and U.S. Foreign Policy makers who might the face pressure to remove them.[11][12][13][14][15] "Unknown to most people on Okinawa — service members and civilians alike — the island was also bristling with the full spectrum of America’s weapons of mass destruction, including hundreds of nuclear warheads and a large arsenal of chemical munitions."[16] Until the fact that U.S. nuclear weapons were stored on Okinawa was officially declassified in February 2016, photographs of nuclear weapons and delivery systems were the only proof of the somewhat open secret that the weapons were present on the Island.[17][18]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/TM-72_Mace_missile_is_trucked_through_Okinawa_streets_in_a_rare_open_display_during_the_1960s.jpg/220px-TM-72_Mace_missile_is_trucked_through_Okinawa_streets_in_a_rare_open_display_during_the_1960s.jpg)
A secret accord with Japan permits the United States to move weapons of mass destruction through Japanese territory and allows American warships and submarines to carry nuclear weapons into Japan's ports and American aircraft to bring them in during landings.[13][19][6] The agreement does not allow the United States to deploy or store nuclear arms in Japan without the permission of the Japanese Government. This delicate diplomacy took place during negotiations in 1959, and the agreement was made in 1960 by Aiichiro Fujiyama, then Japan's Foreign Minister.[19] "There were many things left unsaid; it was a very sophisticated negotiation. The Japanese are masters at understood and unspoken communication in which one is asked to draw inferences from what may not be articulated."[19]
The secret agreement was concluded without any Japanese text so that it could be plausibly denied in Japan.[20][19] Since only the American officials recorded the oral agreement, not having the agreement recorded in Japanese allowed Japan's leaders to deny its existence without fear that someone would leak a document to prove them wrong.[19] The arrangement also made it appear that the United States alone was responsible for the transit of nuclear munitions through Japan.[19] However, the original agreement document turned up in 1969 during preparation for an updated agreement, when a memorandum was written by a group of U.S. officials from the National Security Council Staff; the Departments of State, Defense, Army, Commerce and Treasury; the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Central Intelligence Agency; and the United States Information Agency.[13][19][6]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Mace_MGM-13_and_W28_nuclear_warhead_in_silo_on_Okinawa.jpg/220px-Mace_MGM-13_and_W28_nuclear_warhead_in_silo_on_Okinawa.jpg)
As reported by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, "not all of what had been pre-war Japan was granted full sovereignty." During the early parts of The Cold War the Bonin inslands including Chichi Jima, Okinawa, and the Volcano Islands including Iwo Jima were retained under under American control and these locations were among "thirteen separate locations in Japan that had nuclear weapons or components, or were earmarked to receive nuclear weapons in times of crisis or war."[20] According to a former U.S. Air Force officer stationed on Iwo Jima, the would have island served as a recovery facility for bombers after they had dropped their bombs in the Soviet Union or China. War planners reasoned that bombers could return Iwo Jima, "where they would be refueled, reloaded, and readied to deliver a second salvo as an assumption was that the major U.S. Bases in Japan and the Pacific theater would be destroyed in a nuclear war." It was believed by war planners that a small base might evade destruction and be a safe harbor for surviving submarines to reload. Supplies to re-equip submarines submarines as well as Anti-submarine weapons were stored within caves on Chichi Jima. The Johnson administration gradually realized that it would be forced to return Chichi Jima and Iwo Jima "to delay reversion of the more important Okinawa bases" however, President Johnson also wanted Japan's support for U.S. Military operations in Southeast Asia." The Bonin and Volcano islands were eventually returned to Japan in June 1968.[20]
Prime Minister Eisaku Satō and Foreign Minister Takeo Miki had explained to the Japanese parliament that "the return of the Bonins had nothing to do with nuclear weapons yet the final agreement included a secret annex, and its exact wording remained classified." A December 30, 1968 cable from the U.S. embassy in Tokyo is titled "Bonin Agreement Nuclear Storage," but within the same file "the National Archives contains a 'withdrawal sheet' for an attached Tokyo cable dated April 10, 1968, titled 'Bonins Agreement--Secret Annex,'".[20]
