Marine Corps Air Station Futenma
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The United States Marine Corps base at Futenma is located in the city of Ginowan on the island of Okinawa. It is home to around 4,000 Marines and has been a key US military airbase since the island was occupied by the Americans in 1945.
The base includes a 2,800 meter-long runway as well as extensive housing, administrative and logistical facilities. The Marine Corps Air Station is tasked with operating a variety of fixed and rotary-wing aircraft in support of the III Marine Expeditionary Force. The base is also used as a United Nations air facility, but the rent of the base is paid for entirely by the United States government.
MCAS Futenma is a key American air-base where Marine Corps pilots and aircrew are assigned for training, providing the air complement to other land-based Marines in Okinawa, and to help fulfil the 1952 treaty commitment of the United States to defend Japan. But noise and air pollution from the base has become a controversial issue in Ginowan City. In 1997, it was decided that the base should be relocated to a more expensive but much quieter off-shore location at Henoko. This was, and remains, an extremely controversial decision, since the base is to be constructed on a living coral reef, and in a 1997 referendum, a majority of local people voted against it. Construction has yet to begin, and at present it is the subject of an international Greenpeace campaign.
External Links
- Greenpeace campaign to stop construction at Henoko (http://www.greenpeace.or.jp/cyberaction/okinawa/index_en_html)
- On Okinawa, trouble at home base (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/FI09Dh05.html) article by Kosuke Takahashi (September 9, 2004)