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with general CNO policy statements, the team recommended that the proposed activity be limited to supporting units in the immediate Saigon area. Admiral Anderson and other leaders were greatly concerned that support for the rapidly expanding forces in Vietnam might be interrupted. So, to ensure a smooth transition, the team recommended that the personnel in the MAAG, performing functions which would be taken over by the support activity, should be transferred to the activity. The Navy's presence would increase when naval personnel replaced many of the Army people at the end of their tours with the MAAG. Within several years, the support activity would be staffed primarily by naval personnel. With regard to command relationships, the team suggested that the activity be placed under Commander Naval Forces, Philippines. That command had a similar relationship with the Naval Support Activity, Taipei, and was in relative proximity to South Vietnam. Operational control of the naval support facility would be delegated to Commander U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.

After accepting the team's recommendations, Admiral Sides set 1 July 1962 as the commissioning date for the support activity. To minimize the disruption of a transfer of functions from the MAAG to the new command, CINCPACFLT dispatched Captain Friedman and a small advanced staff to Saigon in April.70 Captain Friedman worked out agreements to establish each military service's responsibilities within the activity. The Navy agreed to provide common administrative and logistic support, including supply and fiscal, public works, medical and dental, commissary and exchange, special services, and housekeeping functions to MAAG and MACV, and also to Army and Air Force components in the Saigon area. The Army provided a small contingent of military police units for the Saigon area and a small group of supply specialists. Aircraft would be attached to the support function when needed, until several transports were permanently assigned in subsequent months. The Air Force assigned personnel to handle postal service, supply problems, and airlift traffic coordination.71

70 Friedman, Interview; memo, OP-40 to CNO, ser BM14-62 of 12 Feb 1962; HSAS, Draft History.

71Msgs, CNO 221613Z May 1962; CPFLT 131951Z Dec; memo, OP-405C to CNO, ser BM80-64 of 1 Dec 1964.

Headquarters Support Activity, Saigon

As planned, the Headquarters Support Activity, Saigon (HSAS) was established on 1 July 1962. The MAAG provided the nucleus of personnel for HSAS, but because MACV was a larger organization, HSAS required more than twice as many men as had been involved in the MAAG's support effort. By the end of December, HSAS was staffed by 445 men, 251 from the Navy, 188 from the Army, and 6 from the Air Force.72

The activity began operations with an $11 million budget from a small building adjacent to the MAAG headquarters on Tran Hung Dao Street. Early in 1963 the HSAS headquarters was moved to the Cofat factory building, the site of an old French cigarette firm. As more and more of the naval personnel programmed for the support activity arrived, they moved into former MAAG facilities, which were scattered throughout the city.73 This decentralization was, for the most part, beneficial. HSAS offices and compounds melted into the metropolis, so that the Vietnamese, sensitive about their sovereignty, were not confronted with a monolithic headquarters. Furthermore, the decentralized offices offered less attractive targets for Viet Cong terrorists and, because HSAS was not restricted to a single location, expansion was much easier. Any available building could be obtained rather than having to construct a new one at a centralized compound. The most pressing problem facing Captain Friedman after the commissioning was to find warehouse space in Saigon to store common supplies for U.S. forces. But within a short time, the Real Estate Division located a compound, which soon was renovated and expanded to receive the stocks.74

Other HSAS responsibilities, such as messing and billeting, were handled on a more routine basis. The activity assumed control from the MAAG of nine bachelor officers quarters (BOQs) and seven bachelor enlisted men's quarters (BEQs), with the capacity to house about 2,000 men. In 1962 and succeeding years, eight additional BOQS and five BEQS

72Msg, MACV 290543Z Dec 1962.

13CINCPAC, Command History, 1962, pp. 159-60; MACV, Summary of Highlights, of 20 Mar 1963, pp. 74-75; ltr, CNO to SECNAV, ser 00155P10 of 20 Apr 1962. Edward J. Marolda, "Saigon" in United States Navy and Marine Corps Bases, Overseas, Paolo E. Coletta, ed. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), pp. 287-91.

74Ltr, Friedman to Kuntze, of 23 Dec 1965; HSAS, Draft History.

