Iowa Farmers Flew 36 Hogs to Japan. 500,000 Followed.

In early 1960, an Air Force plane left Iowa carrying 36 breeding hogs bound for Japan. Iowa farmers had donated the animals to help Yamanashi Prefecture, west of Tokyo, rebuild its farms after two typhoons hit in 1959.

Two Typhoons in Under a Month

Yamanashi was hit by two significant typhoons in less than a month in late summer 1959, and much of the prefecture's agriculture was devastated.

The idea of a rescue came from Master Sergeant Richard Thomas, an Iowa native working in Air Force public relations in Tokyo. He proposed sending Iowa hogs to help rebuild the farm economy there.

Iowa farmers rounded up the animals, and Walter Goeppinger, president of the newly created National Corn Growers Association, chaired the project. The U.S. Air Force agreed to supply the plane.

Three Days in the Air

The trip took three days with several stops. At each one, the hogs were bathed so they would not overheat.

Thousands of bushels of corn went along with them. One hog died on the way, so 35 of the 36 reached Tokyo.

From 35 Hogs to 500,000

The herd grew fast. Within three years the 35 hogs had multiplied to more than 500, and within nine years about 500,000 hogs in Japan could be traced back to the Iowa Hog Lift.

The Favor Came Back

Yamanashi's prefectural assembly declared Iowa its first sister state in March 1960. It was the first sister-state relationship between the United States and Japan.

In 1962, Yamanashi sent Iowa a gift of thanks, a Bell of Friendship of about 2,000 pounds. It sits in a Japanese-style pagoda on a bluff overlooking the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines.

When the Great Flood of 1993 hit Iowa, Yamanashi sent flood relief. After a heavy snowstorm collapsed greenhouses in Yamanashi in 2014, Iowans sent more than $30,000 back.

The ties are still active. In 2025, Yamanashi gave Iowa a thousand paper cranes for the 65th anniversary of the tie, and Iowans folded cranes of their own to send back. Yamanashi also now holds an annual bacon festival that has drawn about 25,000 people.

Iowa and Yamanashi are still sister states.