The tranquil village of Onna is one of Okinawa's most beautiful spots. Scenic beaches, dramatic rock formations and lavish seaside resorts dot the coast. But there's a dark legacy here -- a former nuclear cruise missile launch site built during the postwar U.S. military occupation.
The Mace B cruise missile launch site is the last remainder of four that were constructed in the 1960s. Opened to the public for the first time this spring, the large concrete building, roughly 9 meters tall and 100 meters wide, sits on a hill facing the East China Sea.
The United States occupied Okinawa from 1945 to 1972. As Cold War tensions increased, it accelerated its deployment of nuclear weapons on the main island despite anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan following the radioactive contamination of a Japanese fishing boat in the mid-1950s.
The Fukuryu Maru No. 5 was exposed to fallout from the U.S. Castle Bravo nuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll in 1954, killing one crew member and sickening the other 22.
Following Okinawa's return to Japanese rule in May 1972, Soka Gakkai, a major Japanese Buddhist organization, purchased the lot that included the Onna launch site in 1976.
With this year marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the group restored the interior and opened the base to the public in March. Some 3,000 people have visited so far.
"It gave me goosebumps. I was aware of problems involving U.S. military bases, but I had no idea about the deployment of nuclear weapons (in Okinawa)," said a 41-year-old woman who was visiting the site from Sapporo, northern Japan, with her parents.
"Okinawa might not exist now if any nuclear missiles had been fired," she said.
Isao Kuwae, 61, secretary general of Soka Gakkai in Okinawa, suggested that when the missile base was being erected local contractors may not have known what they were building.
He added the Onna site is "the only place where you can see with your own eyes the past presence of nuclear weapons in Okinawa."
A Mace B cruise missile was said to have a payload 70 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that the U.S. military dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people by the end of the year.
With a range of over 2,000 kilometers, the missiles, deployed at the bases in Okinawa in the first half of the 1960s, could strike China and parts of the Soviet Union. They were reportedly made ready for war during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
But with the subsequent development of new missiles, the need for Mace B missiles diminished. They were removed from Okinawa starting in 1969, when the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed on Okinawa's return to Japan without nuclear weapons.
Although Japan regained sovereignty and independence in 1952 under the terms of the San Fransico Peace Treaty, Okinawa continued under U.S. military rule for the next 20 years.
In 1967, Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato declared the so-called three non-nuclear principles -- not producing, not possessing and not allowing any nation to bring nuclear weapons into Japanese territory. At the time, the U.S. had some 1,300 nuclear weapons in Okinawa.
"The three principles came into existence because there were nuclear weapons in Okinawa," said Masaaki Gabe, 70, professor emeritus at the University of the Ryukyus. "The Japanese government felt assured because of U.S. protection."
Despite occupying approximately 0.6 percent of Japan's total land area, Okinawa still hosts some 70 percent of U.S. military facilities in the country, Gabe noted.
In Yomitan, another Okinawa village where Mace B missiles had been deployed, Junshi Toyoda, 65, a local government official involved in compilation of the village history, said that present fears about the possible deployment of long-range missiles still exist.
Threats from contemporary missiles with a firing range of several thousand kilometers overlap with those caused by the presence of nuclear weapons in the past.
"The fact that nuclear weapons exist today makes it easier to feel the crises that was close to home during the Cold War era. I hope people will first learn about the deployment history of nuclear weapons in Okinawa," Toyoda said.
© KYODO
59 Comments
Tamarama
This disgusts me, actually.
It disgusts me to think the US would strategically use Okinawa as a Nuclear missile base post WW2, having nuked Japan twice. Talk about callous.
Course, it also makes things a little squirmy for those that try to argue that the US occupies bases in places like Okinawa purely because they are defending a country's 'freedom and liberty'.
Clearly, not the case.
divinda
Me thinks the anti-nuke sentiment in Japan may have instead started from a pair of incidents which occurred about a decade earlier....
The_Beagle
Oh, is THAT why Japan is ant-nuclear?!
JeffLee
What were they defending, then? There was a Cold War on at the time, believe it nor. The Korean War raged not far away, and "Red China" was crazier and more dangerous than North Korea today, as Mao killed 10s of millions of his own people while the country was a full-on nuclear power whose daily public threats were about destroying and burying capitalism. Not a lot of "freedom and liberty" under Mao and Stalin at the time. But there was plenty of it in Japan then and still is today. How do you think that came about? By coincidence?
Fortunately the the Cold War ended and the West won, which is why the missiles aren't there anymore.
