Planned, but not realized Reduction in Force in Yokosuka during 1970s

There are no “ifs” in history unless you are dreamy idealists or dedicated fans of alternative history fictions that begin with a notion of “if it had not happened in the past. ” We are, however, sometimes allured into imagining “what ifs” about historically or personally important events as different from the ones we have gone through up to now, and speculate on the following outcomes where things “might have been” from the focal points there, in which the world could be completely strange and alienated from the reality we have at the present. A movie like “Back to the Future, ” which everyone may be familiar with, utilizes time travel devices, and it could be counted as one of the typical examples. It sought a theme that past incident may result in a different future from a cause to an effect. Sometimes the creators of such works imagined and expressed their future at the time of works’ creation and we, as modern audience living in the future far ahead of the time imagined in the past, may have a strange feeling about “the future” depicted in the works. When we observe “Blade Runner, ” a movie set in 2019, novels like “1984” by George Orwell or the world of steam-driven calculators during the Victorian Britain in “The Difference Engine” by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling — where the future written in the works are the one we have already experienced — those stories might appear anachronistic for the reason that the fictive world is totally different or intentionally dystopian and disastrous as was not what we had lived or known in a real life. In reality, however, we might be tempted to think those alternate histories when we look into some plans on the U. S. military facilities in Japan during the 1970s. In 1970, the U. S. officials are seriously considering about thoroughly radical changes to the U. S. military operations in Japan. In a document, “60. Memorandum From the Executive Secretary of the Department of State (Eliot) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), ” the U. S. and Japan were going to discuss “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. ” Can you imagine the world where Yokosuka Naval Facilities, including Commander, Fleet Activities Yokosuka could have gone off the world completely more than 50 years ago? As part of so-called Nixon Doctrine put forth in 1969, which aimed at ending exhausting Vietnam War, the U. S. was more or less forced to make a political change about its diplomacy and military activities, with alternatives to support the U. S. global strategy through the next decade, due to a loss of over 70, 000 Americans in the South East Asia theaters, and a rise of public opinions against it. Additionally Vietnam War was a far more expensive for the U. S. even though they wanted to deter communist influences on the fine lines between the capitalistic America and the socialistic Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 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 that year in 1970, and “while a bit surprised at the plan to close Yokosuka, [he] undertook to study the package carefully. ” And in Nov. 21, Public Information Bureau Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs publicly announced subjects discussed at the Japan-United States Security Consultative Committee in the package plan which included down-sizing of Yokosuka naval facility with a large number of layoffs and significant reduce of the facility in its scale. The plan was supposed to be carried out by June, in 1946. It was a bolt out of the blue to Yokosuka, and even much more so to those who worked at the Yokosuka U. S. Navy base. Expectedly enough, there was so much confusion in Yokosuka’s naval communities, and various rumors circulated and those affected especially Ship Repair Facility (SRF) which boasted more than 4, 000 employees who specialized in ship repair and maintenance for more than decades after World War II. It was also scheduled for substantial reductions in operational and logistics activities. The proposed realignments might affect about 12, 000 U. S. military personnel, plus U. S. civilian employees and dependents, according to the plan which was later revealed in “CINCPAC Command History 1971. ” As a result, 872 employees under the Master Labor Contract, in which their status, working conditions, salaries and more were provided, left their work for another places. And SRF’s Reduction in Force (RIF) notification was posted Jan. 18, 1971. Prior to that realignment, SRF even held their “last” New Year Ceremony in preparation of their disestablishment in June. In SRF’s internal newspaper “Anchor, ” Hiroshi Honda, budget analyst at management engineering branch, expressed his regret for SRF's closure as well as his pride as an SRF employee in the last page of his business log, Jan. 19, 1971, as follows: “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…. Although the working efficiency has declined in this chaos, SRF keeps its operation. To gain running fund, SRF can not stop the operation. We had faced unaccountable numbers of RIFs and lays-off. In fear and despair, SRF employees are working hard without saying complains. They are the driving force of SRF. Without their existence, SRF would have never gain an excellent reputation. ” However, it was within their expectation on the American side. 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, sees unpredictable turns. In case of Yokosuka’s RIF, the table was turned quite the opposite way. Not only Yokosuka’s RIF was postponed, it facilitated more augmentation of the Navy’s capabilities in Yokosuka which was indicated in a document of “CINCPAC Command History 1971, ” which reads “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. ” 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 expressed a strong preference for retaining Yokosuka as the primary U. S. Navy complex in Japan. U. S. and Japanese officials announced agreement to continue the U. S. Navy’s presence there March 30, 1971. Around the same time, it was said that harboring a forward-deployed U. S. aircraft carrier in Yokosuka was discussed unofficially between Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird under President Nixon regime, and Director General of the Japan Defense Agency Yasuhiro Nakasone. And in 1972, 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’s facility in Japan. Even though Yokosuka had seen several port visits of U. S. Navy’s aircraft carriers such as USS Constellation (CV 64) and USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV 42) in the past, homeporting an aircraft carrier caused a considerable concern especially to the Japanese public which led to a fierce opposition movement when the deployment was decided and the ship’s “homeporting” was announced. . On the other hand, the carrier’s homeporting in Yokosuka was highly beneficial for the U. S. in terms of cost, since the fuel for an aircraft carrier to transit the Pacific could be saved, or by relocating families of afloat Sailors aboard the ship in Yokosuka, they could keep much closer relationship with their deployment period getting much shorter than when they were in the mainland U. S. , which, they believed, would help maintain the morale of the Sailors even they were in a foreign country. After Midway’s deployment to Yokosuka since 1973 up to 1991, Yokosuka subsequently accepted the only forward-deployed U. S. aircraft carriers such as USS Independence (CV 62) from 1991 through 1998, USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) from 1998 through 2008, USS George Washington (CVN 73) and USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) since 2015. And the rest is history. Now we have come to a point where we can look back and reflect upon a winding path we have followed up to now. As we have seen, we are right here in Yokosuka, which kept or increase its strategic and logistic importance, through a lot of coincidences and unpredictable turn of things, having survived crises and precarious existence. Yokosuka has been a lynchpin in the Pacific in terms of security and stability in the western Pacific region for decades. And it may be worth remembering where we are coming from and let your hearts and thoughts wander over remembrance of the things past.