U.S. Air Force engineers, U.S. Navy Seabees, and U.S. Marine engineer teams have reclaimed a historic World War II airfield from jungle growth in the Western Pacific for use for operations for American forces throughout the Indo-Pacific.
The airfield at North Field Air Base on the isle of Tinian is being improved as an alternate location for flight operations at nearby Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, should the primary airfield become unsustainable in a time of war, according to Pacific Air Forces (PACAF).
Laying Asphalt on Tinian
The $409 million, five-year restoration project was launched in April. Teams from 356th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Group (ECEG) based at Andersen AFB “have cleared 99 percent of vegetation from runways, taxiways, and ramps while minding protected bird species and carefully removing WWII era ordnance left behind when the field was abandoned in 1946,” PACAF said.
Other restoration work included shoring up walls and restoring roofs and paved roads.
“This is the first time in decades that the military has laid asphalt on Tinian,” Tech Sergeant Cesar Cortes, 513th Expeditionary Red Horse Squadron crew lead, said in a statement. “The teamwork between Red Horse and joint service partners have been outstanding, and the experience gained here will be invaluable as we move on to larger-scale airfield rehabilitation.”
Largest Airfield in the World
Tinian, which is part of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, is east of the Philippines and south of Japan. The island has an area of around 39 square miles—about the same size as Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to the U.S. National Park Service (NPS).
The island was taken by Japan during World War I and used for agriculture, but later garrisoned by the country due to its strategic military value during WWII. In July 1944, Allied forces seized the island when more than 41,000 U.S. Marines launched an amphibious assault on Tinian and Saipan, located less than 6 miles southwest.
“As soon as the island was seized, the Seabees, the Navy’s construction battalions, began work on the largest airbase of WWII—and in fact the largest airfield in the world at the time,” according to NPS. “It would become a 40,000-person base, with six 8,500-foot (1.5 miles, 2,600-meter) runways, hardstands for hundreds of B-29s and other aircraft, and naval facilities including Tinian Harbor.”
Within a year of the Battle of Tinian, the airfield became a launching point for B-29 bombers targeting Imperial Japan, including the Enola Gay, which dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
- READ MORE: The Airplane that Ended a War
Projecting Power in the Pacific
Eight decades later, Tinian’s strategic value endures. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is focusing on rebuilding and restoring WWII-era airfields in the region as part of its Agile Combat Employment (ACE) doctrine that seeks to cluster American forces in the Pacific.
“The days of operating from secure, fixed bases are over. The Indo-Pacific’s vast distances and evolving threats demand a flexible, resilient force that can operate from multiple, dispersed locations under contested conditions,” General Kevin Schneider, commander of Pacific Air Forces, said Tuesday at the Air and Space Force Association’s Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado.
“The Air Force wants to populate the Indo-Pacific with dispersed operating locations to support ACE, but we also need to invest heavily in resilient infrastructure at main operating bases. It’s about balancing the ability to generate and project combat power while remaining survivable.”
The post U.S. Air Force, Navy Restore Historic WWII-Era Airfield in the Pacific appeared first on FLYING Magazine.
