It had been a fast job of coordination by the Navy, Army, Air Force, and virtually all major units of the Marine Corps. Much of the special airlift was flown by the R5Ds of VMR-352 and of VMR-152. The former, commanded by Colonel William B. Steiner, had been flying the El Toro-Tokyo flights since October, but most of its effort had been in shuttling between the mainland and Hawaii. VMR-152 had concentrated on the Hawaii-Japan leg of the long trip. During the Chosin campaign, the squadron commander, Colonel Deane C. Roberts, had maintained his headquarters and 10 planes at Itami to support the shuttle to Korea. He had barely returned to Hawaii from that job when his squadron was alerted not only for the special lift of Marine replacements but also for a return to the Far East.[41] [41] The balance of this section is derived from the Dec 50 and Jan 51 historical diaries of VMF-352, VMR-152, 1st MAW, and FMFPac. Hawaii had been the bottleneck in this special troop lift. Land and seaplanes were discharging their human cargo at Barbers Point, Hickam Air Force Base, and Keehi Lagoon. From there FLogAirWingPac had to space the planes over the long stretches of sea at approximately four-hour intervals. The guiding factor was other air traffic over the same route and the servicing, messing, and rescue capabilities of Guam and other points along the way, such as tiny Johnston Island. The latter was barely big enough for its single 6,100-foot runway. VMR-152 and the Navy’s VR-21 were assigned the mission of flying the long Hawaii-Japan portion of the big lift. Itami became another collection center for the airborne replacements and five of the VMR-152 planes were retained there to shuttle the troops the last 300 miles to K-3, near Pohang (Map 2). On 21 January the troop lift reached virtual completion, but Admiral Radford authorized the 1st MAW to retain a couple of R5D’s at Itami a little longer. Thus the Marines were able to avoid highway and rail traffic jams in Korea by flying men and materials from troop and supply centers in Japan to K-1, K-3, or K-9. Looking back at the troop lift from a historical distance, the observer is most impressed by its demonstration of teamwork on a gigantic scale. The Marine Corps had functioned as a single great unit, even though a continent and an ocean separated the vanguard in Korea from the rear echelons in North Carolina. _The Move to Japanese Airfields_ The seven remaining UN airfields in Korea were of course not enough to accommodate the 25 FEAF and Marine tactical squadrons. Logistics and lack of space proved to be knotty problems. Thirty tank cars of gasoline a day were needed for normal flight operations of K-2 alone. Yet it took these cars eight days to make the 120-mile Pusan-Taegu round trip, such was the strain put on the railway system by the CCF offensive.