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April 3, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Camp Smith

A committee of the Continental Congress met at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia to draft a resolution stating that “two Battalions of Marines be raised” for service as landing forces with the fleet.  November 10, 1775, the Marine Corps was born.

The Treaty of Paris in April 1783 brought an end to the Revolutionary War and as the last of the Navy’s ships were sold, the Continental Navy and Marines went out of existence.  (They were formally re-established as a separate service on July 11, 1798.)

Today, the US military organizational structure is a result of the National Security Act of 1947. This is the same act that created the US Air Force and restructured the “War Department” into the “Department of Defense.”

Headed by a civilian Secretary of Defense, there are three military departments: the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy and the Department of the Air Force. Within these, there are five military branches: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard (the Coast Guard is under the Department of Homeland Security.)

In Hawaiʻi, on March 17, 1941, an act of Congress approved the purchase of a sugar cane field for a Navy hospital. Construction commenced in July. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, construction of the planned 1,650-bed facility was rushed to completion. The hospital was commissioned on November 11, 1942, but continued expansion was necessary due to the demands of the war.

Known as Aiea Naval Hospital, it was built to serve thousands of WWII wounded Sailors and Marines.  As for the capabilities of the hospital, they correlated directly with the war.

In 1943, the number of staff and facilities grew tremendously. New wards were constructed to better support the waves of casualties, numbering in the hundreds, arriving from the Solomon, Gilbert and Marshall Islands.

On January 1, 1944, Admiral Chester W Nimitz personally presented awards to the many combat-wounded service members at the hospital. Patients were assembled in front of the hospital where 632-men who fought during the Battle of Tarawa received awards.

The hospital expanded again in 1944, adding staff and temporary wards to hold up to 5,000-patients.  Of the 41,872-admissions in 1944, 39,006 patients were relocated to the mainland or returned to duty.

Aiea Naval Hospital had improved efficiency for admitting patients by the time casualties began arriving from Saipan, Guam and Tinian in the Mariana Islands.

February and March of 1945 was the hospital’s bloodiest months, when nearly 5,700-servicemen from the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa received medical care simultaneously.

Until the mid-1980s, there was a bowling alley there, used by Aiea Naval Hospital as therapy for patients injured during WWII and  was once the primary rear-area hospital for the Navy and Marine Corps during that war.

“Down where Bordelon Field is, a lot of the areas here on the camp were used as gardens. The patients would go work in the gardens. They’d use the food from the gardens to feed the patients, but that was more a rehabilitation-type activity.”  (Stubbs, marines-mil)

Decommissioned on May 31, 1949, four years after the end of WWII, the hospital was deactivated and the Army and Navy medical assets were moved to what is now Tripler Army Medical Center.

“It sat idle for a long time and they were in the process of selling all the property. General Smith came up and looked at it and decided this was what he wanted for the home of the (Fleet Marine Force Pacific) headquarters.”  (Stubbs, marines-mil)

A year later, the Territory of Hawaiʻi began plans to claim the old hospital for a tuberculosis sanitarium. However, in 1955 the Marine Corps purchased it for the future home of the Fleet Marine Forces Pacific.

On June 8, 1955, it was renamed Camp HM Smith (named for General Holland McTyeire (HM – nicknamed “Howlin’ Mad”) Smith, the first commanding general of Fleet Marine Force Pacific, it became a strategic command base for the largest field command in the Marine Corps, now known as US Marine Corps Forces, Pacific (MarForPac,) with an area of responsibility covering more than half the Earth’s surface.

After purchasing the land, the first Marines arrived in October 1955. The camp did not become fully operational until two weeks before its dedication, January 31, 1956.

Camp Smith today consists of 220-acres at Camp Smith proper, 137-acres at Puʻuloa Rifle Range in ʻEwa Beach and 62-acres in Mānana Housing. Camp Smith is unique in that it’s the only Marine Corps installation that supports a unified commander, Commander, Pacific Command (CDRUSPACOM.)

(A unified combatant command is a US joint military command composed of forces from two or more services, has a broad and continuing mission and is organized either on a geographical basis or on a functional basis.)

The new headquarters for the US Pacific Command (USPACOM) located on Camp Smith, accommodating more than 1,350-personnel for the US Pacific Command and the Special Operations Command, Pacific, was recently dedicated.

Named the Nimitz-MacArthur Pacific Command Center (NMPCC), the six-story, 274,500-square-foot facility overlooks Honolulu and replaces a nearly 60-year-old structure originally built as a hospital during WWII.

The NMPCC is one of the nation’s premier facilities for Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) systems. C4I plans were developed around the “battle cell” concept for distributed command and control.  (Lots of information and images here from marines-mil.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

 

Filed Under: Military Tagged With: Hawaii, Oahu, Aiea, Tripler Army Medical Center, Aiea Naval Hospital, Marine Corps, Camp Smith

December 1, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ecumenical Memorial

It ‘became conspicuous by its absence.’