SaikoPhysco
Love them or Hate them, Nukes quite possibly have deterred WWIII from happening to this point. Hopefully they will continue to do so because I don't see the World all of a sudden coming together as one in peace. In fact going forward things may get tougher as more and more people fight for the dwindling resources.
Peter Neil
Korean War had been long over. China made no threats, it was the Soviet Union that did. Khrushchev, not Stalin. Let’s try to get something right.
Nixon was president when Okinawa reverted. He was against it, but eventually relented. He said that he didn’t trust the Japanese and wanted to keep Okinawa. The US already bogged down in Vietnam and wanted the bases to remain.
wallace
Did the Japanese government of the day know about it? Something to be happy with the Soka Gakkai.
JboneInTheZone
Why? Oh, because your entire ideology is AMERICA BAD
It doesn’t make that the case at all lol. They have military bases in Okinawa to defend their freedom and liberty.
GuruMick
In the 60.s and even 70,s the US military felt"communism " was akin to a cloud that could waft in and indoctrinate people.
Stupid then, stupid now.
From the USA, one of the most stupid places on earth post WW2
James Dean Jr.
What haunts me most is the silence — how little this was known. A peaceful beach in Onna hides what could have ended the world. Not just history, but a warning in concrete. We remember Hiroshima, we remember Nagasaki… but somehow forgot Okinawa stood on the edge too. Maybe opening this site is not just about the past — maybe it’s a mirror we’ve been avoiding.
Yubaru
And pray tell why in the world would it have been made public? I am also surprised that something such as this, well over 50 years ago, would "haunt" someone today.
There is much worse going on today that should "haunt" you a heck of a lot more!
quercetum
It's just a large concrete structure with reinforced blast doors and a suspicious number of antennas. Probably a new onsen the locals thought.
Let Okinawa be Okinawa—the only thing that should be launching is a paddleboard.
wallace
An old photo of the site
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/uploads/imported_images/uploads/2013/01/fl20120708x1a.jpg
"The image shows a Mace missile site on Okinawa from the early 1960s. This site was part of the U.S. military's strategy during the Sino-Soviet split, with missiles aimed over the East China Sea. The site became operational in early 1962, with eight Mace missiles transported from Kadena Air Base and loaded into launch tubes. "
Ricky Kaminski13
Blind we are, to the truth right in front of our eyes. A guy clearly indoctrinated hook, line, and sinker into the anti-American pro-communism talking points, claiming that there was never any threat back in the 60s and 70s of the very mindset that possesses him now. The irony is stark.
Desert Tortoise
Quite a large proportion of Congress and the American public were of the opinion that after the degree of blood shed by US forces to capture that island chain in WWII that the US should never return it to Japan.
You may not be old enough to have lived some of those times but after WWII Japan was widely reviled in the US. My parents actively refused to buy Japanese made goods. Japan was seen much as China is seen today. Returning Okinawa to Japan was highly controversial. Many felt it should be American forever. Having grown up with this it is actually remarkable to me that Okinawa was returned to Japan. Same for Iwo Jima.
Btw, there were nuclear armed Nike missiles close to my home in Los Angeles and in bases in the surrounding mountains. The idea was to launch a nuclear missile into incoming Soviet bomber formations. They didn't have the kind of guidance back then that would allow hitting individual bombers with a conventional missile. Even the fighters carried a big Genie nuclear missile to use against bomber formations. We have come a long way since then.
deanzaZZR
Imagine the USA military launching nuclear strikes on China in the 1960s and the Chinese retaliating on Tokyo. That is messed up. China didn't have satellites back then. How would they have known precisely where the missiles were launched and more fundamentally would it have mattered at that point in history?
Desert Tortoise
It wasn't Japanese soil back then and at that time there were no plans to ever return Okinawa to Japan. Basically none of Japan's business. If you look at the history of how it came to be that the islands were returned it is remarkable they were.. Opposition to their return was widespread.
Desert Tortoise
Why would the PRC have retaliated against Japan? Okinawa wasn't part of Japan back then. It was part of the US.
deanzaZZR
Let's see, the USA nukes Shanghai and China retaliates by taking out a few fishing villages in Okinawa?
More fundamentally in the 1960s China had no satellites nor large naval presence near Okinawa and Japan so all they could have known is that the missiles came from the east.
