80 Years of Stars and Stripes Pacific

Black-and-white, 1940s-era photographs lie on a table depicting an aviator in a leather jacket and helmet and a man in a military dress uniform posing with his arm around a smiling woman in white.

Great-grandson of fallen B-29 pilot makes pilgrimage to WWII crash site in Japan

Tyler Smith, a recreation planner from San Francisco, recently climbed a forested mountainside in western Tokyo to honor the memory of his great-grandfather, one of five American airmen killed when their B-29 Superfortress crashed during a World War II bombing raid over Japan.

Students and visitors look at photographs on display.

Against the odds, DODEA students stage evening of music, theater and art

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — High school students at this airlift hub in western Tokyo recently transformed their school into a gallery and a stage for

A young man steps out of a C-17 Globemaster II onto stairs. Above the doorway, lettering reads “U.S. Air Force” and “Spirit of Kamehameha.”

Wet but spirited Friendship Festival draws throngs to Air Force base in Tokyo

Yokota Air Base’s annual Friendship Festival drew tens of thousands of visitors to check out Air Force aircraft and other attractions.

A vintage photo from World War II showing an Army Air Forces lieutenant posing in uniform for a photo portrait.

Pentagon project seeks to ID American POWs killed in Tokyo prison fire of 1945

Nearly 80 years after a devastating fire tore through a Japanese military prison during World War II, a Defense Department agency is working to identify American prisoners of war who died in the blaze.

Three adults look at items in plastic bags that were put into a silver tube time capsule when they were children.

Yokota school unearths Pokemon, Teletubby and other millennial memories from time capsules

Former pupils visited an elementary school at Yokota Air Base in Japan to open a time capsule that was buried in 2000.

The Freedom Bird Flies Again

The first refugees out of Saigon — 54 Vietnamese orphans — arrived at Yokota AB early Thursday after a dash to freedom from an increasingly nervous South Vietnamese capital. This article first appeared in the Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, April 4, 1975. It is republished unedited in its original form.

A group of Red Cross registered nurses and volunteers arrive at Yokota Air Base

Yokota Wives Volunteer. ‘Would Go on Babylift Anytime’

Nine Red Cross registered nurses and volunteers, all of them wives of Air Force men stationed in Japan, returned from a “babylift” flight carrying Vietnamese orphans to the United States and said they’d “make the trip again anytime.” This article first appeared in the Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, Apr. 9, 1975. It is republished unedited in its original form.