North Field (Tinian)

North Field is a former World War II airfield on Tinian in the Mariana Islands. Abandoned after the war, today North Field is a tourist attraction.

North Field was a base for Twentieth Air Force B-29 Superfortress operations against the Japanese Home Islands in 1944–5, and the base for the 509th Composite Group which flew the two atomic bomb missions against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, which led to the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan on September 2, 1945, and the end of the Pacific War.

Ushi Point Airfield
Tinian, with its sister islands of the Marianas, had passed through Spanish and German hands prior to becoming a Protectorate of Japan following World War I. Under Japanese administration, Tinian was largely a sugar plantation. In 1939, large-scale military construction began on Tinian by the Japanese Military. 1,200 prisoners were sent to the island from Japan for the construction of airfields as part of the defense of the Mariana Islands, By 1944, the island had three military airfields with a fourth under construction. What would become North Field was a Japanese airstrip 4,380' in length, built being known as Ushi Point Airfield and was home to the Nakajima C6N-1 reconnaissance aircraft of the 121st Kokutai. Until the spring of 1944, the base remained largely out of major action.

Battle of Tinian
By mid-1944, the Americans had advanced inside the Japanese ring of defense in the Pacific Theater. On Tinian, the United States Army Air Forces could establish bases to conduct long-range strategic offensive air operations over the Japanese Home Islands with the new B-29 Superfortress, which, during early 1944, was operating ineffectively from bases in China. Bringing the superfortresses into the Central Pacific and stationing them in the Marianas would bring Japan within the range of the B-29, as well as provide the Twentieth Air Force with reliable means of support from the western ports of the United States.

The Ushi Point Airfield and its assigned aircrews did their part to repel American advances in the Marianas Islands but following the fall of Guam and Saipan to American forces in July 1944 it became clear that Tinian would be attacked next.

Assaulted on July 24, 1944 by United States Marines from Saipan, which had just been taken the previous month. the airfield was almost totally destroyed by the American naval bombardment and air attack prior to the assault by the 4th Marine Division. The Japanese were taken by surprise, with several aircraft being captured relatively intact inside a hangar. The offensive was regarded as one of the best-executed amphibious operations of the war. Ushi Point airfield fell to US forces on July 26 and was almost immediately handed over to the care of US Navy Construction Battalions, or Seabees. 1,500 Seabees landed with the initial forces on Tinian in July 1944 and immediately set to work repairing the damaged Japanese Ushi Point Airfield, even before all the fighting had ended

North Field Construction
Once under American control, a massive construction project was begun on the north end of Tinian. Operating for over 45 days and nights, often while under fire, the Seabees initially repaired and extended the existing 4,380 ft runway and then added an additional two runways, each 8,000 ft long and lying in an East-West direction. Nearly the entire northern end of the island was occupied by runways, the airfield area, and the various support facilities and containment areas.

The Ushi Point Airfield was expanded with three 8000' runways involving the movement of nearly 1,000,000 cubic yards of earth and coral and the accumulation of some 900,000 truck miles. A fourth runway was constructed in May 1945 and hardstands built for 265 B-29 bombers. The four parallel 8,000 ft runways are oriented nearly East-West. Upon completion, North Field was the largest airfield in the world.

313th Bombardment Wing
North Field came under the command of Twentieth Air Force XXI Bomber Command, with the 313th Bombardment Wing being the host unit at the expansive station in December 1944. Its operational groups were:
 * 6th Bombardment Group (Circle R)
 * 9th Bombardment Group (Circle X)
 * 504th Bombardment Group (Circle E)
 * 505th Bombardment Group (Circle W)
 * 5th Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron (Very Long Range)

The four runways at North Field were lettered "A", "B", "C" and "D" from north to south. The 6th Group was parked on the south-side of Runway D, then going north the 9th Group was parked between C and D. The 504th between C and B, and the 505th on the south side of runway A.  In addition, the B-29s were assigned specific hardstands for each aircraft so the ground crew could store spares and other items for each aircraft on them. The groups used the runway to the north side of their parking area hardstands, but this was not fast and firm, because if there was an accident and the runway was closed, the aircraft shifted to another runway. Once in place, the groups of the 313th began flying missions, initially against Iwo Jima, the Truk Islands, and other Japanese held areas. Later, they flew low-level night incendiary raids on area targets in Japan; participated in mining operations in the Shimonoseki Strait, and contributed to the blockade of the Japanese Empire by mining harbors in Japan and Korea. In April 1945 the 313th assisted the invasion of Okinawa by bombing Japanese airfields used by kamikaze pilots.

A fifth group, the 509th Composite Group, was assigned to the wing in May 1945 from Wendover AAF, Utah. The 509th, although assigned to the 313th Bomb Wing, was operationally controlled by Headquarters, Twentieth Air Force. The 509th was given a base area near the airfield on the north tip of the island, several miles from the main installations in the center part of the island where the other groups were assigned. The 509th aircraft almost always used runway "A" and the aircraft were parked away from the other groups on the north side of the runway. Also unlike the other groups in the wing, the 509th used a wide variety of tail codes from various XXI Bomber Command groups, instead of using its own, so that the group's planes could not be identified by the Japanese. The 509th was also self contained, and drew little in resources from the 313th Wing or its other groups.

In early August, the mission of the 509th was revealed when the group flew the two Atomic Bomb missions to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In November, the 509th was relieved from assignment to the 313th Bomb Wing and was reassigned to Roswell AAF, New Mexico.

After the Japanese surrender in August, 313th Bomb Wing units dropped food and supplies to Allied prisoners and participated in show-of-force flights over Japan. The units of the 313th Bombardment Wing were either reassigned or inactivated within a few months after the end of the Pacific War. The last USAAF unit, the 505th Bombardment Group, left North Field on June 30, 1946, ending its use as an operational airfield. The 313th Bombardment Wing moved to Clark Field, Philippines on 1 February 1946.

The base was placed in a standby status until being closed on 30 March 1947.

North Field today
Seeing no official use after 1947, North Field was abandoned, and it has been disused since the war, other than for occasional exercises by the United States Marine Corps.

Immediately after the war, the natives didn't have to farm or do work of any kind for the first two years because the military left entire warehouses full of everything imaginable from food, brand new uniforms, and even ice cream makers. Anybody who wanted a vehicle could just go pick one up and drive it until it fell apart, than go get another one. Some abandoned B-29 hulks were left at the airfield after the war, but were melted down for scrap in the 1950s.

The airfield has been steadily reclaimed by the Tinian jungle, being abandoned and overgrown. It is easily accessible by traveling a few miles north of San Jose on the main north-south road, "Broadway". The crushed coral runways are grayish and weathered-looking, but Runways Able and Baker and some of the taxiways remain drivable in an ordinary car, with only some weedy growth crawling out onto it here and there.

Other than the runways, remains of former Japanese buildings and the preserved pits used to load the atomic bombs into their aircraft, nothing is left of the old facilities. The forest has grown right up to the edges of the runways and taxiways.