JMSF troops practice amphib. landings in San Diego

A small contingent of JSDF troops(200) will be training for amphibous landings in San Diego at MCB Camp Pendelton and Naval Base Coronado. It is speculated that these training excersises are to show any rival nation(China) that Japan could retake a small island by force if necessary.... I wonder what the Japanese populace feels about this excersise? ....It's like they(JMSDF) are taunting the PRC with the backing of the US. I do not mean to be political. The force is small but the meaning is significient.

If you respond to this thread please no political or racist comments.

It is very common for JMSDF ships & sailors to train in and visit San Diego. But this is the first time I remember any JSDF troops in San Diego. I lived in San Diego for 26 years.



Japanese soldiers to train in region

'Iron Fist' to focus on beach landings
By Rick Rogers
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 9, 2006

About 200 Japanese troops are in San Diego County to practice beach landings in what could be a show of force in the country's growing rivalry with China.

The soldiers, from the Japanese Self-Defense Force, will undergo "Iron Fist" training starting today. The exercise calls for the troops to conduct a night beach landing against a hostile force.

Capt. Kent Robbins, a Marine spokesman, said the amphibious training will be taught primarily at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, with the actual beach landing at Camp Pendleton. "Iron Fist" is a scaled-down version of what Marines learn, he said.

Japanese officials approached the Marines, who have a long history of beach landings, for help last summer, Robbins said. Amphibious landings are among the U.S. military's more demanding maneuvers.

The training could yield technical as well as symbolic benefits for Japan.

In Asia, defense experts and government analysts have suggested in media reports that "Iron Fist" is meant to warn China that Japan can retake a small island should one be captured.

Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing are rising as China's economic and military clout in Asia has soared. The two countries are at odds over numerous issues, from ownership of certain underwater gas reserves and other territory-rights feuding to interpretations of Asian wartime history and Japan's military alliance with the United States.

The Japanese news agency Kyodo said members of the Western Army unit of Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force left Tuesday for Camp Pendleton, where it would undergo special counterterror training and exercises.

This unit will be joined by more Japanese soldiers from Sasebo in Nagasaki Prefecture. The drills are slated to last about three weeks.

Robbins described the training as small-scale, the type more likely to be used against terrorists than against another country. He also declined to directly address the rivalry between Japan and China.

"Anytime we can conduct training with the Japanese forces, we are honored to do so," Robbins said. "We hope to increase the training opportunities in the future. We are excited to have them."

Camp Pendleton covers 125,000 acres, with 17 miles of coastline from Oceanside to the Orange County border. In the 1940s, tens of thousands of Marines learned to fight there before shipping out to battle Japanese troops during World War II.

Other U.S. allies – particularly Australia, Canada and Great Britain – have occasionally come to Camp Pendleton for training exercises.

The United States has maintained a military presence in Japan since the end of World War II in 1945. Today, about 50,000 U.S. troops are stationed there under a joint security pact.

Japan is an excellent ally.

I think it is time for Japan to come out of its shell. Currently, their defence budget is second only to the US. It is just political pressure that prevents Japan from emerging as the second foremost military power in Asia. God knows that they have the money and know how to do it. However, if China, either through design or accident, continues to "threaten" and make military overtunes against Japan, Japanese domestic opinion may change and lead to article 9 being amended.

Personally, it would be nice to see WWII Japanese names on new ships. That's because I'm a ship fan. They already have some.

Kongo, Kirishima, Chokai, and Myoko, the 4 Burke destroyers, were named for battlecruisers and cruisers of WWII vintage.

Who knows, the first official Japanese carrier since WWII would be named Zuikaku.

I also think they will revise their constitution. The US has already given them their blessing and would like them to share the burden of security in the region.The US navy and Japanese navy train together all the time and the relationship with the US/Japan is almost like the US/UK one.

the japanese should have named two of their burkes the musashi and yamato. the other should be shanano. the kongo could be kept.

perhaps someday the u.s will sell some of its retired super carriers to japan. their are plenty of them lying around. very ironoc, especially if the japanese decided to call em akagi, kaga, hiryu, soryu, shokaku, and zuikaku.

MIGleader said:

the japanese should have named two of their burkes the musashi and yamato. the other should be shanano. the kongo could be kept.

perhaps someday the u.s will sell some of its retired super carriers to japan. their are plenty of them lying around. very ironoc, especially if the japanese decided to call em akagi, kaga, hiryu, soryu, shokaku, and zuikaku.

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I think Japan has retired the name YAMATO, which was the name of Japan's emperial family, the Yamato Clan. (I think) The same reason why the USN will never name a ship USS America again. IF it gets sunk, you will have morale and political problems.

Kirishima was the sister ship of the original Kongo battlecruiser, so it's name should stick. I can't wait for the names of the newer Burkes coming online.