When the wartime U.S. military occupation of Japan ended in 1951, a new security treaty was signed that granted the United States far-reaching rights to base its "land, sea, and air forces in and about Japan."[20]
It is true that Chichi Jima, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa were under U.S. occupation, that the bombs stored on the mainland lacked their plutonium and/or uranium cores, and that the nuclear-armed ships were a legal inch away from Japanese soil. All in all, this elaborate strategem maintained the technicality that the United States had no nuclear weapons "in Japan."[20]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Mark-7_A-bomb_being_readied_for_mounting_by_members_of_the_8th_Tactical_Fighter_Wing_at_Kadena_AB.jpg/220px-Mark-7_A-bomb_being_readied_for_mounting_by_members_of_the_8th_Tactical_Fighter_Wing_at_Kadena_AB.jpg)
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution contains a total rejection of nuclear weapons where "the cornerstone of that rejection are the Three Non-Nuclear Principles--"no production, no possession, and no introduction." These principles date from 1959, when Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi stated that Japan would neither develop nuclear weapons nor permit them on its territory".[20]
But when these non-nuclear principles were being enunciated, Japanese territory was already fully compromised, in spirit if not in letter. Although actual nuclear weapons were removed from Iwo Jima at the end of 1959, Chichi Jima, which had the same legal status, continued to house warheads with their nuclear materials until 1965. And Okinawa, of course, was chock-a-block full of nuclear weapons of all types until 1972. Nuclear-armed ships moored at U.S. Navy bases in Japan, and others called at Japanese ports without restriction...Yet, as compromised as it was, Japan's non-nuclear policy was not wholly fictitious. The Pentagon never commanded nuclear storage rights on the main islands, and it had to withdraw nuclear weapons from Okinawa in 1972...Undoubtedly, Japanese rulers firmly believed that the compromises they made with Washington were necessary for Japanese security during the dark days of the Cold War. Through it all, nonetheless, "non-nuclear Japan" was a sentiment, not a reality.[20]
On the one year anniversary of a B-52 explosion and near-miss at Kadena Prime Minister Sato and President Nixon met in Washington, DC where several agreements including a revised Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and a formal policy related to the future deployment of nuclear weapons on Okinawa were reached.[21]
A draft of the November 21st, 1969 Agreed Minute to Joint Communique of United States President Nixon and Japanese Prime Minister Sato was found in 1994. "The existence of this document has never been officially recognized by the Japanese or U.S. governments." The English text of the draft agreement reads:[21]
United States President:
As stated in our Joint Communique, it is the intention of the United States Government to remove all the nuclear weapons from Okinawa by the time of actual reversion of the administrative rights to Japan; and thereafter the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security and its related arrangements will apply to Okinawa, as described in the Joint Communique. However, in order to discharge effectively the international obligations assumed by the United States for the defense of countries in the Far East including Japan, in time of great emergency the United Stales Government will require the re-entry of nuclear weapons and transit rights in Okinawa with prior consultation with the Government of Japan. The United States Government would anticipate a favorable response. The United States Government also requires the standby retention and activation in time of great emergency of existing nuclear storage locations in Okinawa: Kadena, Naha, Henoko, and the Nike Hercules units...
Japanese Prime Minister:
The Government of Japan, appreciating the United States Government's requirements in time of great emergency stated above by the President, will meet these requirements without delay when such prior consultation takes place. The President and the Prime Minister agreed that this Minute, in duplicate, be kept each only in the offices of the President and the Prime Minister and be treated in the strictest confidence between only the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Japan.
