WWII bomber base enlisted for US power projection against China in the Pacific

Decades of jungle growth stripped away and multiple runways restored on abandoned airfield in the strategic second island chain

Reading Time:3 minutes

The US North Field airbase at Tinian in the Mariana Islands, pictured in 1945. Photo: Wikipedia

Published: 6:00pm, 9 Apr 2025

A remote US airbase in the western Pacific – best known as the departure point for the planes that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – has been reclaimed from the jungle to pose an asymmetrical threat to the Chinese mainland, analysts said.

The US$120 million reconstruction of North Field on Tinian Island – just 193km (120 miles) north of Guam – has included at least 1.86 million square metres (20 million sq ft) of runway and other infrastructure.

The North Field airbase on Tinian Island. Photo: Google Maps

According to the US Air Force, the restored airfield will serve as a power projection platform for its agile combat employment strategy (ACE) – a set of concepts aimed at increasing flexibility and resilience while complicating enemy targeting.

The scale of the project was revealed by a series of commercial satellite images published by military website The War Zone and dating from December 2023, a month before work began, to January this year.

The images show the airfield’s distinctive grid layout – said to have been based on the streets of Manhattan by the wartime personnel who built it – gradually emerging from the tropical jungle.

Beijing-based military analyst Fu Qianshao said North Field’s grid pattern – made up of four 2,500-metre (8,500ft) runways and associated taxiways and ramps – and the US strategy of dispersing its forces gave it a relatively strong survivability rating.