Students Protest the US Aircraft Carrier Arrival at Sasebo Japan

Zengakuren Protests circa 1968-69  (c) Watanabe Hitomi

Ongoing protests by student groups in Japan, had been agitating against the Japanese government's close ties to the US Military campaign in Vietnam.  Many of these young Japanese, loosely affiliated with the National coalition known as Zengakuren, (All-Japan League of Student Self-Government), wanted to mount a large-scale show of resistance to the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier at the time of it's arrival to the naval base at Sasebo.

In the words of Ogumi Eiji:

The 1968 student uprising started suddenly. In October 1967, a small group of sect activists clashed with police near Tokyo's Haneda Airport, in an effort to prevent Prime Minister Satō Eisaku from traveling to South Vietnam. Students wearing plastic construction helmets and wielding two-by-fours overpowered lightly armed police. Images of the violent confrontation, in which one student activist was killed, were broadcast on national television news programs in vivid color, at a time when color televisions had only recently become widespread. Younger students and workers who had missed out on the 1960 protests were enthralled by the heroic struggle they witnessed on their televisions and the recently moribund Zengakuren sects saw a surge in membership and participation. By October 1968, tens of thousands of sect sympathizers would ransack Shinjuku Station in central Tokyo, in what was later remembered as the "Shinjuku Riot" (Shinjuku sōran jiken).

The student who died in the October 8th, 1967 Haneda Airport Incident was Yamazaki Hiroaki.

Yamazaki Hiroaki, who died in the Haneda Airport Protest, 8 Oct 1967.

According to John L. Tran, writing for the Japan Times about the Sasebo Protests:

Zengakuren were not disappointed; student protesters wearing helmets and armed with rocks and wooden staves, fought with police who used batons, tear gas and water cannons outside the U.S. base on Jan. 17. Bystanders and journalists were also reported as having been viciously beaten by riot police, despite not being directly involved in the protests.

Hirase Bashi of Sasebo City 佐世保市の平瀬橋, where students and police faced off, 17 Jan 1968.

 Sources:
"Japan's 1968: A Collective Reaction to Rapid Economic Growth in an Age of Turmoil 日本の1968　混乱期の高度成長への共同体的反応" by Ogumi Eiji, [Translated to English by Nick Kapur with Samuel Malissa and Stephen Poland], in  Asia Pacific Journal, Vol 13, Issue 12, Number 1 (March 23, 2015).

"1968: The Year Japan Truly Raised Its Voice,"  by John L. Tran.  Japan Times (17 Nov 2017).