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Naval Base Okinawa, now Naval Facility Okinawa, is a number of bases built after the Battle of Okinawa by United States Navy on Okinawa Island, Japan. The naval bases were built to support the landings on Okinawa on April 1, 1945, and the troops fighting on Okinawa. The Navy repaired and did expansion of the airfields on Okinawa.
Following Japan's defeat in World War II, Japan came to be formally occupied by Allied forces and governed under martial law for roughly seven years. While the occupation of Japan came to an end and most of Japan regained its independence in April 1952, Okinawa Prefecture was to remain under US military occupation for another twenty years.
Camp Smedley D. Butler was formerly called Camp or Fort Buckner, named for Army General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., who commanded ground forces in the invasion of Okinawa and was killed in the last days of the battle. The renaming of Buckner to Butler occurred after most U.S. Army troops left Okinawa, and the base was transferred to the USMC.
During World War II, the United States invaded the Ryukyu Islands to use them as a staging area for the Invasion of Japan. Fighting occurred between March and September 1945, resulting in over 250,000 casualties, including 150,000 Okinawan civilians. The Battle of Okinawa has been described as the
The military value of Okinawa was significant, as Okinawa provided a fleet anchorage, troop staging areas, and airfields in proximity to Japan. The US cleared the surrounding waters of mines in Operation Zebra , occupied Okinawa, and set up the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands , a form of military government, after the ...
The Japanese military was determined to inflict a casualty rate so high that the U.S. government would choose not to invade the Japanese home islands. To this end, the southern portion of the island had been covered with the most extensive system of fortifications and fields of fire yet encountered in the Pacific War.
Also located at Camp Hansen is a brig, a confinement facility that houses U.S. military members from around the Far East for short term sentences. Facilities include a Post Exchange, a theater, a convenience store, two gyms, and a "consolidated entertainment facility" known as The Palms, which has two restaurants, as well as enlisted, SNCO, and ...
Location of Ie Shima Airfield. The airfields on Ie Shima were built by the Japanese prior to the American invasion and subsequent Battle of Okinawa in April 1945. It was seized by elements of the United States Army 77th Infantry Division after intermittent bombardment of the island by the United States Navy Fifth Fleet from 25 March through 16 April when the invasion of the island commenced.