As US military pitches in, families fret back home

As about 1,000 U.S. sailors began flying out of Japan on Friday, relatives in the United States expressed concerns about service members still in the country after last week's devastating earthquake and nuclear disaster.

The sailors — assigned to Carrier Air Wing 5, based at Atsugi Naval Air Facility, Japan — began flying their F/A-18 Super Hornets, EA-6B Prowlers and E-2C Hawkeyes out late Thursday to Andersen Air Force Base on the U.S. territory of Guam, about 1,500 miles away in the Pacific Ocean. An unspecified number of other sailors were also being relocated to bases on the island of Okinawa.

The sailors, their aircraft and an undetermined number of dependents will remain there indefinitely to clear the way for other U.S. military units better equipped to carry out intense search and rescue operations on the ground in Japan, said Lt. Jodie Cornell, a spokeswoman for the Navy.

It's emblematic of the massive U.S. response to the Japanese disaster. The Defense Department is dedicating so many service members to the relief effort that it's having to pull others out to make room — enough to fill all the available military housing on Guam and spill over to pack 11 hotels that have contracts with the Defense Department, said Mary Torre, president of the Guam Hotel and Restaurant