Chitose Naval Air Base

Chitose Naval Air Base was one of the Imperial Japanese Navy's most strategically important installations in northern Japan. Located on the broad Chitose Plain in central Hokkaido, the site began as a modest landing ground in 1926, when the villagers of Chitose cleared about 10 hectares by volunteer labor to receive the Otaru Shimbun newspaper's aircraft "Hokkai No. 1". The Imperial Japanese Navy recognized the location's strategic value for northern defense and took over the field in 1939.

On October 1, 1939, the Chitose Naval Air Group (千歳海軍航空隊) was formally established (initially at Kisarazu) under the Ōminato Guard District (大湊要港部). The unit was initially equipped with Type 96 land-based attack aircraft (G3M) and Type 96 carrier-based fighters (A5M). The base grew rapidly, eventually covering approximately 200 hectares with two concrete runways measuring 1,200 meters and 1,400 meters in length, four hangars, and 53 covered and uncovered aircraft shelters scattered across the facility.

The adjacent 41st Naval Air Arsenal served as a critical supply and maintenance depot for patrol squadrons operating toward the Kuril Islands, providing logistical support for the Navy's surveillance operations monitoring Soviet military activities in the North Pacific. The base also functioned as a training facility, hosting education air squadrons that relocated there during the war years. The Chitose Naval Air Group itself had moved forward to the Marshall Islands by the outbreak of the Pacific War; it was redesignated the 703rd Naval Air Group on November 1, 1942, returned to Chitose that December and was disbanded in March 1943, while the base continued operations with other units.

Following Japan's surrender in August 1945, United States Armed Forces occupied the base. It came under control of the United States Army Air Forces and later the United States Air Force Fifth Air Force. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force opened Chitose Air Base there in 1957, and the airfield was formally returned to Japan in 1959; the base today serves as the JASDF's primary installation in northern Japan, tasked with monitoring Japan's maritime borders with Russia.

The adjacent New Chitose Airport, which opened for civilian use in 1988, is now Hokkaido's main commercial airport and one of Japan's busiest. While the original wartime structures have largely been replaced by modern military and civilian aviation facilities, the base's continuous operational history from 1939 to the present makes it one of the longest-serving military airfields in Japan.