John-San
And did any Soviet nuclear attack happen during the Cold War ? The Soviet really did put the scared fact into the USA and cause them to divert Trillions from social programs like free health, fast rail ETC. Just like the 11/9 fake war on terror again diverting trillion of public funds to the war industries. and denying the USA tax payer a decent minimum wage, free health care, cheap Pharma, paid superannuation for all workers and a decent safely net for the poor and lower class citizens. Deny the public decent free education and treat them like mushroom, keep them in the dark and feed them B.S.
JeffLee
@Gurumick
Communism is very much alive today, in case you didn't notice. The country destined to become the world's dominant economic power is run entirely by communists. Its global strategy is to become self-suffient while dominating the world's strategic industries, basically putting capitalism out of business. Communism has shifted from a military threat to an economic one.
Meanwhile, geopolitical analyts say communist North Korea is the world's most dangerous state.
The US military chiefs in the 60s were absolutely right about the threat. Your friends on the left were absolutely wrong.
@Peter Neil
The Korean War is still on, with occasional flare-ups. Let’s try to get something right.
JboneInTheZone
Communism is easily the most deadly ideology the world has ever seen. The U.S. and the west had every right to push back against it. How many deaths was Mao responsible for again?
GuruMick
Addendum acknowledge China is still called a "Communist Nation " but this is mainly in one party state and central planning of economic matters.
Certainly , from the 90,s onwards, Chinese people are enjoying freedoms they did not have, even before Mao, with overseas travel thriving, home ownership or rentals in cities at a higher quality, education, less division between the sexes and a hundred other things.
Note how I actually use examples and dont do name calling like my friends here.
theFu
I lived less than 2 miles from nukes until I was 18. Dad was in SAC. Nuclear weapons aren't a boogeyman.
There are many safeguards to prevent lots of issues. They can't magically "go off" and because places with nukes are well protected, enemies aren't likely to get anywhere near them. Even if they do, they can't detonate without the correct codes. There are all sorts of procedures to make unauthorized firing impossible. the worse that an enemy might do is steal the weapons, take them apart and use the piece for their own weapons. Any nation capable of getting to the weapon storage would already have their own. No need to steal any.
Even when things do really bad, like high heat and explosions, they don't go off.
Sources vary, but between 35 and 50 million Chinese. By far the worst human killer in history. Even Hitler killed fewer, including 25M Russians and 6-10M Jews.
While the US isn't a Saint, they haven't killed even 6 million people in the entire history of the country while, including wars. 4M were native Americans, so less than 2M worldwide, including 500K during the US Civil war in the 1860s.
Or as I was taught in Georgia - the War of Northern Aggression. Funny that Virginia, Arkansas, Texas, and Nebraska History classes all taught it as the Civil War. Each state teaches their state history in a different grade. The family moved every year for about 4 yrs, so I was exposed to more state histories than anyone should be. Georgia is still a bit backwards on the Civil War, there are people here who think they could win still, while all the other states seem to agree is was wrong. Georgia is proof that revisionist history is alive if you are stubborn enough and keep certain people in power to control what can be taught and how it is taught.
Yubaru
It was always Japanese soil, and while the US initially had the intent to keep the island indefinitely, public pressure and politics forced the actions that led to it's return.
isabelle
Defending Japan is the bases' purpose (one of their purposes) now. It wasn't then.
I think anyone can acknowledge that... unless, perhaps, their intention is solely to discredit the US (and, by extension, promote the PRC).
If it helps to push your pro-PRC narrative, sure you go ahead.
But it didn't happen then, and it won't happen now.
Garlic eater
What's the big deal? Every country has military installations. I am baffled as to why this is newsworthy at all. Why not document a concrete rice warehouse instead? That would be more relevant.
wanderlust
Ogasawara (Chichijima) and Iwoto were also storage sites for nuclear weapons, probably Regulus missiles and Mk6 bombs, though they had their cores removed. They were re-load points for submarines, assuming bases in Japan, Hawaii, Guam and Adak had been destroyed. This was revealed in a heavily redacted Appendix B from 1977 on The History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons from 1945-1977, and described in the Journal of Atomic Scientists in Dec 1999 and corrected in Jan/ Feb 2000. There was a secret agreement between the US State Department and Japanese PM E Sato.
Most of these were removed by 1965, along with those on Okinawa in 1972.
Japan's non-nuclear principles (no production, no possession, no introduction) were compromised, though few knew.
The full paper is in the National Archives.
Garlic eater
Why? Even if Okinawa had been hit 10X over it would still remain.
isabelle
This advertisement for the CCP is highly amusing, both for what it asserts, and what it ignores.
