January 19-20, 1971: Yokota and Tachikawa Shopping
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Bob Cavendish took Dan Gunning and I down to Kimpo to get a 2035 flight to Japan- our R&R trip for our 13-month tour here in Korea. The Army provides the flights for free- utilizing troop transport planes that are almost always flying back and for anyway. (These free flights are limited to one round-trip per servicemember per tour.) Japan and Hawaii are also R&R destinations for soldiers currently fighting in South Vietnam.

Kimpo is West of Central Seoul

The serviceman is responsible for having enough leave time for the trip (and getting that arranged ahead of time), and also for any expenses he might incur while in Japan (or wherever the R&R trip is- the second most popular destination, particularly for servicemen meeting their families, is Hawaii, but there is a fee for flights to the Islands).

One of the things that makes R&R a less-expensive proposition for many servicemen is the fact that they are allowed to utilize officer or enlisted housing at their destination- if it is available. In Hawaii (and I know this because later this year, on my way home, I will stop there) the Army owns Fort DeRussy- a leftover from WWII- which is a small post just adjacent to Waikiki. It consists mostly of old housing, and servicemen can rent little apartments or just rooms there and prices much less than the commerical Waikiki hotels nearby.

When we got to Kimpo, we discovered that our scheduled flight that evening had been cancelled due to the snowfall the night before, which left us no choice but to wait until the next night. Dan and I were able to get an officer's billet right there at Kimpo, though, so we did not have to find our way back to Howze. The billet happened to be attached to the Officer's Club, so we were able to have some supper right there.

Outside the Kimpo Officer's Club

Incidentally, on the map above you'll see that the airport name is spelled "Gimpo". I did not know it at the time, but this is due to the same difficulties that resulted in "Peking" later being revised to "Beijing". On their maps, English-speaking cartographers named sites phonetically from the foreign-language pronounciation. This resulted in a number of approximations. Later, as the countries modernized and expanded, they were able to correct those approximate pronounciations, and now had the clout to make mapmakers change their English names. We called in "Kimpo", but the Korean characters are pronounced closer to "Gimpo", and so the maps were eventually changed.

The next morning, we had breakfast at the Officer's Club and then walked over to the transportation office to see about that evening's flight to Japan, and whether we could get on it. One of the problems with taking these flights is that if your flight happens to be delayed or cancelled, then you are essentially on "standby" for a replacement flight, and we discovered at the transportation office that the evening flight on today, the 18th, was already full with people who actually had reservations on that specific flight. While there were some additional seats beyond those reserved, the standby list is organized by rank ("rank hath its privileges") and, unfortunately for us, there had been a contingent of majors and colonels from our flight that took all the available seats.

But we were resourceful, and Dan actually knew one of the Transportation officers there, and he was able to find out that there was a C-141 cargo plane making the run over to Yokota (our destination) very early in the morning on the 19th (0100, actually). These cargo planes usually have 20-30 seats for carrying personnel, and we grabbed a couple of those.

The Route from Kimpo to Yokota

We had to bum around Kimpo all day, waiting for our early morning departure, and we were pretty tired by the time it left. But we really didn't care; we were just anxious to get going.

So where is Yokota Air Base relative to Tokyo? Turns out, it is out in the country (at least it was out in the country) west of the city. For those of you familiar with Tokyo, who have flown there in the 21st century, Tokyo's new airport- Narita- is about the same distance east of the center of the city:

An Aerial View of Tokyo (about 75 miles wide)

We arrived at Yokota Air Base about 0330 on the 19th, and after signing in to actually start our leave, we got a room at the Officer billets on the base, a room we would use for about three days.

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	January 19-20, 1971: Yokota and Tachikawa Shopping
	Return to the Index for the Japan Trip