Greg Girard
Japan’s southernmost prefecture, Okinawa, hosts a concentration of US military bases unlike anywhere outside the continental United States. More than half the 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan are based here. On the main island of Okinawa nearly 20% of the land is occupied by these bases. This large US military footprint, and the legacy of Okinawa’s history as a US-administered territory until 1972, means that the social and physical landscape of Okinawa is shaped by this relationship with the US military like few other places. In "Hotel Okinawa" (2017), Girard looks at this unique world "on base" and off, separate and yet conjoined, the result of decades of living in close proximity with the US military. Additionally, archival photographs, periodicals and other artefacts, some dating back to the US occupation, appear throughout the book, registering historical strands that are part of the complex fabric of Okinawa today.
216th Army Air Forces Base Unit
By early 1944, the role of the United States Army Air Forces had moved away from defense and preparing new units. Some 90 per cent of the planned units had been activated, and three quarters of them had already deployed overseas. The Air Forces therefore shifted to the training of replacement aircrew and special projects like the Boeing B-29 Superfortress program.
It was found that the existing system of units with fixed establishments was not sufficiently flexible for the Air Forces new roles, so in February 1944 Army Air Forces Headquarters ordered the units at each installation to be consolidated into Army Air Forces Base Units. The 216th Army Air Forces Base Unit was formed at Wendover Army Airfield in Utah, where it supported the 72d Fighter Wing, a formation responsible for training pilots of P-47 Thunderbolts. The base covered , and was the largest bombing and gunnery range in the world.