This grenade, found caked in dirt at a former U.S. military training site in northern Okinawa, has gone missing, according to the Japanese military. (Okinawa Defense Bureau)
CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa – The Japanese government is seeking the return of a grenade that went missing from a former U.S. military training site in Okinawa’s northern jungle.
It is unclear when the grenade went missing or who might have taken it. A spokesman for the Okinawa Defense Bureau, which represents the Ministry of Defense on the island, declined to answer questions about the incident when reached by phone Tuesday.
The grenade originally surfaced during a waste survey in an area previously part of the Northern Training Area, a sprawling complex that includes the Marine Corps’ Jungle Warfare Training Center, also known as Camp Gonsalves, the bureau said in a statement Friday.
The spokesman also declined to say when the ordnance was initially discovered.
It was found within a 10,000-acre swath that reverted to Japanese control in 2016, the bureau statement said. That handover, negotiated two decades earlier, reduced the American footprint on the island by 20%, U.S. officials said at the time.
The grenade, caked in dirt, was left at the site while preparations were being made for its disposal, according to the statement.
“We sincerely apologize for any concern this may have caused,” the statement said. “In the future, we will ensure that we store and manage these wastes properly.”
The island’s small but fervent protest movement has long complained about refuse abandoned in the heavily wooded region, home to endangered species and plants.
A spokeswoman for Okinawa prefecture’s Military Base Affairs Division said unexploded ordnance requires better management.
“It is the central government’s responsibility to remove military waste from the former Northern Training Area, so we want them to do it thoroughly,” she said. “Any danger for the citizens must be avoided.”
Some government officials in Japan speak to the media on condition of anonymity as a requirement of their employment.
