The tranquil village of Onna is one of Okinawa's most beautiful spots. Scenic beaches, dramatic rock formations and lavish seaside resorts dot the coast. But there's a dark legacy here -- a former nuclear cruise missile launch site built during the postwar U.S. military occupation.
The Mace B cruise missile launch site is the last remainder of four that were constructed in the 1960s. Opened to the public for the first time this spring, the large concrete building, roughly 9 meters tall and 100 meters wide, sits on a hill facing the East China Sea.
The United States occupied Okinawa from 1945 to 1972. As Cold War tensions increased, it accelerated its deployment of nuclear weapons on the main island despite anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan following the radioactive contamination of a Japanese fishing boat in the mid-1950s.
The Fukuryu Maru No. 5 was exposed to fallout from the U.S. Castle Bravo nuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll in 1954, killing one crew member and sickening the other 22.
Following Okinawa's return to Japanese rule in May 1972, Soka Gakkai, a major Japanese Buddhist organization, purchased the lot that included the Onna launch site in 1976.
With this year marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the group restored the interior and opened the base to the public in March. Some 3,000 people have visited so far.
"It gave me goosebumps. I was aware of problems involving U.S. military bases, but I had no idea about the deployment of nuclear weapons (in Okinawa)," said a 41-year-old woman who was visiting the site from Sapporo, northern Japan, with her parents.
"Okinawa might not exist now if any nuclear missiles had been fired," she said.
Isao Kuwae, 61, secretary general of Soka Gakkai in Okinawa, suggested that when the missile base was being erected local contractors may not have known what they were building.
He added the Onna site is "the only place where you can see with your own eyes the past presence of nuclear weapons in Okinawa."
A Mace B cruise missile was said to have a payload 70 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that the U.S. military dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people by the end of the year.
With a range of over 2,000 kilometers, the missiles, deployed at the bases in Okinawa in the first half of the 1960s, could strike China and parts of the Soviet Union. They were reportedly made ready for war during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
But with the subsequent development of new missiles, the need for Mace B missiles diminished. They were removed from Okinawa starting in 1969, when the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed on Okinawa's return to Japan without nuclear weapons.
Although Japan regained sovereignty and independence in 1952 under the terms of the San Fransico Peace Treaty, Okinawa continued under U.S. military rule for the next 20 years.
In 1967, Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato declared the so-called three non-nuclear principles -- not producing, not possessing and not allowing any nation to bring nuclear weapons into Japanese territory. At the time, the U.S. had some 1,300 nuclear weapons in Okinawa.
"The three principles came into existence because there were nuclear weapons in Okinawa," said Masaaki Gabe, 70, professor emeritus at the University of the Ryukyus. "The Japanese government felt assured because of U.S. protection."
Despite occupying approximately 0.6 percent of Japan's total land area, Okinawa still hosts some 70 percent of U.S. military facilities in the country, Gabe noted.
In Yomitan, another Okinawa village where Mace B missiles had been deployed, Junshi Toyoda, 65, a local government official involved in compilation of the village history, said that present fears about the possible deployment of long-range missiles still exist.
Threats from contemporary missiles with a firing range of several thousand kilometers overlap with those caused by the presence of nuclear weapons in the past.
"The fact that nuclear weapons exist today makes it easier to feel the crises that was close to home during the Cold War era. I hope people will first learn about the deployment history of nuclear weapons in Okinawa," Toyoda said.
© KYODO
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Tamarama
This disgusts me, actually.
It disgusts me to think the US would strategically use Okinawa as a Nuclear missile base post WW2, having nuked Japan twice. Talk about callous.
Course, it also makes things a little squirmy for those that try to argue that the US occupies bases in places like Okinawa purely because they are defending a country's 'freedom and liberty'.
Clearly, not the case.
divinda
Me thinks the anti-nuke sentiment in Japan may have instead started from a pair of incidents which occurred about a decade earlier....
The_Beagle
Oh, is THAT why Japan is ant-nuclear?!
