Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.
Nearly 2,000 marines will leave the West Coast next week to make their permanent home at the Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station.
A Marine Corps spokesman this morning announced that a battalion landing team, numbering between 1,800 and 2,000 men, will begin the shift to Hawaii June 30.
The move is expected to be completed by July 15.
The land team will become part of the First Marine Brigade but will only partially fill the sprawling Kaneohe base.
Three battalions left Kaneohe in March when the main elements of the brigade were transferred to Okinawa.
The shift to Okinawa turned out to be only temporary. Most of the former Isle-based marines are now serving in Vietnam.
A marine spokesman said this morning that the new landing team will be permanently stationed in Kaneohe. This means that dependents will be authorized to travel here to live.
The marine spokesman couldn’t say this morning whether more troops will follow the landing team.
But he emphasized that the new team will officially become a part of the depleted First Marine Brigade.
The elements that left Hawaii for Okinawa and Vietnam in March have had their station permanently changed and will not return to Hawaii.
Their dependents are in the process of being returned to their homes on the Mainland.
Today’s announcement meant that the air station will soon lose its ghost-town look.
Before the big March shift to Okinawa, close to 7,500 marines were stationed at Kaneohe.
After the transfer only about 1,000 remained.
Windward Oahu businessmen were hard hit by the transfer of the marines.
Owners of laundromats, hotel-apartments, low rent units, used furniture stores, bars, service stations and television repair shops all reported a great slowdown in business.
Many of the marine wives also made plans to return to the Mainland after being informed that their husbands probably wouldn’t return to the Windward Oahu base.
Kaneohe has been the home base of the Brigade since 1953.
