Less than 7 hours after the late movie the calm would be shattered by FIRE! Fire of such magnitude that it would take several days to grasp the full extent of the tragedy. Today, some 40 years later the event is still talked about. In all of Security Group there is still only one “THE FIRE” – the Kamiseya fire.
Section four came off the Mid watch Thursday morning and was replaced by section one. The day workers came in as usual and left again after section two assumed the eve watch. LT. Williams was the CDO and LTJG Moody had the duty as OOD. Around the base many folks went to the theater or to the various clubs on base. Most of the single sailors ‘hit the beach’ for another night’s liberty in Yokohama. Section one was back for the Mid watch and around about midnight the log read “2359 last entry this page” The top of the next page continued “0001 start of new day – Friday, 24 September 1965, watch section one on watch.” Over 100 men were in the Ops Complex for that Mid watch. Just another ordinary day.
Aftermath of the fire as seen from the top of the “tunnel” looking generally north-west.
According to the record, the fire started sometime around 0200, not in the ‘tunnel’ itself, but in the wooden two-story structure in front of the tunnel – Building 25, site of the present day Building 176. Thick black smoke began filling the air. The source was a mystery. Men stayed at their positions – as was the norm, while supervisors searched for the cause. The air conditioning system aided in the spread of the blinding smoke which preceded the actual flames. Concern among senior personnel rose.
Phone calls were made. Still the men were told to stay at their positions, but prepare to evacuate! The origin is believed to have been electrical in nature and may have been caused by an overload or perhaps frayed wires – maybe. Others maintain that it was caused by the incinerator, overheated yet again with the daily classified burn. What was the real cause? – we’ll never know. What is known is that when the smoke cleared and the fire was put out two Marines were dead; nine Sailors were dead and the Officer of the Day, LTJG Moody, lay dead also.
This was not an ordinary day!
Smoke was first noticed between 0210 and 0225, the OOD was notified at 0230. The Fire Department was called at 0235 but personnel were not ordered to evacuate the building until 0255 – nearly an hour after the fire started!!
With one exception, all the men lost that night were junior personnel. Most had been on station only a few months. The building that was destroyed was used, in part, as a training area (called “The Pantry”) where new people could get accustomed to the job, to get up to speed, prior to moving into the tunnel where the real action was. These new Sailors and Marines that did not “know the ropes.” When the rooms and passageways filled with black acrid smoke and they began to cough and breathing became harder and harder, clear thought became impossible. Did they know where another exit was? Did they know more then one way in or out? Did they know where they were at any instant in the final moments of their lives? No one knows. The majority of bodies were found clustered at the base of the interior stairwell of Building 25.
There were heroes that night. Wilford Cordell was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal for his efforts as he tried to fight the fire. He was believed to have been on the second deck of Building 25 when the fire, already well entrenched on the first deck, made inroads on the second deck. When Seaman Cordell realized the hopelessness of the situation and the futility of battling the blaze single-handedly, he found himself already trapped by those same flames. He was awarded the Medal posthumously.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Ernest D. Moody, the OOD, was no newcomer to the Navy nor to Security Group. He was an 18-year veteran. As a former maintenance man on his third tour at Kamiseya, he knew his way around the labyrinth of interconnecting rooms that was (and is) the Operations Complex. As OOD, he had been notified of the problem about 0230. The Lieutenant was last seen in the vicinity of the Incinerator Room, assisting in firefighting operations at about 0240. For his actions that night, LTJG Moody was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal – posthumously. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery on October 10th.
By 0300 fire was evident throughout Building 25. Outside fire assistance had been requested with units from Camp Zama first to arrive on the scene at 0312. Additional assistance was requested.
By 0430, over twenty-five pieces of firefighting equipment had been employed and had finally brought the fire under control.
In the final analysis, according to the Court of Inquiry, there were 122 men on watch in the Operations Complex when the fire broke out. Buildings 25 and 105 were completely destroyed and Building 106 was partially burned. The material damage was estimated at $1,311,000. Twenty-eight pieces of firefighting equipment responded to the fire: 3 from Kamiseya, 2 from Camp Zama, 1 from NAS Atsugi and 22 from the surrounding Japanese communities. Twenty-five men had to be helped from the building – 14 of those required hospitalization, along with one Japanese National fireman from Kamiseya. Twelve men had died.
Source: US NCVA Special Publication, Kamiseya 40th Anniversary Fire Memorial
Station HYPO 
11 September 2025 at 10:36
This article is a reissuance of a post by Jay Brown (now deceased) which appeared a few years ago before this board was cleared of a lot of older posts, many of which were about this fire. Although it is accurate in it’s depiction of the timeline, it repeats someting that is incorrect: the statement that many of those who died were in training, and did not “know the ropes”. That, IMHO, is pure BS. I was there. I was in Section one, and on duty when the incinerator caught (I do not believe the “official” statement from the Navy board that interviewed survivors and others after the fire, that the cause was old wiring left in place after the Navy took over from the Japanese). I drove some survivors, and one Marine who did not survive, to the hospital at Atsugi. I knew many of the men who died, including Lt. Moody, who ran the “M” branch and who oversaw the installation of the incinerator; there were no inexperienced “newbies” there. Sure, some folks may have been relatively new on station, but they learned the specific routines of their jobs while working on site after having already received (and passed) training in the specialized skills necessary to work at Kami. They were chosen for these sensitive positions because of their intelligence and their competence during training before being assigned to this duty station. Their deaths cannot be blamed on them, or on any lack of training or experience. Perhaps we could pass along some of the blame for the deaths to the folks who stocked the tunnel with ACB masks instead of masks which would not clog up and fail when used in heavy smoke, as many (including the one I wore) did. But don’t blame the victims.
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