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Indian Ocean despite the absence of permanent base rights anywhere in that huge basin (map
39). Subic Bay Naval Base and associated facilities 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Manila
constituted the centerpiece. Port Olongapo, which boasted storage space for 110 million
gallons of petroleum, oil, and lubricants, featured four floating drydocks able to overhaul all
ships except aircraft carriers. Aprons at Cubi Point Naval Air Station could park a full
complement of carrier aircraft next to their ship at pierside with room for an equal number
elsewhere, while the Naval Magazine at Camayan Point stored 3.8 million cubic feet
(107,400 cubic meters) of ammunition by a wharf that berthed the largest surface
combatants. The communication station at nearby San Miguel kept U.S. naval forces ashore
in constant touch with Seventh Fleet while collocated DCS facilities linked Philippine
installations with the Worldwide Military Command and Control System (WWMCCS). Clark
Air Base, a huge logistical hub that could handle any aircraft in the U.S. inventory, possessed
immense parking space, POL storage capacities approximately comparable to those of
Kennedy International Airport in New York City, 34 ammunition igloos, and superlative
communication links. Aviators of all U.S. Services sharpened their skills under simulated
combat conditions at Clark's Crow Valley gunnery range.
Senior U.S. defense officials in the early 1980s seriously began to consider relocation if
insurgents defeated the Philippine Government and, as promised, ousted U.S Armed Forces. '"
Concerns about base rights intensified in 1985, when President Ferdinand Marcos himself
threatened to abrogate base agreements and implied plans to improve relations with the
Soviet Union. ~7 U.S. Armed Forces indeed did depart in 1991-92, but the Cold War was over
and the value of Philippine bases concurrently diminished.
Republic of Korea. The Republic of Korea (ROK) contained the only U.S. military bases
anywhere on the Asian mainland after the Vietnam War wound down and relations with Red
China improved in the early 1970s (map 40). The U.N. Command and U.S. Eighth Army
remained in Yongson when the dust settled, while the 2d Infantry Division centered at Camp
Casey stayed put along the demilitarized zone astride a high-speed avenue from Pyongyang
into Seoul. An air division headquarters and one composite wing still occupied Osan Air
Base, a fighter wing flew out of Kunsan, the naval base at Chinhae stood fast, and Taegu
persisted as the principal U.S. supply depot. Rapid reinforcements since then have been
limited to air and naval elements in Japan and on Okinawa if North Korea reinvaded,
because the nearest U.S. Army troops elsewhere are in far away Hawaii. 'g
Japan and Okinawa. The Yokosua-Yokohama complex in Tokyo Bay, which served as
a forward operating base for the Seventh Fleet flagship, two aircraft carriers, and a destroyer
squadron, was the U.S. Navy's jewel ill Japan (map 40). ~9 A first-rate labor force manned
first-class installations that included a naval ammunition magazine, a communications
station, a supply depot, a hospital, and ship repair shops. No other U.S. base west of Pearl
Harbor possessed a big enough dry dock to handle nuclear-powered Nimitz class attack
carriers. Sasebo on Kyushu Island furnished additional logistical, ordnance, and dry docking
facilities.
U.S. Forces Japan, Fifth Air Force, and an airlift wing held on at Yokota Air Base, which
was the "Rhein-Main" of Northeast Asia. Air Force fighters and naval patrol aircraft near
Honshu's northernmost tip at Misawa conducted reconnaissance, surveillance, electronic
intelligence, and antisubmarine warfare missions over the Seas of Japan and Okhotsk, the
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260 PART TWO: CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY