Combined Arms Training Center (CATC) Camp Fuji is an installation of the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through c ...

next to the Japan Ground Self Defense Force

JGSDF Camp Takigahara is a military base of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, located in Gotemba, Shizuoka prefecture, Japan. It is one of several military facilities located in the foothills of Mount Fuji, and is located across a road from the United States Mari ...

( ja, 滝ヶ原駐屯地). It is located near the city of Gotemba in

Shizuoka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,637,998 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northea ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

, at the base of

Mount Fuji , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest ...

. Camp Fuji is one of several Camps of the

Marine Corps Base Camp Butler Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler (or simply Butler Marine Base) is a United States Marine Corps base located in the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa. It was named after Marine Corps Major General and twice Medal of Honor recipient Smedley ...

complex. JGSDF Camp Fuji ( ja, 富士駐屯地), namesake of this installation, is located 2.5 miles north of the USMC base.

History

The area around the base of Mount Fuji has been associated with the military since medieval times. The

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They ...

of the

Kamakura Shogunate The was the feudal military government of Japan during the Kamakura period from 1185 to 1333. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Kamakura-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 459. The Kamakura shogunate was established by Minamoto no ...

conducted military training in this area in the 15th century. In the modern era, the large East Fuji Maneuver Area was established by the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emper ...

as a training facility, and several training bases were established in the area. After the

surrender of Japan The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Na ...

at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, these bases were occupied by the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

, and were designated “Camp Fuji McNair”, “North Camp”, “Middle Camp”, and “South Camp”. Half of “North Camp” was turned over to the

(USMC) in 1953, while the other half (across the street from present-day Camp Fuji) was eventually turned over to the

Japan Ground Self-Defense Force The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force ( ja, 陸上自衛隊, Rikujō Jieitai), , also referred to as the Japanese Army, is the land warfare branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Created on July 1, 1954, it is the largest of the three service b ...

(JGSDF) where it is now JGSDF Camp Takigahara.

Description

The facility includes of ranges and maneuver area to serve as a

combined arms Combined arms is an approach to warfare that seeks to integrate different combat arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects (for example by using infantry and armour in an urban environment in which each supports the other) ...

training area. Camp Fuji is under the exclusive control of the USMC, although the

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

landing pad is a joint-use facility for both the United States and the JGSDF. Units from across the Pacific (including those participating in the Unit Deployment Program) come to Camp Fuji to train. The facilities were considered

spartan Sparta ( Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta refe ...

compared to most military bases, with no family housing, limited military exchange and recreation facilities, and limited medical facilities, although extensive modernization and expansion programs from 1983 have added new barracks, enlisted and officers club, a barber shop, library and food facilities.

References

:''This article incorporates text in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...

from the United States Marine Corps.'' *

External links

Fuji Fuji may refer to: Places China * Fuji, Xiangcheng City (付集镇), town in Xiangcheng City, Henan Japan * Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan * Fuji River * Fuji, Saga, town in Saga Prefecture * Fuji, Shizuoka, city in Shizuoka Prefec ...

Installations of the U.S. Department of Defense in Japan

Gotemba, Shizuoka {{shizuoka-geo-stub ja:滝ヶ原駐屯地

History

Description

See also

References

External links