And they are also "enjoying" levels of surveillance and repression they did not have, even during Mao.
Where people will still be targeted by the CCP if they fall out of line (university campus informants, illegal police stations, social media monitoring, etc.)
And a property market collapse.
"with Chinese characteristics."
Highly debatable.
But if Chinese women complain, there's always the trafficked ones from North Korea and SE Asia...
https://thediplomat.com/2025/05/chinas-sex-industry-and-the-human-trafficking-crisis-a-deepening-human-rights-emergency/
voiceofokinawa
There were at least four Mace B launch sies in Okinawa before it was returned to Japan in 1972: Bolo Point in Yomitan, where a new base is under construction, Onna Point, White Beach and at Kin just north of Camp Hansen* Was this the end result of Okinawa's liberation through the war? Ignorance indeed is bliss.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Japan only controls Hokkaido thanks to the US.
TaiwanIsNotChina
That can be true even if the US didn't have a presence on Okinawa.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Now for my facts: China is still one of the most repressed countries on earth.
https://rsf.org/en/country/china
voiceofokinawa
There were at least four Mace B launch/storage sies in Okinawa before it was returned to Japan in 1972: Bolo Point in Yomitan, White Beach and at Kin just north of Camp Hansen, where a new base is under construction, Onna Point, Was this the end result of Okinawa's liberation through the war? Ignorance indeed is bliss.
0( +0 / -0 )
Yubaru
If you want to "get something right" then by all means follow it yourself.
The "Korean Conflict" was never a declared war from the prospective of the United States, and that conflict still lasts today.
Yubaru
For the sake of accuracy, there is no new base under construction anywhere in Okinawa, "just north" of Camp Hansen or otherwise.
There is a landfill project on Camp Schwab, which is miles away from Hansen.
OssanAmerica
The last time the U.S. seriously considered using nuclear weapons on China was during the Korean War.
Okinawa housed MGM-1, MGM-13 an Nike-Hercules. The former could hit Shangahi and the latter could reach Wuhan and Chengdu. In the 1960s a real strike wuld be carried out by strategic bombers.
Inte 1960s China did not have the ability to hit Tokyo wih anuclear warhead. This was achieved inthe early 1970s with the development of the Dong-Feng series of ballistic missiles. And even if they did, why would they, when there are more tactically significant targets?
nandakandamanda
It's empty. Nostalgia is nostalgia.
China on the other hand has hundreds of miles of these undergound tunnels, actually much broader inside, and they are actually full of dark, active stuff.
Yubaru
For purposes of "accuracy" and not conspiracy, there is no "new" US base being constructed anywhere on Okinawa
Camp Schwab, in Ginoza, supposedly once held nukes, a "well known secret" but not today.
Yrral
This show how Japan is no more than vassal state of the US,has no say so nukes in it own soil
wallace
U.S. Veterans Reveal 1962 Nuclear Close Call Dodged in Okinawa
By: Ota Masakatsu, Steve Rabson
March 30, 2015
Ota Masakatsu’s horrifying account of an erroneous order to launch nuclear missiles in Okinawa during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 raises the possibility that, despite the U.S. military’s vehement denials, a nuclear war could start by accident.
https://apjjf.org/steve-rabson/4825/article
isabelle
It shows nothing of the sort.
What it shows is the situation in the 1960s, before Okinawa reverted to Japan in 1972. That situation is very different now.
Not that that will stop the pro-PRC/anti-US/anti-Japan crowd falsely claiming that Japan is a "vassal" that is "occupied" by the US, with bases that are "forced" upon Japan.
Cephus
"Mace B cruise missile was said to have a payload 70 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that the U.S. military dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people by the end of the year."
Fast forward, today the U.S. land based Missile with the highest payload currently in service is LGM -30G Minuteman ||| ICBM. Capable of carrying a payload of 300 Kilotons or rather 475 Kilotons depending on the warhead with a range of approximately 13,000 km.
Gaijinjland
The US still has nukes in Okinawa. The bases are not “Japanese soil”. Anyone naive enough to believe otherwise really doesn’t understand geopolitics.
masugomi
Thankfully, Japan' security doesn't depend on your feelings.
ebisen
"Okinawa might not exist now if any nuclear missiles had been fired," she said.
Let's get real. The entire Japan wouldn't exist now if any missile had been fired.
Tony W.
And with a war with China and America and possibly Australia involved, this site may well be used again for the same purpose. Lets hope not!
