I read with interest Dennis Krause's tour of Camp Hauge and attachment to the 9th MEB. We were breathing a lot of the same air, trudging around Hauge's streets of gold, and bouncing around the South China Sea.
Like Dennis, Camp Hauge and the 9th MEB are bolted together in my mind. For me it all began on August 4, 1964, when I was minding my and the Marine Corps business in Iwakuni. I was an E4 in 1st MAW's G2/Intelligence, nominally per my MOS, an Aerial Photo Interpreter. On August 4, I caught G2 Duty NCO and was bunked down in the office as per SOP. At 0330 the Duty Officer woke me. We were on Def Con 3, due to The North Vietnamese attack on the USS Maddox in the Bay of Tonkin a couple of days ago.
By the 6th, I volunteered to be a part of a 4-man team to be deployed… for what? And when? But, after a good dose of "hurry up and wait" with a 2330 departure, unbeknownst to us we're flying down to Camp Hauge. And the next day we were nestled into beautiful downtown Camp Hauge via Kadena, attached to the 9th MEB, which seemed to be forming up.
My impression of Camp Hauge or someone told us, was that it had recently come out of mothballs. I didn't doubt it as my impression was that it was decrepit, and an old pile of junk baled together. Modest ambiance even by USMC standards. When we hit Camp Hauge in August all I really understood was I was now part of the 9th MEB, & given the MOS's of the team that we formed, I assumed we were assigned to 9th MEB's G2/Intelligence Team, or H&S Company. I assumed because I don't recall anyone laying it out for us. If the Captain knew he didn't tell us.
The next 2 weeks were basically filled by doing nothing, killing time, finding ways to get to Kadena, Buckner, Fatima, Naha, mostly on the bases and once I even had Liberty. However I pretty much hit Camp Hauge broke and pretty much stayed broke while there. And scuttlebutt was constantly rife, we're deploying to join the fleet, we're going to Subic, we're going back to Iwakuni… No we're not, yes we are. Etc.
Sometimes we (myself and the E3 with me, Earl Blackwell) were told by our leaders to just "get lost" and other times were officially supposed to be doing "something", but really there wasn't cr-p to do. Other outfits and whoever was running Hauge saw us as grist for labor details, (moving furniture being a favorite), so we did creatively find ways to stay below radar screens of suspicious Gunnies or looking like we were usefully occupied. For instance, I confiscated a clip board and we'd march ourselves with purpose wherever we went (snack bar being a favorite during the day). But God, doing nothing just made time crawl.
Finally on Aug. 16, the Eagle did sh-t and we had some money and got some liberty. I went with the Captain & SSgt Day to Naha, got to visit the Teahouse of The August Moon & a random sampling of various bars. Somewhere in the evening some MPs dropped by a bar and told us there was a typhoon warning, level 1 which meant we were supposed to go back to Camp Hauge. Which we ignored. Although the Capt. and SSgt Day wanted to close the town, my money was running low so I caught a cab back to Hauge. Only to find that the typhoon warning was being taken seriously here and the cab wasn't allowed on the base. The Marine manning the gate instructed me to walk to my billet (in a downpour) and get into utilities, & come back. Did so, and was trucked to Courtney with other Marines to wait out Typhoon Kathy. Ended the night sleeping on the concrete floor of the Mess Hall.
The next day, Kathy had cooled down and we were trucked back to Hauge… for a day. On the 18th, Typhoon Marie followed on the heels of Typhoon Kathy and we repeated the process, back to Courtney and a concrete floor. Apparently this is when Dennis joined in the fun.
Next day one rumor proved out and our team of 4 headed back to Iwakuni, arrived "home" and seemingly back into our normal routines. But not so fast! On the 23rd our team went back on 4-hour standby, and on the 26th, we're flying down to Hauge again. This time no messing around. We were just passing through Hauge, down to White Beach and on to good old USS George Clymer, (fondly aka Greasy George).
We then validated another old rumor, by going to Subic, and from Subic to meet up with the Fleet where we moved over to the El Dorado. We floated off DaNang for a while, then the El Dorado was sent down to Saigon due to a coup, and eventually back to Subic on the 22nd of Sept, and a few weeks later our team stood down, and Oct 9th we headed back to Iwakuni. And, I'm guessing so did a lot of other Marines who staged initially with the MEB. My MEB tour, including some time in about 3 weeks or so in Camp Hauge was 65 days.
The overall 9th MEB tour is a somewhat different story too long for this short note. I've researched the history of the 9th MEB, but everything I've read dealt with early 1965 and the ultimate landing. I couldn't find anything on how a MEB is called up, who decides, and when the decision was made to activate the 9th which I assume happened in 1964. My impression then and now is the button that was pushed to activate the MEB was triggered by the Bay of Tonkin incident, and to act quickly the Marine Corps threw out its net and scraped up whoever was handy and not expendable in their home unit and start staging it. We'd heard it would totally activate in 3 stages and if so, I think I (and Dennis) were in Stage I. Those of us who made up the 1st stage were sent back when more solidly committed replacements started arriving.
Attached are some photos, the Camp Hauge sign. (sorry hard to see), 9th MEB sign, beautiful downtown Camp Hague, and a breathtaking hilltop view, and myself (four-eyes) and Blackwell probably waiting to mount out.
Cpl Don Harkness
1961-1965