Yokosuka
Chuo
Yokosuka
Chuo Station is
located in Yokosuka and is served
by the Keihin Electric Express Railway's
Keikyu Main Line.
Yokosuka
is
a city in Kanagawa Prefecture at
the mouth of Tokyo Bay in the southwest
of Tokyo. The city is of historical
significance as it was here in 1850
that Commodore Matthew Perry landed,
which in turn resulted in the modernization
of Japan. Yokosuka is just as important
today as it is home to a major naval
facility used by the United States
and Japanese forces.
Yokosuka
Chuo Station is located on Yokosuka
Chuo-O-Dori Street commonly known as blue street because of the blue stones imbedded into the asphalt, Yokosuka's
main street and a busy commercial
district. Department stores, banks,
and other shops and offices line
both sides of the tree-lined street,
which is always bustling with businessmen
and shoppers. Servicemen from the
base are also a common sight.
Yokosuka
Naval Base
Yokosuka
Naval Base is America's largest
and most important naval facility
outside of the United States. It
is the headquarters of U.S. Navy's
Seventh Fleet, which consists of
17 ships, and employs 27,000 military
and civilian personnel. It is also
the largest naval ship repair facility
in the western pacific, which can
undertake almost any kind of ship
repair.
The
history of the place goes back to
1865, when the Tokugawa Shogunate
established ‘Yokosuka Iron Works'
here. It then slowly developed and
expanded its waterfront facilities,
and by WWII, it had become a shipyard,
where ships of the Imperial Japanese
Army were repaired. After the war,
the U.S. Forces took control of
the place and re-opened it as its
own ‘Ship Repair Department', employing
75 U.S. Navy personnel and 576 Japanese
Imperial Navy employees. In 1951,
the facility was officially designated
‘U.S. Naval Ship Repair Facility'
by the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations,
and a Commanding Officer was assigned.
Yokosuka
Naval Base covers an area of 568 acres.
It has 18 ship berths, five tugboats,
and numerous anchorages, as well as
the only degaussing range in the western
pacific. Visitors are not allowed
on the base. Just once a year, the
base hosts a “Friendship Day”, when
Japanese nationals are allowed to
tour the base.
