is a military base of the

Japan Ground Self-Defense Force The , , 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 branches. New military guidelines, announced in December 2010, direct ...

, located in Gotemba,

Shizuoka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,555,818 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Pref ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It is one of several military facilities located in the foothills of

Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano located on the Japanese island of Honshu, with a summit elevation of . It is the highest mountain in Japan, the second-highest volcano on any Asian island (after Mount Kerinci on the Indonesian island of Sumatra), a ...

History

Camp Komakado was established in April 1936 by the

Imperial Japanese Army The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA; , ''Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun'', "Army of the Greater Japanese Empire") was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945. It played a central role in Japan’s rapid modernization during th ...

as a training facility, and by 1943 it had become the central training school for Japan's

heavy artillery The formal definition of large-calibre artillery used by the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA) is "guns, howitzers, artillery pieces, combining the characteristics of a gun, howitzer, mortar, or rocket, capable of engaging ...

regiments. After the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Camp Komakado came under the control of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

in Japan, and was renamed “South Camp”. In 1960, after the conclusion of the

Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan The more commonly known as the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty in English and as the ''Anpo jōyaku'' or just ''Anpo'' in Japanese, is a treaty that permits the presence of U.S. military bases on Japanese soil, and commits the two nations to defen ...

, the base was returned to the control of the Japanese government and reestablished as a training facility for artillery and armor under the post-war Ground Japan Self-Defense Force. The JSDF 1st Tank Battalion has been based at Camp Komakado since 1962. The International Peace Cooperation Activities Training Unit of the JGSDF Central Readiness Force has been based at Camp Komakado since 2007.

Organization

The following are units currently stationed in Camp Komakado: * Central Readiness Force ** International Peace Cooperation Activities Training Unit * 1st Training Brigade ** 1st Armored Training Unit * 1st Tank Battalion * 1st Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion * 364th Engineer Company *JGSDF 1st Logistic Support Regiment *JGSDF Kantō Logistics Depot

References

External links

Official Home page
Komakado Komakado Military installations established in 1936 Gotemba, Shizuoka 1936 establishments in Japan {{fort-stub