People dressed in black bow their heads during a memorial service.

WWII POWs remembered in Yokohama on 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender

On the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, the names of more than 1,000 troops who died as prisoners of war were read aloud Tuesday during a memorial ceremony at the Commonwealth War Cemetery.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.