Osprey, Go Home

Two tilt-rotor aircrafts called Osprey joined a combined military exercise of Japanese Ground Self-defense Force and United States Marine Corp in Eniwa, Hokkaido, on Friday. It was the first opportunity for the Ospreys to participate in an exercise in Japan after the severe accident offshore Australia on August 5^th. While the Japanese rely on the technology of shooting ballistic missile down with missile, they never believe in the technology of tilt-rotor aircraft. Civil groups protested the exercise with Ospreys outside the base.

Ospreys had been planned to join the exercise from last week. After the crush in Australia, Japanese government required United States Force to refrain from flying of those aircrafts until thorough investigation on the accident would be made. Ignoring broad uneasiness of the Japanese, U.S. Force kept on flying Osprey and did not change the plan to let them join the exercise in Hokkaido.

Two Ospreys left U.S. Misawa Airbase in Aomori in Friday morning and landed at Hokkaido Major Exercise Field. 160 members of GSDF 11^th Brigade stationed in Sapporo joined the drill of riding and getting off the aircraft separated in groups each of which consisted of 20 members. Ospreys were witnessed rotating above the land for many times and they returned to Misawa in early afternoon.

United States Force explained that Osprey is indispensable for military operations in Japan along with rising tension with North Korea, which keeps on intimidating United States and Japan with its missile and nuclear capability. Those Ospreys is stationed in U.S. Futenma Marine Base in Okinawa, where the people have been protesting the deployment of them. They could not accept new type of aircraft in Futenma, where both Japan and U.S. government promised removing danger from, or in Okinawa, where Japanese government promised to reduce their burden stemming from U.S. military’s occupation of the land.

Exercise in Hokkaido is one of the ways to reduce the burden of Okinawa. Having realized that necessity, the civil groups protested the drill including Ospreys, because they have caused severe accidents mostly every year. Some members of peace group chanted “Osprey, go home!” in front of a railway station close to the exercise field. “While it once was as bold as requiring self-restraint, Japanese government turned its back to the people after persuaded by U.S. We are worried about falling down of the aircrafts,” told a housewife living in a city around. This is a failure of Japanese government in informing them.