Faced with Chinese influence, the United States relaunches the Hiroshima bombing airfield

To counter China’s growing influence in the South China Sea, the United States is investing billions of dollars in new strategic sites.

The Tinian military airfield, eaten away for decades by the jungle, is now being renovated by the American army. It was from this small island lost in the Pacific that the plane set off to drop the bomb on Hiroshima took off on the morning of August 6, 1945. To combat China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific, the United States is investing billions of dollars in new strategic sites, as alternative military bases that can be used in the event of an attack on its main infrastructure.

This policy, carried out with “a sense of urgency” according to Washington, responds to the similar one of Beijing, which for years has been transforming islets into military bases in the highly contested waters of the South China Sea. But when China has to build its runways from scratch, with its feet in the water, “The rehabilitation of airfields from World War II gave the Pacific Air Force a means of rapidly establishing infrastructure in the region”declares a Pentagon spokesperson.

“Clear brush” to make a “large” base

Thus, in Tinian, an American territory near Guam, the historic airfield in the north of the island “has a large covering under the overflowing jungle”. “We will clear this vegetation between now and next summer” to make one “big” base, General Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of the US Air Force in the Pacific, recently told the Nikkei newspaper.

If it has already launched work near the current civilian airport, the US Air Force will also renovate what was, in 1945, the most important airport on the planet. There, 2,300 kilometers south of Japan, dozens of B-29s took turns on six takeoff and landing runways to tirelessly bomb the enemy empire. Hastily built once the island was taken from the Japanese, this advanced base was then chosen for the first nuclear bombs.