This Week in History: Occupation of Japan begins
On Aug. 28, 1945, the postwar occupation of Japan began as an advance party of the 68th Army Airways Communications System (which later became Air Force Communications Service/Air Force Communications Command) Group flew into Atsugi Field near Tokyo and set up the communications equipment necessary to guide in the first contingent of occupation troops. Col. Gordon Blake for whom today’s USAF “Blake Aircraft Save Award” is named and his AACS crew, part of a 150-man task force, flew from Okinawa to Atsugi with 24 C-47 aircraft laden with equipment. Not knowing what their arrival would bring, the AACS lost no time in getting operations into full swing, and by Aug. 29, the Atsugi control tower was completed. The first planes to arrive on Aug. 30 were five more C-47s, carrying components to set up an airborne radio station. Within a few hours, the first C-54 aircraft of the official occupation forces landed at Atsugi and Blake’s AACS crew began directing takeoffs and landings at the rate of one every two minutes. The airlift ended 13 days later without a single fatal aircraft accident. In total, 1,336 C-54 flights brought the 11th Airborne Division, the 27th Infantry Division and advanced echelons of General MacArthur’s headquarters, Far East Air Force and the Eighth Army.