US Fleet Activities Sasebo Japan Patch

U.S. Fleet Activities Sasebo was formally established in June 1946, and four years later it was the main port feeding men, fuel and ammunition into the Korean War. Sasebo had been a naval station since 1889, headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Third Naval District. The 5th Marine Division landed there on 22 September 1945, and the U.S. Navy has been there ever since. Today it is the forward home port on Kyushu for the Seventh Fleet's amphibious ships. For generations of sailors, Sasebo was the Navy's front door in western Japan.

During the Korean War American strength at Sasebo grew to about 20,000, and the harbor was jammed with ammunition, fuel and supply traffic bound for the peninsula. After Korea the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force began homeporting ships there alongside the Americans. In the Vietnam years the base supported the expanded Seventh Fleet, then was scaled back in the mid-1970s and redesignated a Naval Ordnance Facility. On 4 July 1980 it took back the name U.S. Fleet Activities Sasebo, and forward-deployed Seventh Fleet ships returned. During Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991 it was a supply point for ordnance and fuel. From 2000 to 2012 the amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD-2) was forward deployed there, and USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) took her place until 2018.

This round patch has a gold border around a white field, with U.S. FLEET ACTIVITIES arched across the top and SASEBO, JAPAN across the bottom in navy blue. A gold anchor chain circles the center scene. Inside it, red rays and a rising sun spread behind a gold torii gate, the gateway of a Shinto shrine, and a light blue anchor with its line wrapped around the shank crosses behind the gate. Below, a gray warship steams through blue water between two green-topped islands, the way ships come into Sasebo through the islands of the harbor approach. It is a sailor's view of the port, coming in.

Sasebo duty meant long months of forward deployment, short-notice underway periods and a home port a long way from home. Sailors remember the liberty along the waterfront, the ride through the harbor islands and the hills above the piers. Families who lived there remember the base as a small town with a big job. The base has supported every Seventh Fleet operation in the region since 1946, and the alliance with Japan has been part of daily life there for just as long. Anyone stationed there knows the place gets in your blood.

It measures 4 by 4 inches with a merrowed edge and iron-on backing, and it can also be sewn on. Put it in a shadow box with your ship patches and liberty photos from Japan, or on a jacket or vest for the next reunion. It also makes a good gift for a sailor or Navy family who called Sasebo home. A port patch for a port a lot of sailors never forgot.