EXCLUSIVE: GSDF Cancels Osprey Dispatch to Drill with U.S. in Okinawa

Naha, Okinawa Pref., Feb. 18 (Jiji Press)–The Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force has decided to cancel the dispatch of a V-22 Osprey transport aircraft to the Iron Fist joint exercise with the U.S. Marine Corps in Okinawa Prefecture, Jiji Press learned Wednesday. The GSDF Osprey was set to be the first to join training using a U.S. base in Okinawa. The cancellation is believed to reflect consideration for local residents’ concerns. Last month, the Okinawa prefectural government urged the Defense Ministry’s Okinawa Defense Bureau not to use Ospreys in joint training in the prefecture. Under the original plan, the Osprey was scheduled to take off from the GSDF’s Camp Saga later this month and fly to Okinawa for maintenance at the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma air base in the city of Ginowan and for flight training at Camp Hansen in the town of Kin. The Iron Fist exercise, which simulates operations to defend and recapture remote islands, began on Feb. 11 and will last until March 9. It includes drills in Okinawa, the Marine Corps’ Iwakuni Base in Yamaguchi Prefecture, and areas across the Kyushu southwestern region, such as the island of Amami Oshima in Kagoshima Prefecture. A total of around 2,000 members of Japan’s Ground, Maritime and Air SDFs are expected to take part, along with some 3,000 Marines and other U.S. personnel. In November 2023, a U.S. Osprey from the Yokota air base in Tokyo crashed off the Kagoshima island of Yakushima, killing eight people on board. In October the following year, a GSDF Osprey touched the ground after becoming unstable during takeoff from the Okinawa island of Yonaguni. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]