Fuchu Air Base was a Japan Air Self-Defence Force base located in Fuchū, Tokyo. It was originally an Imperial Japanese Army base from 1940 to 1945. After the Japanese surrender, it was occupied by US forces and became a US military base known as Fuchu Air Station.
Fuchu Abandoned military base is surely an interesting destination for the urban trip: Stunning because it was a military area tightly surrounded by rusted barriers; and Strenuous because even after you got inside, you are still under the direct surveillance of the local Fuchu citizens.
The History of Fuchu Air Base
Fuchu was an Air Base vital for re-supply and communications during the Vietnam and Korean Wars. Two giant parabolic dishes once loomed at one end of the runways, looking over a bustling base where the wounded frequently came back hot from war zones overseas.
The Japan Self-Defense Force started operating at the base in 1957, and it was also the first headquarters of U.S. Forces Japan from 1957 to 1974, when the headquarters moved to Yokota Air Base.
In 1975, major portions of Fuchu Air Station were returned to the Government of Japan (GOJ), and USAF retained a small portion for AUTOVON tandem switch, Troposcatter Site (JTS), and associated Technical Control Facility (TCF). About a third of the base became a JASDF base, some of the lands became a park and sporting grounds, and the area in the north of the base around the troposcatter dishes that were used to maintain radio contact with Misawa Air Base in Aomori remains closed and unoccupied.
The abandoned US Air Force (USAF) base in Fuchu is a vine-slathered memento from the early days of Japanese/American war and peace, built shortly after World War II and abandoned in the 1980s. Part of it was cut off and made into a public park, partly cut out and transformed into the still-active nearby Japan Self-Defence Force (SDF) Base, and part left behind, slowly falling into ruin, for nature to claim as her own.
One section of the military base was part of the “Communication Group” of the US 5th Air Force. It has been active for only a short period (1956 – 1973) but has contributed greatly to the communication of the U.S. Air Force during the first part of the Vietnam War. “Decryption and Autovon” (U.S. “survival” telephone system in case of a nuclear attack) is what achieved the magic of the place.
Would you like to see more Historical photos from Fuchu Air Base? You can see them here. We prepared a collection of old and rare photos made at Fuchu Air Force Base before its closure.
These two parabolic giants are 13 meters high and were used specifically to maintain radio communication with another military base in the north of Japan (the Tohoku region) called Misawa Military Base. Communication was by tropospheric scatter.
The waves were balanced and received in the troposphere (layer of the atmosphere with an average altitude of 11km) to avoid being limited of the” visual field”. The communications center was part of the “Japan Tropo Scatter System”.
As a result, the system allowed radio communication through very few military terminals between Okinawa and northern Japan. Fuchu Air Base had a communication station – a communications relay facility with a 107-meter (350-feet) communications tower.
Stunning Photos of Abandoned Fuchu Air Base
The first thing at Fuchu Air Base that catches your eye is the two large, rusty-red parabolic antennas towering over the base. The communication worked on the principle of reflection of short waves (7 GHz and 2.5 GHz were used) from the lower boundary of the troposphere, which made it possible to transmit the signal over a long distance.
The abandoned antennas of Fuchu Air Base are oriented to the north, or rather in the direction of the Japanese city of Sendai, where the signal was received (the station there was not preserved). The whole chain consisted of seven stations and covered the entire country from Okinawa to Hokkaido.
Between two parabolic antennas, the reception center was nestled, meeting with a door with this inscription
But inside Fuchu Air Base is stuffed with high-frequency equipment, which is very well preserved. The equipment glitters with signs “Property of the US Army”, “Property of the US Government”, but most of the equipment was produced in Japan under defense contracts by NEC.
Lots of technical documentation papers and books forgotten at abandoned Fuchu Air Base
Even military technician instruments and tools decaying inside the base rooms.
Equipment cooler air conditioner nameplate
Mechanical thermal sensor
Is the dehydrator also an electrical device? Abandoned Property of U.S. Army
Let’s leave the center and go up to the parabolic giant systems.
In addition to all this, there were residential buildings for staff, warehouse, technical and office buildings, a computer center, diesel station, water tower, pipeline communications on the territory of the U.S. Army base
Residential buildings of Fuchu Air Base for twenty-five years were so overgrown with bindweed that houses practically merged with the surrounding grass and trees.
Other buildings on the territory of the abandoned Fuchu Air Base are not so well preserved.
Inside one of the buildings, there was an American military armored door and strongbox.
Abandoned diesel machines and rusty parts
Pumping station
A warehouse with very interesting things – plates and old computing equipment.
Another abandoned Fuchu Air Base warehouse
Would you like to see more Historical photos from Fuchu Air Base? You can see them here. We prepared a collection of old and rare photos made at Fuchu Air Force Base before its closure.