Alleged incidents and accidents involving nuclear weapons on Okinawa (1959-1968)
Complete information surrounding accidents involving these types of weapons at overseas bases is not generally available via official channels.[11][13][15][21] News of accidents on the island usually did not reach much farther than the islands local news, protest groups, eyewitnesses and rumor mills. However, the incidents that were publicized garnered international opposition to chemical and nuclear weapons and set the stage for officially ending the U.S. military occupation on Okinawa.[22][23][24][25][26][27]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Mark-28_bomb_being_transported_to_an_F-100_via_bomb_lift_truck_by_the_load_crew_of_the_18th_Tactical_Fighter_Wing_at_Kadena_Air_Base.jpg/220px-Mark-28_bomb_being_transported_to_an_F-100_via_bomb_lift_truck_by_the_load_crew_of_the_18th_Tactical_Fighter_Wing_at_Kadena_Air_Base.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/MACE_B.jpg/220px-MACE_B.jpg)
In the event of mass air penetration by an enemy attacking Okinawa, air defense interceptors stood ready for scrambling with nuclear warhead tipped AIR-2 Genie missiles that were kept on alert status in hardened hangers next to the runway at Naha Air Base near additional weapon storage areas. Nuclear armed Mace and Nike-H, missile launch sites were spread over about 20 locations throughout the island.[22][28][29] 32 Mace Missiles were kept on constant nuclear alert in hardened hangers at four of the island's launch sites.[28] The 280mm M65 Atomic Cannon nicknamed "Atomic Annie" and the projectiles it fired were also based here.[30] Okinawa at one point hosted as many as 1,200 nuclear warheads.[31] At the time, nuclear storage locations existed at Kadena AFB in Chibana and the hardened MGM-13 MACE missile launch sites; Naha AFB, Henoko [Camp Henoko (Ordnance Ammunition Depot) at Camp Schwab], and the Nike Hercules units on Okinawa.[21]
On January 18, 1959, an F-100 Super Sabre in ground alert configuration and armed with a nuclear air-to-air missile caught fire at an unnamed U.S. pacific air base. The fire was reportedly quickly put out and there was apparently no danger to the nuclear weapon.[32] At that time, it is known that nuclear armed F-100 aircraft in the Pacific were based at Okinawa, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, and Thailand.[32] More than 50 years later, the specific location of this potential nuclear accident has never been disclosed by the United States government.[15]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cb/18-36-3_Nike_missile_June_1967.jpg/220px-18-36-3_Nike_missile_June_1967.jpg)
In June or July 1959, an incident occurred where a MIM-14 Nike-Hercules anti-aircraft missile was accidentally fired from the Nike site 8 battery at Naha Air Base on Okinawa which according to some witnesses, was complete with a nuclear warhead.[33] While the missile was undergoing continuity testing of the firing circuit, known as a squib test, stray voltage caused a short circuit in a faulty cable that was lying in a puddle and allowed the missile's rocket engines to ignite with the launcher still in a horizontal position.[33] The Nike missile left the launcher and smashed through a fence and down into a beach area skipping the warhead out across the water "like a stone."[33] The rocket's exhaust blast killed two Army technicians and injured one.[33] A similar accidental launch of a Nike-H missile had occurred on April 14, 1955, at the W-25 site in Davidsonville, Maryland, which is near the National Security Agency headquarters at Fort George G. Meade.[34]
On January 24, 1961, four days after John F. Kennedy became president, two Mark 39 thermonuclear bombs released at altitude during a B-52 accident near Goldsboro, North Carolina.[32] The secondary thermonuclear device from one of the hydrogen bombs was never recovered and when the triggering mechanism for the recovered bomb was examined, all but one of safety devices designed to prevent a thermonuclear detonation were found to have failed.[32] "Only a single switch," said nuclear physicist Ralph E. Lapp, "prevented the bomb from detonating..." In Newsweek magazine it was reported that following the accident, Kennedy was informed that, "there had been more than 60 accidents involving U.S. nuclear weapons," since World War II, "including two cases in which nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missiles were actually launched by inadvertence."[32][35][36]
On October 28, 1962 during the peak of Cuban Missile Crisis U.S. Strategic Forces were at Defense Condition Two or DEFCON 2. According to missile technicians who witnessed events, the four MACE B missile sites on Okinawa erroneously received coded launch orders to fire all of their 32 nuclear cruise missiles at the Soviets and their allies. Quick thinking by Capt. William Bassett who questioned whether the order was "the real thing, or the biggest screw up we will ever experience in our lifetime” delayed the orders to launch until the error was realized by the missile operations center. According to witness John Bordne, Capt. Bassett was the senior field officer commanding the missiles and was nearly forced to have a subordinate lieutenant who was intent on following the orders to launch his missiles shot by armed security guards. No U.S. Government record of this incident has ever been officially released.[37][38] Former missileers have refuted Bordne's account.[39]
