Overview

Naval Air Facility Atsugi (NAF Atsugi) is a jointly-run US Navy and Japan Marine Self-Defense Force base located in the Kanagawa Prefecture near Tokyo.

History

Atsugi was originally built in 1938 for the Imperial Japanese Navy but was captured by the USAAF in 1945. In December 1950, the base was reopened as Naval Air Station Atsugi for the US Navy due to the Korean War.

In 1973, when the USS Midway CV-41 moved to Japan, her air wing which was CVW-5 was reassigned to Atsugi becoming the first and so far only forward-deployed air wing in the US Navy. In 1986, the first US Navy F/A-18s arrived at Atusgi, followed in 1991 by the F-14s when the USS Independence CV-62 replaced the Midway.

In 2017, the fixed-wing element of CVW-5 moved to MCAS Iwakuni, a US Marines Corps air base in the Yamaguchi prefecture.