Desert Tortoise
I am both laughing and shaking my head at that comment. I am and was politically pretty liberal but I was a Naval Aviator during the Cold War and became one precisely because everything about the USSR was an offense to my liberal values and they very much represented a threat to western liberal values and our way of life. There were a lot of us liberals in the military for the same reason. Nothing about the USSR appealed to us.
Desert Tortoise
Sigh. China conducted its first nuclear test in 1964 and formed the Second Artillery, their dedicated nuclear missile force two years later. China didn't have an operational IRBM capable of delivering a nuclear warhead until 1969 and it would be two more years before they had an operational ICBM. In the era of that bunker China really didn't have the means to conduct a nuclear counter strike.
Yubaru
Prove it! I could say the sky is falling and tell you that you dont understand what's happening either. Ludicrous right? Same as your views on "geopolitics" and nukes in Okinawa
Oh and if the bases arent "Japanese soil" why are the landowners getting paid millions in rent every year.
Another ludicrous assumption right?
deanzaZZR
Sad. The US continually threatened China with nuclear annihilation with missile bases in Okinawa and Taiwan during the time China had no retaliatory capability.
Thankfully USA was stupid enough to expel Qian Xuesen from CalTech during the Red Scare leading Qian to lead development of China's rocket and missile technology development. I am currently reading his biography written by Iris Chang titled Thread of the Silkworm. It is highly recommended.
voiceofokinawa
Yubaru,
The construction and the landfill in Henoko started to build the so-called replacement of Futenma. But is it a mere replacement, with so many innovations added which Futenma doesn’t have, such as port facilities? It is a white elephant both financially and strategically. Answer this clearly and succinctly. Don't obfuscate.
Yubaru
So? You build a new addition to your house, do you claim you built a new house? No way, people would laugh at you if you did. Same argument, but you fail to see the illogical conclusion to your post.
Same thing with a landfill. Look at Chatan, they built a landfill at Mihama, with many new businesses and "innovations" that the "old" Chatan didnt have, and yet no one calls the town Mihama Town, it's still Chatan.
You have no logical way possible to refute the facts. Same with Camp Schwab, it's just a landfill to an existing facility.
You really should take your own advice here, "don't obfuscate".
voiceofokinawa
Yubaru,
Is it just an addition to your old, dilapidated house? Besides, what are your reasons why the new house must be built when I say it’s the waste of money without any meaning.
theFu
The US never had any plans for first attacks of mainland China.
Only CCP first action will cause a US attack. The exact line is ambiguous for a reason. We've seen China trying to figure out where the line is as they make all sorts of outlandish claims including:
9-dash line
Invading Philippine areas
constant harassment of the country of Taiwan
and
constant harassment of ships sailing in international waters.
China is invading both Nepal and India, slowly, to avoid direct confrontation. Eventually, someone will add up all the transgressions and decide enough is enough. When that happens, a Chinese ship will disappear for unknown reasons in a deep part of the seas.
Don't forget in 2001 when China forced a US signals aircraft to emergency land on a Chinese island, Hainan, after one of two Chinese fighters collided with it 110 KM away. China ripped that plane apart to learn what they could. This could easily have started a military reaction in the region. It all started due to unsafe Chinese flying. The world has learned that Chinese and Russian fighter pilots often make unsafe approaches to other aircraft. There's lots of video proving this.
According to UNCLOS, an EEZ isn't sovereign like the 12nm area near a land boarder is. 112 km is far outside any border.
Yubaru
Your question makes absolutely no sense, seeing as how Camp Schwab is far from "dilapidated" and it's still not a new base, no matter how you try to obfuscate it!
What you "say" and what IS happening are fortunately two very different things! Here's to hoping you will see the day when it's finished and Futenma closes!
voiceofokinawa
Yubaru,
You’ re obfuscating.
Answer simply why the construction of the new house (
new base) is needed. We re shouldering the construction cost. So, we have the right to know about it.
Yubaru
I see you didnt read, or possibly didnt understand what I wrote here:
Let me explain it clearly again,
There is no "new house" being built, just an extension to an existing facility. And you talk about "obfuscating"?
No one "built" a new Itoman when the landfill at Nishizaki was completed, no one "built" a new Okinawa City, when the landfill at Awase was completed. (I could go on,) there is no "new house" just a new landfill with new buildings and facilities, just like any other landfill, anywhere in Japan.
Oh and please stop assuming that you are the only "paying" for it. I probably pay more in taxes here than you ever have, and I and countless others, are 100% glad that the landfill is happening and more importantly that Futenma will be closed.