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To: Homer_J_Simpson
I had to chuckle when I read that the USS Missouri meeting took place "twenty miles south of O Island." It's a bit odd that about half the time an island name is untranslated, like Ie Shima or Iwo Jima, and the other half it is translated, like O Island. I have been to Oshima, whose name simply means "Big Island" (there are perhaps a hundred Oshimas all around Japan), and which is at the entrance of Sagami Bay. I was part of a newly-formed Explorer Post when we went there in the late 60s on the Miss FAY (pictured here), which was touted as having been Gen. MacArthur's yacht, presumably under another name ("FAY" stood for Fleet Activities Yokosuka).

The same article says that the Marines will inhabit "three islets of Yokosuka." I only know of one island near the base, Sarushima (Monkey Island); a CNN Travel article about it is here. There are two artificial islands on the Chiba side of the bay that were built in the 1800s for protecting the entrance to Tokyo Bay, and that may be what the article is referring to.

Also, the "airdrome" would have been on Natsushima (Summer Island), which is technically an island, though it is connected to the mainland by short causeways. Natsushima is just north of the Yokosuka naval base and east of Oppama, though I don't remember an airfield ever being there; the page here says it was used until the 1950s. The airfield seems to have had its own patch, however, here.

9 posted on 08/27/2015 7:31:57 AM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: chajin

Sounds like “Big Island” is the Japanese equivalent of “Deer Creek” in the United States.


12 posted on 08/27/2015 8:04:53 AM PDT by henkster (Ms. Clinton, are you a criminal or just really stupid?)
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