Naval Air Facility Atsugi Japan Patch

The red gate on this patch is a torii, the gate that stands at the entrance of a Shinto shrine, with Mount Fuji rising behind it, set over the gold wings of a naval aviator. Naval Air Facility Atsugi sits in Kanagawa Prefecture, southwest of Tokyo, on an airfield the Imperial Japanese Navy built in 1938. It was home to the 302nd Kokutai, a wartime fighter unit. On August 30, 1945, General Douglas MacArthur stepped off his plane at Atsugi to accept the surrender of Japan. From that day on, the field belonged to the story of the U.S. and Japanese alliance.

Seabees arrived in 1950 and had the field ready by December, when it reopened as Naval Air Station Atsugi for the Korean War. It handled fighters, bombers and transports through Korea and Vietnam. The U-2 operated from Atsugi from at least 1957, and an EC-121 of Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One, VQ-1, launched from there in 1969 before North Korea shot it down. When USS Midway shifted her home port to Yokosuka in 1973, Carrier Air Wing 5 (CVW-5) moved into Atsugi and stayed for 45 years. In 2012 CVW-5 became the first air wing with no legacy Hornets, flying F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers alongside E-2 Hawkeyes and the C-2A Greyhounds of VRC-30, before its jets moved to MCAS Iwakuni between August 2017 and March 2018.

The patch is a 4 inch circle, 4 inches high, with a red merrowed edge. A sky blue field holds the white snowcap and blue slopes of Mount Fuji, with a red torii gate standing in front of the mountain. Gold naval aviator wings, the anchor and shield between them, spread across the crossbar of the gate. A red scroll at the bottom reads NAF in the center, with ATSUGI on the left and JAPAN on the right. The backing is iron-on, and it can be sewn on too.

Atsugi is shared ground. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force runs its Fleet Air Force headquarters and Fleet Air Wing 4 from the same field, under an agreement the two governments made in 1972. The helicopters of the air wing stayed when the jets left: HSM-51 Warlords and HSM-77 Saberhawks with the MH-60R, and HSC-12 Golden Falcons with the MH-60S. Fleet Readiness Center Western Pacific kept the maintainers busy. For many sailors and their families, Atsugi was the first duty station overseas, and the one they still talk about.

It fits a shadow box next to your CVW-5 squadron patch and a Midway or Kitty Hawk cruise book, or on the jacket from your tour in Japan. It also makes a good gift for a sailor who did a tour in Japan and still keeps a photo of Fuji. One torii, one mountain and a pair of gold wings.