Aircrews and support personnel from the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, Royal Australian Air Force, and US 374th Airlift Wing at Yokota Air Base, Japan, began spreading holiday joy while practicing critical humanitarian aid training by delivering donated goods via C-130 Hercules to more than fifty-six of the Pacific's most remote, populated islands as part of Operation Christmas Drop 2015 in December 2015. This year’s toy and gift airdrop [, held 8-16 December 2015,] marked the first time C-130 crews from Japan and Australia participated in the exercise. Begun in 1952, Christmas Drop is the US Department of Defense's longest running humanitarian airlift mission and impacts more than 20,000 islanders annually. This year, C-130 aircrews delivered nearly 40,000 pounds of supplies by executing more than twenty Low-Cost, Low-Altitude airdrop training missions to islanders throughout the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, Federated States of Micronesia, and Republic of Palau.
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