North Field was a World War II airfield on Tinian in the Mariana Islands. Abandoned after the war, today North Field is a tourist attraction. Along with several adjacent beaches on which U.S. Marines landed during the Battle of Tinian, the airfield is the major component of the National Historic Landmark District Tinian Landing Beaches, Ushi Point Field, Tinian Island.
North Field was one of several bases for Twentieth Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortress operations against the Japanese Home Islands in 1944–45. North Field contributed aircraft to the 1945 campaign to burn out Japanese cities with incendiary bombs, including the 9 March 1945 bombing of Tokyo which still stands as the most destructive air raid ever. North Field was the base for the 313th Bombardment Wing which carried out Operation Starvation, the dropping of naval mines in the harbors and sea lanes used by Japan. North Field was also the base for the 509th Composite Group which flew the atomic bombing raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The incendiary campaign (which destroyed 40% of the targeted cities), the aerial mining campaign (which starved Japan of essential food imports) and the two atomic attacks have all been argued as major factors in the surrender of Japan.
History
Ushi Point Airfield
Tinian, with its sister islands of the Marianas, had passed through Spanish and German hands before 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, with 1,200 prisoners 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 feet in length, known as Ushi Point Airfield and was home to the Nakajima C6N-1 reconnaissance aircraft of the 121st Kokutai Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service. Until the spring of 1944, the base remained largely out of major action.
By mid-1944, the Americans had advanced inside the Japanese ring of defense in the Pacific Theater. Tinian, located approximately 1,500 miles from mainland Japan, was well-suited for the United States Army Air Forces to establish a large staging area from which to conduct long-range strategic offensive air operations over the Japanese Home Islands with the new Boeing B-29 Superfortress. During early 1944, the B-29 heavy bombers were operating ineffectively from bases in China. Stationing the Superfortresses in the Marianas brought Japan within their effective range of operation, as well as provided 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 24 July by United States Marines from Saipan, 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 U.S. forces on 26 July and was almost immediately handed over to the care of U.S. 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 the fighting had ended.
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 foot runway and then added two runways, each 8,000 feet 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.
North Field was further expanded with three 8,000 feet runways involving the movement of nearly 1 million 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 foot runways are oriented nearly east-west. Upon completion, North Field was the largest airfield in the world.