JeffLee
What were they defending, then? There was a Cold War on at the time, believe it nor. The Korean War raged not far away, and "Red China" was crazier and more dangerous than North Korea today, as Mao killed 10s of millions of his own people while the country was a full-on nuclear power whose daily public threats were about destroying and burying capitalism. Not a lot of "freedom and liberty" under Mao and Stalin at the time. But there was plenty of it in Japan then and still is today. How do you think that came about? By coincidence?
Fortunately the the Cold War ended and the West won, which is why the missiles aren't there anymore.
SaikoPhysco
Love them or Hate them, Nukes quite possibly have deterred WWIII from happening to this point. Hopefully they will continue to do so because I don't see the World all of a sudden coming together as one in peace. In fact going forward things may get tougher as more and more people fight for the dwindling resources.
Peter Neil
Korean War had been long over. China made no threats, it was the Soviet Union that did. Khrushchev, not Stalin. Let’s try to get something right.
Nixon was president when Okinawa reverted. He was against it, but eventually relented. He said that he didn’t trust the Japanese and wanted to keep Okinawa. The US already bogged down in Vietnam and wanted the bases to remain.
wallace
Did the Japanese government of the day know about it? Something to be happy with the Soka Gakkai.
JboneInTheZone
Why? Oh, because your entire ideology is AMERICA BAD
It doesn’t make that the case at all lol. They have military bases in Okinawa to defend their freedom and liberty.
GuruMick
In the 60.s and even 70,s the US military felt"communism " was akin to a cloud that could waft in and indoctrinate people.
Stupid then, stupid now.
From the USA, one of the most stupid places on earth post WW2
James Dean Jr.
What haunts me most is the silence — how little this was known. A peaceful beach in Onna hides what could have ended the world. Not just history, but a warning in concrete. We remember Hiroshima, we remember Nagasaki… but somehow forgot Okinawa stood on the edge too. Maybe opening this site is not just about the past — maybe it’s a mirror we’ve been avoiding.
Yubaru
And pray tell why in the world would it have been made public? I am also surprised that something such as this, well over 50 years ago, would "haunt" someone today.
There is much worse going on today that should "haunt" you a heck of a lot more!
quercetum
It's just a large concrete structure with reinforced blast doors and a suspicious number of antennas. Probably a new onsen the locals thought.
Let Okinawa be Okinawa—the only thing that should be launching is a paddleboard.
wallace
An old photo of the site
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/uploads/imported_images/uploads/2013/01/fl20120708x1a.jpg
"The image shows a Mace missile site on Okinawa from the early 1960s. This site was part of the U.S. military's strategy during the Sino-Soviet split, with missiles aimed over the East China Sea. The site became operational in early 1962, with eight Mace missiles transported from Kadena Air Base and loaded into launch tubes. "
Ricky Kaminski13
Blind we are, to the truth right in front of our eyes. A guy clearly indoctrinated hook, line, and sinker into the anti-American pro-communism talking points, claiming that there was never any threat back in the 60s and 70s of the very mindset that possesses him now. The irony is stark.
Desert Tortoise
Quite a large proportion of Congress and the American public were of the opinion that after the degree of blood shed by US forces to capture that island chain in WWII that the US should never return it to Japan.
You may not be old enough to have lived some of those times but after WWII Japan was widely reviled in the US. My parents actively refused to buy Japanese made goods. Japan was seen much as China is seen today. Returning Okinawa to Japan was highly controversial. Many felt it should be American forever. Having grown up with this it is actually remarkable to me that Okinawa was returned to Japan. Same for Iwo Jima.
Btw, there were nuclear armed Nike missiles close to my home in Los Angeles and in bases in the surrounding mountains. The idea was to launch a nuclear missile into incoming Soviet bomber formations. They didn't have the kind of guidance back then that would allow hitting individual bombers with a conventional missile. Even the fighters carried a big Genie nuclear missile to use against bomber formations. We have come a long way since then.