23-05-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
‘Fuji Fire' Review: The Burning Storm
On Oct. 19, 1979, Typhoon Tip, at the time the most intense tropical storm ever recorded, whipped through a U.S. Marine Corps training camp near Mount Fuji in Japan. On one slope of the camp stood a recently constructed fuel farm, made up of three large, rubberized fuel tanks, called bladders, each carrying more than 5,000 gallons of fuel and weighing in excess of 30,000 pounds. As the torrent of rain continued, the loose lava soil underneath began to erode. One bladder containing 5,933 gallons of gasoline 'floated up and over what remained of its encircling earthen embankment.' A sharp metal corner of its frame ripped a 5-foot-long tear in the bladder. Soon 'an estimated 5,500 gallons of the fuel . . . flowed downhill atop already flooding rainwater.' So writes Chas Henry in his account of the disaster, 'Fuji Fire.'
At the bottom of the slope, an infantry battalion undergoing training maneuvers at Camp Fuji was temporarily housed in a dilapidated collection of leaky and worn World War II-era Quonset huts. The waterborne fuel flowed downhill and seeped inside some of the huts, where the Marines' open-flame kerosene heaters ignited a series of flash fires. In moments the camp turned into a rushing hell of flame. Thirteen Marines died. Seventy-three, including a Navy corpsman, were badly injured. Of those, 54 suffered life-altering burns.
The story is a painful reminder that our youngest soldiers, sailors and Marines bear the consequences of decisions made by the high-level officers and political leaders far above them. Of the 13 who died, the youngest Marine was 17, the oldest 22.
With the large number of seriously burned Marines, many of whom would remain on the edge of death for months—five died in Japan and eight others wouldn't make it—the immediate damage from the fires was only the beginning. The remote base was limited in its ability to provide emergency care, and the typhoon blurred communications. But Camp Fuji's leaders made multiple requests that enabled the relocation of casualties from the camp to the next level of triage and stabilizing care, mostly at Yokota Air Base, 60 miles northward from Camp Fuji over difficult routes.