Yeah, it would be very lovely (for ship lovers like me ) to see the names Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu, etc again. It would be more economical for Japan to build their own, USN uses carriers for 40-50 years. KittyHawk is one of the oldest commissioned warship in the world.

the japanese should have named two of their burkes the musashi and yamato. the other should be shanano. the kongo could be kept.

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I don't know how its done in Japan, but in here, Finnish navy doesen't name ships after sunked ones. I don't know if this is general guideline in other navyes, perhaps Popeye can help us more...???

here ya go





Japan Maritime Self Defence Force Ship Names
Navies of the world have various schemes for naming their ships, and Japan's traditional ship names have a few twists that are not found in other navies. One is that, in contrast to navies like those of the US or the UK, Japan never named its warships after famous persons.

The basic scheme for naming major Japanese combatants by the Imperial Japanse Navy [IJN] which was employed for decades before the end of WW2 was as follows.

Battleships -- Ancient names of regions in Japan or names for Japan itself
Aircraft Carriers -- Names of mythical birds and animals
First Class Cruisers -- Names of mountains
Second Class Cruisers -- Names of rivers
First Class Destroyers -- Names of meteorological phenomena
Second/Third Class Destroyers -- Names of trees or flowers
Torpedo Boats -- Birds

Perhaps the most striking thing about the Imperial Japanse Navy's destroyers were their names. They were named after phenomena of weather, sea, and sky, with several groups based on wind (kaze), snow (yuki), rain (ame), clouds (kumo), waves (nami), mist (kiri), frost (shimo), tides (shio), and moons (tsuki).

While lists sometimes appear given the "meanings" of IJN ship names, the awareness level of, and interest level in, these names is not so high among Japanese themselves. For example, confronted with the light cruiser name Kiso, a Japanese would think of the river or area, without ever stopping to think of the meaning of the individual characters, just as an American confronted with the cruiser name Indianapolis would very likely think of the city, rather than recall the origin or meaning of that name.

Until the end of World War II, Japanse warships were prefixed by HIJMS, which stands for "His Imperial Japanese Majesty's Ship". Following the end of the War, ships were prefixed by JDS (JMSDF Defense Ship).

To make the establishment of their naval power a bit more palatable, the Japanese took to coining new names and using existing non-naval names and new conventions for the names of ships, ship types, and ranks in the JMSDF.

Although IJN ship names were painted onto ships in phonetic syllabary characters, all IJN ships had names which were more properly written in Chinese ideographs. Perhaps as a message that the JMSDF ship names have nothing to do with IJN ship names, these Chinese ideographs have been totally abolished, much to the displeasure of older Japanese naval personnel.

The ship names themselves are almost all taken from IJN ships. The twist comes, however, because the systematic assignment of certain types of names has virtually disappeared. Although it could be argued that the Japanese, in their desire to preserve famous warship names were forced to assign heavy cruiser and battleship names to what they call escorts (but which are really missile destroyers or frigates), one wonders why they have not applied a bit more organization to the scheme of naming their JMSDF ships.

One interesting feature is that nobody ever expects the name Yamato to be assigned to a JMSDF ship, perhaps in the belief that the name has been retired, much as a uniform number would be retired in US sports.

Although the JMSDF admits to having destroyers in most of their English-language materials, one might be surprised to learn that they used a term which means escort to refer to their 8000-ton Aegis missile destroyers in Japanese.

Gollevainen said:

I don't know how its done in Japan, but in here, Finnish navy doesen't name ships after sunked ones. I don't know if this is general guideline in other navyes, perhaps Popeye can help us more...???

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Let's see..I know the USN back in WW 2 had no such restrictions...

USS Lexington CV-2 sunk=USS Lexington CV-16 com Feb '42
USS Wasp CV-7 sunk= USS Wasp CV18 com Nov '43
USS Yorktown CV-5 sunk = USS Yorktown CV-10 com June '42
USS Hornet CV-8 sunk = USS Hornet CV-12 com Nov '43

Geez.. the USN took a serious "ass whoopiing" in the early days of WW 2. So did the IJN.

There was another comissioned later such as USS Saratoga CV-3 = CV-60.

It is interesting to note that Lexington, Yorktown and Hornet are all preserved as musuems.

bd popeye said:

Let's see..I know the USN back in WW 2 had no such restrictions...

USS Lexington CV-2 sunk=USS Lexington CV-16 com Feb '42
USS Wasp CV-7 sunk= USS Wasp CV18 com Nov '43
USS Yorktown CV-5 sunk = USS Yorktown CV-10 com June '42
USS Hornet CV-8 sunk = USS Hornet CV-12 com Nov '43

Geez.. the USN took a serious "ass whoopiing" in the early days of WW 2. So did the IJN.

There was another comissioned later such as USS Saratoga CV-3 = CV-60.

It is interesting to note that Lexington, Yorktown and Hornet are all preserved as musuems.

Click to expand...

Yeah the Japanese navy sunk all of the major US capital ship save the Enterprise and Ranger. US production rebuilt the fleet and then some. Japan just could not compete.

It's all here