Tinian is a small island of the Marianas Group about 115 miles north of Guam. Pacific airlifters started to haul US Marines to it in the late 1970s and have flying missions there ever since. It gained importance to the United States after the fall of Vietnam in 1975. Okinawa at the time was the major US base for the US Marines and also one of the USAFs major Pacific bases. After it reverted to Japanese sovereignty on 15 May 1972, there was strong pressure from the Japanese government to reduce forces in Japan. There were rumors that the US was going to pull the Marines back from Okinawa to Tinian and we were going to build the island up as a major installation. This never came to pass but the United States did begin holding exercises there for the Marines, with the C130s from Yokota AB and Clark AB flying them to and from their bases in Okinawa.

My first memory of Tinian was on a Micronesia run to support the USCG LORAN A site on Saipan on 25 March 1975. Tinian is only four miles south of Saipan and we flew over it during the approach to Saipan. You can see the outline of the four runways of North Field in the picture below which the Flight Engineer snapped. The runway at Saipan (Kobler) can be seen in the upper left of the picture.

After landing at Saipan, we discovered a clamshell cowling to the number 1 engine (if I remember right) was missing. Still out there at the bottom of the ocean I guess. We removed the other cowling to the engine and flew a not so fast one hour flight back to Andersen AFB on Guam without a problem. It normally only takes a half hour to Andersen AFB. (Madden Photo)

The first landing I made at Tinian was on 15 June 1981. The squadron had deployed several crews from Yokota to Kadena the day before. At Kadena, we entered the “stage” schedule. A “Stage” schedule goes like this: The aircraft flies continuously in a shuttle taking US Marines to Tinian from Okinawa. On the aircraft’s return to Okinawa, that old crew would go into a 12 hour “crew rest” and a fresh crew would then take the same plane full of US Marines to Tinian in a repeat of the previous mission.

It was an o’dark-thirty departure in aircraft 63-7803 for us and a 5.8 hour flight to Tinian. I really don’t remember which runway we landed but it had to be Able. Believe we did an ERO of the Marines and then proceeded to Andersen to refuel. Then a 4.6 hour flight back to Kadena AB to go back into crew rest. We picked up another shuttle on 17 June 1981 on 63-7800 for another full crew day day of 10.8 flying time.

It was on this mission that I learned not to go to see the hospital folks on a weekend. I went by the emergency clinic on Kadena for a minor medical problem and the med techs there immediately DNIF’ d (grounded) me, then said they could not treat me as they had no doctor in house, only on call for an emergency. I would have to go see a doctor at the Navy Hospital 5 miles south, Camp Kuwae. It had been an US Army hospital until 1976 when the US Navy assumed control of it. (Believe the name was later changed to Camp Lester) At the hospital, I only saw a Navy Corpsman who promptly gave me some medicine and wondered out loud why the Air Force couldn’t have given me some. Never did see a doctor. Anyways, long story short, had to leave my crew in Okinawa and deadhead back to Yokota on a C141. Moral of the story – Self medicate and don’t go to a USAF hospital on the weekend.

The United States has a 50 year lease, which expires in 2033, to about the northern 2/3 of the island. (It can then be extended for an additional 50 years.) In the recent years, there has been a major effort by the US Marines and US Navy to establish a live fire range complex on the island.

And the USAF began plans to build a divert base and runway on Tinian that their aircraft in Guam, a little over 100 miles south, can use.

Wikipedia History of Tinian Island

Tinian, together with Saipan, was possibly first sighted by Europeans of the Spanish expedition of Ferdinand Magellan, when it made landfall in the southern Marianas on 6 March 1521.  The Spanish formally occupied Tinian in 1669, with the missionary expedition of Diego Luis de San Vitores who named it Buenavista Mariana (Goodsight Mariana). From 1670, it became a port of call for Spanish and occasional English, Dutch and French ships as a supply station for food and water.

The native population, estimated at 40,000 at the time of the Spanish arrival, shrank to less than 1400 due to European-introduced diseases and conflicts over land. The survivors were forcibly relocated to Guam in 1720 for better control and assimilation. Under Spanish rule, the island was developed into ranches for raising cattle and pigs, which were used to provision Spanish galleons en route to Mexico.

German colonial period

It was sold by Spain to the German Empire in 1899. The island was administered by Germany as part of German New Guinea. During the German period, there was no attempt to develop or settle the island, which remained under the control of its Spanish and mestizo landowners.

