At the height of World War II in 1945, Tinian Airfield was the busiest airfield in the world as hundreds of B-29s gathered here for the final bombing campaign of Japan. Tinian had been seized from the Japanese in a bloody campaign in late summer of 1944 and now roared with the sounds of thousands of Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclones, one of the biggest aircraft piston engines ever made. One time in Cleveland in the 1990s I stepped out of our car and immediately recognized the sound as one of the few remaining B-29s flew overhead.

Now Tinian is coming back to life as one of the new dispersal airfields to deter China. Pacific Air Forces Commander, General Ken Wilsbach is overseeing the re-birth of this giant facility. Tinian and several more airfields and bases are coming back to life in the Western Pacific. Disperse and harden is the key to building the infrastructure to deter China from moving on Taiwan and beyond. Tinian is American soil and part of the U.S. Territory of the Northern Mariana Islands.