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were acquired to house 1,700 more men. The Billeting Division administered three other quarters, with a capacity of about 500, for personnel passing through Saigon for duty elsewhere. The division also managed a number of individual villas for senior officers and their families and for visiting dignitaries. American servicemen in Saigon generally received quarters with air conditioning, maid service, and potable hot and cold running water. Most of the hotels and apartment buildings leased as billets also had messing facilities. Under the Army, these messes were independent. HSAS placed them under centralized control for more efficient management and accounting and converted them to the Navy's standard mess system.

A large Public Works Department, similar to those at any naval shore establishment, was responsible for maintenance, cleaning, fire protection, and security of U.S. quarters. In addition, the department furnished utilities to HSAS buildings and operated a bus and taxi service for the scattered elements of the command.

Along with billets and messes, the activity took over the limited. recreation facilities of the MAAG and immediately began an expansion of the program to entertain Americans. Most of the effort was in the Saigon area but HSAS also organized USO shows for U.S. units throughout Vietnam. With profits from the naval exchange, a bowling alley, craft shop, swimming pool, and a complete athletic complex were created for American servicemen to use during their free time. HSAS also distributed moving picture films. But the most popular services offered by HSAS were the rest and recuperation (R and R) flights inaugurated in February 1963. About 1,000 men each month were flown by Air Force planes to Bangkok and Hong Kong. This program continued throughout the war. In addition, HSAS ran a library in Saigon and branches in outlying areas that were heavily used. To provide the U.S. community in Saigon with news and music, HSAS established the Armed Forces Radio Service. The station first broadcast on 15 August 1962.

In support of U.S. forces, the activity employed Vietnamese civilians, who numbered 1,700 by February 1963. HSAS established a miniature civil service system based on local wage rates and customary fringe benefits. One of the most difficult initial problems was the inordinately long security clearance procedures required to hire Vietnamese for sensitive positions. The delays, which ran as long as nine months, soon were reduced to a few days or a few weeks by the use of the HSAS

military police to conduct the investigations. The majority of the Vietnamese worked in the extensive U.S. mess system in Saigon, which became the largest single employer in the city.'

HSAS also provided medical and dental care to all American servicemen and their dependents in Saigon. To accomplish this task, HSAS controlled only a seventeen-bed dispensary, taken over from the MAAG. The Air Force operated a thirty-six-bed tactical hospital at Tan Son Nhut airport. In the fall of 1962, Captain Friedman, working through General Harkins and Admiral Felt, sought to acquire a suitable facility in Saigon to accommodate a 100 to 200-bed hospital. However, the Navy's cumbersome leasing procedures delayed the hospital effort and others as well, as Admiral Sides related to Admiral Anderson:

The Navy has accepted the job to be done in Saigon, yet is hampering itself in many instances by inflexible administrative decisions and the absence of an adequately funded financial plan and related implementing procedures. HSAS cannot carry out its mission in the unique environment now existing in SVN without prompt and adequate support.

76

While this issue was being resolved, Captain Friedman recommended that the Fitzgibbons BEQ, with a seventy-two-bed capacity, be converted into a hospital, on an interim basis. He proposed construction of a new hospital for the long term. Admiral Felt approved the use of the Fitzgibbons facility and the establishment of an outpatient clinic in the Metropole Hotel. But CINCPAC deferred a decision on the erection of a new hospital because at that time planning for a phaseout of U.S. forces was underway. Instead, he approved measures to make the Fitzgibbons a semipermanent medical facility. On 1 October 1963, the building on Tran Hung Dao Street was commissioned as the Saigon Station Hospital. It then was the only naval facility equipped to receive battle casualties directly from the field."7

In addition to caring for U.S. casualties, HSAS medical and dental facilities contributed to the high priority civic action effort. Whenever

75HSAS, Draft History.

76Msg, CPFLT 131951Z Dec 1962.

77Msgs, CNO 112040Z Jul 1962; CP 032356Z Aug; MACV 160019Z Sep; HSAS 061425Z Oct; CP 150231Z; CNO 212149Z Dec; CP 290316Z; CINCPAC, Command History, 1962, pp. 87-88; 1963, pp. 220-21; memo, Head Medical Department to CO HSAS, of 17 Nov 1965; CINCPACFLT, Annual Report, FY1962, p. 84; 1 Jul-30 Sep 1963, p. 10; Friedman, Interview.

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