The airlift into Atsugi commenced on August 28, when advance elements of the 11th Airborne Division landed in the first C-54 transports. They were greeted cordially by the Japanese staff, with salutes and handshakes, and escorted to barracks recently occupied by kamikaze pilots, which had been carefully cleaned and prepared for their arrival. They were offered a fresh-cooked meal served in the mess hall. By August 30, more than three hundred C-54 Skymasters were shuttling continuously between Okinawa and Atsugi, a flight of 980 miles. They landed at Atsugi at the rate of about twenty per hour,
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