Next, on December 5, 1965, off of the coast of Okinawa, an A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft rolled off of an elevator of the aircraft carrier the USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) into 16,000 feet of water resulting in the loss of the pilot, the aircraft, and the B43 nuclear bomb it was carrying, all of which were too deep for recovery.[40] Since the ship was traveling to Japan from duty in the Vietnam war zone, no public mention was made of the incident at the time and it would not come to light until 1981 when a Pentagon report revealed that a one-megaton bomb had been lost.[41] Japan then formally asked for details of the incident.[42]
Last, In September 1968, Japanese newspapers reported that radioactive Cobalt-60 had been detected contaminating portions of the Naha Port Facility, sickening three. The radioactive contamination was believed by scientists to have emanated from visiting U.S. nuclear submarines.[43]
B-52 Crash at Kadena Air Base (1968)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/18-60-2_Artillery_rounds_Chibana_Ammunition_Depot_February_1969.jpg/200px-18-60-2_Artillery_rounds_Chibana_Ammunition_Depot_February_1969.jpg)
Finally, on November 19, 1968, a U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC) B-52 Stratofortress (registration number 55-01030) with a full bomb load, broke up and caught fire after the plane aborted takeoff at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa while it was conducting an Operation Arc Light bombing mission to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War.[44][25] The plane's pilot was able to keep the plane on the ground and bring the aircraft to a stop while preventing a much larger catastrophe.[22] The aircraft came to rest near the edge of the Kadena's perimeter, some 250 meters from the Chibana Ammunition Depot.[44][22]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/B-52_55-0103_Crash_site%2C_Kadena%2C_AFB.jpg/230px-B-52_55-0103_Crash_site%2C_Kadena%2C_AFB.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/18-09-4_Artillery_projectiles_Chibana_Ammunition_Depot_September_1966.jpg/200px-18-09-4_Artillery_projectiles_Chibana_Ammunition_Depot_September_1966.jpg)
The fire resulting from the aborted takeoff ignited the plane's fuel and detonated the plane's 30,000-pound (13,600 kg) bomb load of twenty-four 500 lb (226 kg) bombs, (twelve under each wing) and twenty-four 750 lb (340 kg) bombs inside the bomb bay and caused a blast so powerful that it created an immense crater under the burning aircraft some thirty feet deep and sixty feet across.[44] The blast blew out the windows in the dispensary at Naha Air Base (now Naha Airport), 23 miles (37 km) away and damaged 139 houses.[22][25] The plane was reduced "to a black spot on the runway"[25] The blast was so large that Air Force spokesman had to announce that there had only been conventional bombs on board the plane.[26] Nothing remained of aircraft except the landing gear and engine assemblies, a few bombs, and some loose explosive that had not detonated.[44][22] Very small fragments of aircraft metal from the enormous blast were "spread like confetti," leaving the crew to use a double entendre to refer to the cleanup work, calling it, "'52 Pickup."[22] The planes Electronic Warfare Officer and the Crew Chief later died from burn injuries after being evacuated from Okinawa.[44][22] Two Okinawan workers were also injured in the blasts.[25]
Had the plane become airborne, it would have crashed about 1/4-1/2 mile (400–800 meters)[verification needed] north of the runway and directly into the Chibana ammunition storage depot, which stored ammunition, bombs, high explosives, and ten of thousands artillery shells and is now known to have held warheads for 19 different atomic and thermonuclear weapons systems in the hardened weapon storage areas.[22][30] The depot held the Mark 28 nuclear bomb warheads used in the MGM-13 MACE cruise missile as well as warheads for nuclear tipped MGR-1 Honest John and MIM-14 Nike-Hercules (Nike-H) missiles.[30]
Chibana depot also included 52 igloos in the Red Hat Storage Area containing Project Red Hat's chemical weapons and presumably Project 112's Biological Agents.[11][21][45][46]
The crash led to demands to remove the B-52s from Okinawa and strengthened a push for the reversion from U.S. rule in Okinawa.[25][27] Okinawans had correctly suspected that the Chibana depot held nuclear weapons.[22] The crash sparked fears that another potential disaster on the island could put the chemical and nuclear stockpile and the surrounding population in jeopardy and increased the urgency of moving them to a less populated and less active storage location.
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- ^ Dale Van Atta (April 29, 2008). With Honor: Melvin Laird in War, Peace, and Politics. Univ of Wisconsin Press. pp. 570–. ISBN 978-0-299-22683-1. Retrieved 15 April 2013.
- Weapons of mass destruction by country
- Nuclear weapons of the United States
- Nuclear weapons program of the United States
- Nuclear weapons programs
- United States Atomic Energy Commission
- United States Department of Energy
- Cold War history of the United States
- Nuclear weapons policy
- Government of Japan
- Environment of Japan
- Politics of Japan
- Japanese culture
- Nuclear technology in Japan
- Nuclear-weapon-free zones