Where are Americans relocating to?
Recent press reports suggest that a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean is set to become a new forward front in the event of hostilities between the United States and China. This has evoked wartime memories of when the island in question, Tinian, served as a US military base in the fight against the Japanese. During WWII, American-operated runways on Tinian served as launch pads for numerous bombing raids, including the fateful attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Abandoned for nearly 80 years, these airfields now look set to be recommissioned as Washington voices concern over Beijing's increasing missile threat. But where exactly is Tinian located, and what's the story behind this remote, jungle-clad enclave?Click through and step back in time to find out.
Tinian is one of the three principal islands of the Northern Mariana Islands, an unincorporated territory of the United States set in the northern Pacific Ocean.
The Mariana Islands were first settled around 1500 to 1400 BCE. Tinian was colonized by the Spanish and later the Germans over a 200-year-plus period, from 1645 to 1899. Significantly, in 1914 during the First World War, the island was captured by the Japanese.
Under Japanese rule, extensive infrastructure development took place, including the construction of port facilities, waterworks, power stations, roads, and housing. It was only during the latter stages of the Second World War that Japan realized Tinian's strategic importance as a possible base for American long-range bombers. The island was quickly garrisoned.
Tinian's strategic location was not lost on the US military either. In 1943, plans were drawn up to seize Tinian along with the neighboring islands of Saipan and Guam. The following year, on July 16, 1944, the Battle of Tinian commenced with a US naval bombardment targeting key Japanese positions.
The ground offensive followed on July 24 when the 4th Marine Division waded ashore.
The infantry was supported by continued naval bombardment and artillery fire. In the skies, the US Navy Grumman TBF-1C Avengers (pictured) were among the American bombers providing air support.
Within a week, Japanese forces had been overwhelmed, although the garrison on Aguiguan Island off the southwest cape of Tinian held out until the end of the war, only surrendering on 4 September 4, 1945.
Image: US Marine Corps, 1944
The short but bloody Battle of Tinian claimed the lives of 368 Marines and 5,745 Japanese combatants. Pictured are captured Japanese soldiers emerging from their hideout.
Tinian's transport infrastructure had been reduced to rubble, its roads destroyed and its towns and villages resembling matchwood.
But even as the Americans were mopping up, plans were being drawn up to turn the island into an important base for further US operations in the Pacific campaign.
The Seabees—United States Naval Construction Battalions—were put to work rebuilding Tinian. Camps were built for 50,000 troops, and 15,000 Seabees turned the island into the busiest airfield of the war, creating eight 7,900-ft (2,400 m) runways to accommodate B-29 Superfortress bombers.
Image: US Navy
Two runway complexes, North Field (pictured) and West Field, were constructed. North Field's runways occupied nearly the entire northern end of the island and at the time stood as the largest airfield in the world.
North Field's four enormous parallel runways were oriented nearly east-west. They were complemented by hardstands built for 265 B-29 bombers—exactly what the Japanese had predicted.
This rare color image of North Field clearly shows B-29 bombers parked over the hardstands. Among the aircraft seen here are those belonging to the 509th Composite Group, a unit tasked with the operational deployment of nuclear weapons.
Image: Harold Agnew/US Government
West Field and its four runways was home to the 58th Bombardment Wing. This unit was responsible for the deadly attacks on Tokyo and other Japanese cities, plus Japanese targets based as far away as Burma, Thailand, and China.
Image: USAF Historical Research Agency, 1945
Pictured here is West Field's vast containment area comprising accommodation, warehouse, and mess hall facilities.
Image: USAF Historical Research Agency, 1945
Back on North Field in early August 1945, the B-29 Superfortress 'Enola Gay' maneuvered over a bomb pit to collect a new and terrible weapon.
Once in position a secret bomb code-named "Little Boy" was slowly deposited into the aircraft's belly.
On the morning of August 6, 'Enola Gay,' commanded by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets (pictured), took off from Tinian. Its destination was the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
Several hours later Hiroshima lay in ruins, flattened by the first nuclear weapon used in warfare dropped by the first aircraft to do so.
A photographer at North Field captured 'Enola Gay' landing back on Tinian after its historic bombing run. Three days later on August 9, a second atomic bomb known as "Fat Man" was collected by another B-29, this one named Bockscar. It was detonated over Nagasaki.
With the surrender of Japan, the United States abandoned Tinian Island, although it remained under Washington's influence, becoming part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands controlled by the United States. Pictured in 1971 is the ruined and overgrown headquarters of the Japanese Navy's 1st Air Fleet.
This recent image shows the rusting and eroded interior of the Japanese command center.
These are the ruins of an abandoned fuel bomb storage by the roadside on Tinian. Relics of the Second World War lie scattered across much of the island.
Here, the ruined shell of a Japanese tank, its barrel long lost, still keeps guard over a former gun emplacement.
The most poignant of Tinian's wartime reminders is the very bomb pit into which "Little Boy" was placed before its fateful delivery to Hiroshima. It's the island's most popular visitor attraction.
Meanwhile, North Field's near-80-year-old runways, the subject of those recent news reports, remain weather-worn and pocked with weeds. But for how much longer?
Much of Tinian is jungle. The runways built all those years ago have been mostly reclaimed by Mother Nature.
But according to a CNN report published December 21, 2023, Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of Pacific Air Forces, told Nikkei Asia in an interview published recently that North Airfield will become an "extensive" facility once work has been completed to reclaim it from the jungle.
And earlier in fact, in October 2020, battalions of Seabees, the same units responsible for building the original wartime runways, were seen deployed operating heavy equipment and constructing new infrastructure on the Pacific island.
Image: US Navy
Sources: (CNN) (Nikkei Asia) (The New York Times)
The Pacific airfield being repurposed to counter China
The US is set to recommission old runways in case hostilities break out
LIFESTYLE History
Recent press reports suggest that a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean is set to become a new forward front in the event of hostilities between the United States and China. This has evoked wartime memories of when the island in question, Tinian, served as a US military base in the fight against the Japanese. During WWII, American-operated runways on Tinian served as launch pads for numerous bombing raids, including the fateful attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Abandoned for nearly 80 years, these airfields now look set to be recommissioned as Washington voices concern over Beijing's increasing missile threat. But where exactly is Tinian located, and what's the story behind this remote, jungle-clad enclave?
Click through and step back in time to find out.