Photographs of Japanese Atsugi Airfield near Tokyo after the end of WWII from the U.S. Air Force magazine Impact, Vol. II, No. 9, Sept.-Oct. 1945.
ATSUGI AIRFIELD
First close look many Americans got of Japan was when they landed at this fighter base 32 miles from Tokyo. It was covered with planes, some of them wrecked, many in good condition. But the general impression was that the Japs had a junky, tinny air force. It seemed as if they had been trying to fight a Tiffany war with Woolworth merchandise. Even maintenance was shoddy, typical of Jap fields.
Pinned down by American air power, Jap planes on Atsugi were squashed by collapse of wooden hangar.
Flotsam of a beaten air force was assembled on Atsugi, including well-ventilated Navy Jacks below.
Tunnel entrance leads to one of maze of corridors which literally honeycombed ground beneath Atsugi’s runways.
Atsugi’s tunnels were used as a vast storage depot for food, clothes, ammunition, machine tools and aircraft parts.
It was interesting to see that they still had some old “Nell” medium bombers hanging around at that late date.
The “Jacks” were a fairly rarely photographed aircraft as well.
The denigrating remarks about their aircraft and airbase conditions don’t seem to take into account that the country was in near complete collapse from the massive fire bombing raids, and pretty much out of oil supplies of any type.
Greetings. I am AVCM Becht stationed at NAF Atsugi. I am in search of people that have first hand knowledge or photos of the Air Raid Shelters that are still here. I have most of the maps from the surveys done in 1954. I am leading an effort to locate 3 aircraft that are in the underground hangar on the East Gate side of the facility. Please reply to christopher.becht@fe.navy.mil or stealth_071@hotmail.com Hope to hear something. Thanks.
r/
Chris Becht