JMSDF Hachinohe Air Base

JMSDF Hachinohe Air Base (八戸航空基地) is a military aerodrome of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. It is located 3.0 NM northwest of Hachinohe in the Aomori Prefecture, in northern Honshū, Japan.

Operations
JMSDF Hachinohe Air Base is currently the headquarters of the JMSDF Fleet Air Wing 2, which is equipped with Kawasaki-Lockheed P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, and which is responsible for patrols of the seaward approaches to northern Japan. Aircraft are regularly dispatched to forward airfields in Hokkaidō, and in wintertime, conduct patrols of drift ice in the Sea of Okhotsk. JMSDF Hachinohe Air Base is adjacent to JGSDF Camp Hachinohe, and is also in close geographic proximity to Misawa Air Base housing Japan Air Self-Defense Force and United States Air Force units. JMSDF Hachinohe is also the home base for the JMSDF Mobile Construction Group, the Japanese military's equivalent to the American Seabees.

History
JMSDF Hachinohe Air Base was initially founded as a training field for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force in 1941. On the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II, the air field was occupied by the United States Army. Between 1945 and 1950, it continued in operation by the United States Army under the name Camp Haugen.

With the start of the Korean War in 1950, the base was turned over to the Japanese National Police Reserve, the immediate predecessor to the Japan Defense Agency. With the final withdrawal of American forces from Hachinohe in 1956, the base was officially designated JGSDF Camp Hachinohe of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) established a presence from 1957, and the JMSDF Hachinohe Air Wing was renamed Fleet Air Wing Two in 1961. The wing was initially equipped with Lockheed P-2 Neptune, later transitioning to Kawasaki P-2J Neptune aircraft.

In 1963, American authorities banned civilian air traffic to Misawa Air Base, citing safety and security reasons, and commercial air operations were transferred to Hachinohe. In 1963, Fleet Squadron 4 was established and reequipped with P-2J Neptune aircraft in 1971. The squadron transitioned to the P-3C Orion in 1985. With the re-opening of Misawa Airport in 1975, commercial operations were transferred back to Misawa. In an administrative reorganization in 2008, UH-60J helicopter operations were transferred to JMSDF Ōminato Air Station.