The Birth Of Japanese Naval Aviation -- 1912, Yokosuka (Oppama 追浜)

One of Nissan Automobile Corporation's main manufacturing and test plants is located in the northern part of Yokosuka City, called: Oppama (追浜).

Nissan built its factory there in 1961, on "wide-open" property which had formerly been used as U.S. Naval Air Station Oppama, and before that, as the Japanese Imperial Navy's Yokosuka Air Base.

It has been mostly forgotten that the birth of Japan's naval aviation occurred at Yokosuka Air base in 1912.  Here is a relevant quote from the book "Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy" (by David Evans & Mark Peattie, pgs 179-180):

"(Japan's naval aviation) began with the decisions of the Commission on Naval Aeronautical Research to purchase foreign winged aircraft and to send junior officers abroad to learn how to fly and maintain them.  In consequence, the navy purchased two seaplanes from the Glenn Curtis factory in Hammondsport, New York, and two Maurice Farman seaplanes from France.  To establish a cadre of naval aviators and technicians, the navy dispatched three officers to Hammondsport and two to France for training and instruction.  Upon their return to Japan at the end of 1912, two of the newly trained naval aviators made the first flights in Japanese naval air history at Oppama on Yokosuka Bay, one in a Curtiss seaplane, the other in a Maurice Farman .... Within a year, the navy had begun operational use of the aircraft, and within two, Japanese naval aircraft had undertaken their first combat missions."