“It’s like a beacon of peace. When it’s on everything is tranquil … It’s a glimmer of hope for a better tomorrow.”

“The word ‘cross’ means something different to different people. To an engineer it may mean an intersection on a blueprint for a superhighway. To a child it may denote the property of addition in a mathematics problem.”

“But to the residents of Hālawa Heights living and growing in a world seemingly entombed in a constant struggle for survival, the cross holds a very special meaning.”

“Each night one such cross shines like the stars in the heavens above Hālawa Heights, and that means a lot to residents from the surrounding Camp HM Smith community. Not even a cloudy sky can shroud its luminous neon tubes from the view of passing motorists, residents and the curious.”

“The reason for the construction and practice of lighting the cross, according to Clark, started with the annual ecumenical Easter sunrise service held April 1962.”

“’As far as I know this was the first military Easter sunrise service conducted on the island. The cross remained lighted all night long through the two-Week Easter season following the sunrise service. It was the responsibility of the duty Maintenance man here to ensure that, the cross’ lights were turned on each evening,’ Clark stressed.” (Hawaii Marine, April 13, 1979)

“But sometimes they forgot, and that’s when, according to Clark. The phone at maintenance started ringing. ‘People wanted to know,’ said Clark, ‘what happened to the cross? Why isn’t it on? Even ships at sea sailing in to Pearl Harbor have called when the cross wasn’t lighted. It’s like a beacon of peace. When it’s on everything is tranquil,’ says Clark.”

“The cross, soaring 65 feet in the air, evoked such a favorable response from the local Community as Clark has pointed out, that It was decided to light the cross each evening. Since its construction the cross has become as much a landmark as a symbol of religious significance.”

“In the fall of 1969 the lights began to flicker on the cross.”

“Lieutenant General HW Buse, then commanding general, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, (FMFPac) directed that the cross only be lighted during the Christmas and Easter seasons. His actions were a result of objections raised by an individual that the cross was in violation of the constitutional principle which calls for separation of church and state.”

“Within a few months that claim ignited a fuse among local residents and they took their case to U.S. Senator Hiram L. Fong.”

“In one letter to the senator, a citizen stated, ‘Indeed it has become something of a compensation for we residents living in the vicinity of Camp H.M. Smith, who have become the victims of an industrial complex, dynamiting and desecrating the beautiful mountains, foliage and trees, of Hawaii.’ Meanwhile the lighted cross at Camp H.M. Smith became conspicuous by its absence.”

“’Since the beginning of the year we permanent, tax-paying residents have been deprived of our right to enjoy the landmark around which we’ve built our homes and our hopes.’”

“Obviously, the pull-of-the-plug on a landmark that served faithfully as a source of hope for many, angered the local community. But, with the exception of Christmas and Easter, the cross remained dark for the next two years.”

“It was March 26, 1972 when the cross was relighted as an expression of concern for all American prisoners-of-war, and those missing-in-action in Southeast Asia by Lieutenant General William K. Jones, then commanding general, FMFPac.”

However, “On orders from the Commandant of the Marine Corps, the need to conserve energy unfortunately included discontinuing the use of outdoor lighting which was not required at Camp Smith for their combat mission, security or safety purposes. So the cross again fell prey to another crisis.”

“As in the past when the cross was turned off, the FMFPac commander received letters and queries from local residents to find out why the action was taken.”

“Marine Corps policy at that time was to illuminate the cross during Christmas and Easter, at least until the energy crunch subsided. Eventually the energy problem did ease, and the cross was relighted each night.”

“It’s a symbol toward which they have placed their faith. To the people of Hālawa Heights the Camp Smith cross is more than just a light atop Bordelon Field. It’s a glimmer of hope for a better tomorrow.” (Hawaii Marine, April 13, 1979)

“The American Civil Liberties Union and 15 individuals of various religious faiths have filed suit in Federal District Court seeking to force the Marine Corps to remove a huge cross from the military base here.” (NY Times, September 29, 1988)

“General Kelley referred to the towering cross as an ‘ecumenical memorial’’ to the marines and sailors who had died in the Vietnam War, adding that he intended the huge cross to remain in place as a ‘’nonsectarian symbol of our national resolve to obtain a full accounting of American servicemen still missing or unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.’” (NY Times, September 29, 1988)

“On Aug. 30 (1988,) Judge Thomas F Hogan of the US District Court, District of Columbia, directed that the cross be removed, although allowing a 60-day delay to appeal.”

“The decision was not appealed; however, the Marine Corps was granted a delay in execution of the judgement to permit the concurrent removal of the cross and dedication of the replacement marker and flagpole.” (Hawaii Marine, December 1, 1988)

The Camp Smith Cross was taken down on December 1, 1988 and replaced by a pedestal and a plaque. An 80-foot flagpole flies a 20-by-38-foot American flag.

Click HERE for a link to a prior summary on Camp Smith.

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Camp Smith - flag

Filed Under: Military Tagged With: Camp Smith, Marines, Cross, Hawaii

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