Japan's troops return from their first overseas firefighting mission in Indonesia

Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi on Sunday, Oct. 18, welcomed home the Self-Defense Force personnel who spent two weeks fighting forest fires in Indonesia, the first time Japan's military has carried out firefighting operations abroad. At a homecoming ceremony at the Maritime Self-Defense Force base in Yokosuka, near Tokyo, he told the troops he was truly glad they had completed the mission and come back safely, according to Kyodo News and Japanese broadcasters.

The ceremony brought together crews of the Ground Self-Defense Force CH-47 transport helicopters that flew the water drops, sailors from the Maritime Self-Defense Force transport ship Kunisaki, which carried the aircraft to Indonesia, and their families. TBS reported that the unit had arrived back at Yokosuka on Oct. 16, two days before the event.

Japan sent the force at the request of the Indonesian government. TV Asahi reported that three CH-47 helicopters and roughly 330 personnel deployed aboard the Kunisaki, and that during about two weeks on the island of Kalimantan the helicopters scooped up and dropped around 280 tonnes of water from the air over 56 sorties.

Kyodo reported in September that the Kunisaki had reached West Kalimantan, the Indonesian province on the western side of Borneo, to support Indonesia's military with aerial firefighting. The relief operation began on Sept. 16, and Koizumi said on Sept. 29 that he had ordered the troops to wrap up their work.

Koizumi described the deployment as a task without precedent for the Self-Defense Forces, carried out in harsh conditions overseas. He said Indonesia had thanked Japan for the help again and again, and that the mission had built stronger trust so that the two countries can support each other in an emergency, according to Kyodo and TV Tokyo.

TBS reported that the minister also urged the personnel to draw on the experience and pride they had gained from the deployment as they carry on with the defence of Japan. TV Tokyo said Koizumi told the returning troops that he was proud of them.

The fires, which Kyodo said were partly linked to land clearing, have burned for months in Indonesia, especially on Borneo and Sumatra. They have destroyed large areas of tropical forest and produced toxic haze that has drifted into neighbouring countries.

The mission also sits within a broader relationship between Tokyo and Jakarta. TV Asahi noted that the two governments agreed in May to widen their cooperation on disaster relief, and the Indonesian deployment became the first time Japan has used its forces for international emergency firefighting, a point also stressed by TBS.

The operation combined Ground Self-Defense Force helicopters with a Maritime Self-Defense Force ship that carried them to a Southeast Asian partner and supported them there for two weeks. Koizumi presented the result as a gain in trust with Indonesia and as experience his forces can now carry back into their main job of defending Japan.