"Robert" wrote in message
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"Diamond Jim" wrote in message
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[trim]

Thanks a lot for the reply. Did the post-strike bases on the periphery
of the Soviet Union and China include bases in South Korea, Taiwan and
Japan?

That's still rather "sensitive" information. I flew the B-47 and the
B-52 as well as the B-58. Post strike bases were planned all around the
USSR and China. That includes Europe, North Africa, the Mid-East and
Asia. Some bases were planned to have fuel so the bombers could
re-deploy back to North America. Many weren't "bases", just runways and
I'm not sure the host countries even knew they were in our plans,


While it may be "sensitive" information today, I seriously doubt that it
is classified in any way. (The general knowledge, not the specific
details.)

As for the host countries knowledge at the time?????

The fact that the US had nuke weapons, in such places as Greenland,
Tiwan, South Korea, Japan, (places in mainland Japan, plus Okinawa, Chiba
Jima, Iwo Jima) and a lot of other places around the world, has been know
for a number of years. That the host country didn't know about it would
argue that they didn't know about plans to use their runways as recovery
bases either.

The fact that the US had weapons at these places when the host country
didn't know about it, isn't talked about because of its "sensitive"
nature, but the general knowledge isn't classified while the specific
details may still be.

Japan? Japan has a rabid anti-nuke crowd.

The US had dual-key nukes in a number of countries, but I had never heard
of any in Japan. There was always a bit of a farce about these - 1 US MP
and 2 host country ones watching each plane.

The landing sites didn't require pre-approval from the host nation.
Japan's anti nuke policy wouldn't apply to a plane that had jettisoned the
offending devices. :-)

During and after a strategic nuclear war diplomatic letters of protest
don't rank very high.

One of the more off-the wall plans I remember reading about involved the
embassy marines sizing control of the airport and fuel trucks to refuel
outbound bombers. This was in Iceland(?)


Japan may have a rabid anti-nuke crowd but that doesn't change the facts!
The US put nukes into Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan on Nike missiles, with
or without the host countries permission and they weren't "dual -key"
either. South Korea, Taiwan, and Chiba-Jima (a Japanese island) had
short/medium/intermediate range ballistic missiles, in addition of the Nike
SAM's. Iwo Jima, Okinawa, also had gravity bombs (nukes) stored there. In
mainland Japan: The US Army had nuke warheads for the Nike missiles, and
most likely some tactical warheads for the Honest John rocket, etc. The US
Navy and USAF had several locations where they stored gravity nuke bombs,
torpedoes, depth charges, and missile warheads.

Probably the easiest and quickest way to confirm this, would be to do a
google on the "Nike Missiles in Okinawa". I believe these were the last that
the US operated in Japan. (IIRC to the 1970's) As nuke's are very likely
still stored in Japan by the US Navy (and USAF ??) I don't know what google
would find there.

As a matter of policy, during the late 50's and into the 60's the US put
nukes in a lot of different places, without the host countries (official or
otherwise) knowledge or consent. This first became public knowledge in the
mid- 1990's with the de-classification of information from the Cuban Missile
Crisis. The knowledge that the US had deployed nuke missiles in Turkey (and
Italy) was known but when information started becoming available in the mid
90's it came out that the US had circled the Soviet Union, China and North
Korea with nukes.

BTW as the number of US Marines stationed at a US Embassy is seldom more
than a dozen, its not very like that they will be sizing any
airports/tankers.