Japanese colonial period[edit]

In 1914, during World War I, the island was captured by Japan, which was awarded formal control in 1918 by the League of Nations as part of the South Seas Mandate. The island was settled by ethnic Japanese, Koreans and Okinawans, who developed large-scale sugar plantations. Under Japanese rule, extensive infrastructure development occurred, including the construction of port facilities, waterworks, power stations, paved roads and schools, along with entertainment facilities and Shinto shrines. Initial efforts to settle the island met with difficulties, including an infestation of scale insects, followed by a severe drought in 1919.

By June 1944, some 15,700 Japanese civilians resided on Tinian (including 2700 ethnic Koreans and 22 ethnic Chamorro.

World War II

Tinian was not garrisoned by the Japanese military until the latter stages of World War II, when the Japanese realized its strategic importance as a possible base for American Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers. The island was seized by the Allies during the Battle of Tinian from 24 July to 1 August 1944. Of the 8,500-man Japanese garrison, 313 survived the battle. At the time, there were an estimated 15,700 Japanese civilians (including 2700 ethnic Koreans) on the island. Many hundreds were also killed in the crossfire, took their own lives, or were executed by the Japanese military to avoid capture by the Americans.^[5]

Tinian became the largest airbase of WWII, as it covered the entire island (except its three highland areas). The base was a 40,000-personnel installation, and the Navy Seabees (110th NCB) laid out the base in a pattern of city streets resembling New York City‘s Manhattan Island, and named the streets accordingly.

The former Japanese town of Sunharon was nicknamed “The Village” because its location corresponded to that of Greenwich Village. A large square area between West and North Fields, used primarily for the location of the base hospitals and otherwise left undeveloped, was called Central Park.^[6]

Two runway complexes were built from scratch. When completed, West Field and North Field, had a combined total of six 8,500-foot (2,600-meter) runways.

West Field

Airfield construction was originally by the Japanese, built with two parallel runways. It was repaired by the Americans, and then called West Field. From here seven squadrons of the 58th Bombardment Wing flew combat and reconnaissance missions throughout Southeast Asia and finally into the Japanese home islands, as part of the bombing of Japan. After WWII, West Field was Tinian’s airport and was called Gurguan Point Airfield; and today is Tinian International Airport.

North Field

The Japanese had constructed three small fighter strips^[4] on Tinian, but none were suitable for bomber operations. Under the Americans, nearly the entire northern end of the island was occupied by the runways, almost 11 miles (18 km) of taxiways and the airfield area, designed to accommodate the entire 313th Bombardment Wing complement of Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers.^[4]

North Field was the departure point of the 509th Composite Group specialized Silverplate nuclear weapons delivery B-29 bombers Enola Gay and Bockscar, which respectively carried the two atomic bombs named Little Boy and Fat Man, that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Remains of the US bomber base and Atom Bomb Pits, and the remains of Japanese fortifications, are located at North Field. There is a memorial on the old airfield at the loading pits, which are roofed-over with glazed panels in metal framing for safer viewing.

Both pits were reopened in conjunction with the 60th Anniversary Commemoration of the Battles of Saipan and Tinian. The pits were originally constructed to load the bombs, since they were too large to be loaded in the conventional manner. The B-29s were maneuvered over a pit with their bomb bay doors open to facilitate loading.

You Tube footage of the nuclear bomb missions from Tinian

blob:https://www.youtube.com/557ee0b5-a8a0-428e-bad8-65945b2a1663

Postwar Tinian

After the end of World War II, Tinian became part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, controlled by the United States. The island continued to be dominated by the United States military, and until 1962 was administered as a sub-district of Saipan. Since 1978, the island has been a municipality of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

During the 1980s, the northern runway (Able) on North Field was restored to allow U.S. Air Force C-130s to take off and land in support of U.S. Marine Corps training exercises. The two northern airstrips, Alpha and Baker, were cleared of vegetation and the limestone coral that had been disturbed by roots was excavated and replaced by Marines of the 9th Engineer Support Battalion, 3rd FSSG, 3rd Marine Division then stationed at Camp Hansen, Okinawa in late 1981. That unit had been transported by sea aboard the USS Cayuga, LST-1186. The military presence began to be replaced by tourism in the 1990s, but still plays an important role in the local economy.

On October 24, 2018, Typhoon Yutu made landfall on the island of Tinian as a Category 5-equivalent super typhoon, becoming the most powerful storm on record to hit the northern Mariana Islands, and causing an extensive amount of damage. The Voice of America facility on Tinian was destroyed during the typhoon.

The USAF and USMC begin to use Tinian for exercises