ASSOCIATED PRESS / 1999
The Marine Corps in Hawaii is expecting to obtain V-22 Ospreys, a tilt-rotor aircraft that flies like a plane but can land and take off like a helicopter, within the next decade.
Marines consider The Marine Corps is looking at leasing or buying lands on Molokai that it would use as training areas for new amphibious assault vehicles and the controversial V-22 Osprey aircraft that it expects to obtain soon.
Molokai training
The service wants a place
where it can use new equipmentBy Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comBrig. Gen. Jerry McAbee, commanding general of Marine Corps Base Hawaii, told a Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii audience yesterday that no live ammunition would be used in the training, but the exercises would give Kaneohe Marines "the opportunity to simulate ship-to-objective maneuvers."
Speaking later with reporters, McAbee said the planning is in anticipation that Kaneohe will receive the Marine Corps' new, advanced amphibious assault vehicles in late 2004 and then, sometime within the next decade, the V-22 Osprey, one of the most controversial aircraft in U.S. military history.
The new amphibious assault vehicles will replace a 26-ton tracked version that is nearly 30 years old. There are now 16 of these vehicles at Kaneohe.
The Osprey is a hybrid aircraft that can take off and land vertically like a helicopter but, when in flight, can tilt forward its two big rotors and fly like a regular airplane. It can fly twice as fast, at more than twice the altitude, with three times more the payload and four times more the range of the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter, the Marines' current helicopter workhorse.
However, after nearly two decades in development, the Osprey suffered two high-profile crashes in 2000, killing 23 Marines. A scandal involving doctored maintenance records resulted in three Marine officers being found guilty of misconduct and further clouded the aircraft's future. Further tests are being conducted at Patuxent River Naval Air Station.
McAbee said the idea is to use the Marine Corps base at Kaneohe Bay as the staging area for a naval force. Amphibious assault vehicles and aircraft, like the Osprey, would prepare to take an enemy force on Molokai.
McAbee said he does not know how big an area the Marines would need on Molokai, but a beach, like Bellows Air Force Station, where Marines currently practice their amphibious landing operations, would be required.
The Marine general said he believes that it has been at least a decade since the Marines last trained on Molokai, and the Marines still retain some land near the island's airport that was used to stage infantrymen and aircraft.
"Molokai is very attractive," he added, noting that a training area there would help the Marines maintain their readiness while adding new capabilities.
"Molokai is the right distance," McAbee added, "Pohakuloa (the Army training base on the Big Island) is too far."
He added that the Marine Corps is on schedule with plans to turn 187 acres of Waikane Valley, which it owns, into a small-unit jungle-warfare training center. An environmental assessment study is expected to be completed by this summer.
McAbee said that after the United States gave up bases in Panama, it was left with only one other jungle-training center, on Okinawa, which is not sufficient, he said. He said a company of Marines, about 100 infantrymen, would train in the valley at any given time, and no live ammunition would be fired.
"We want to get our Marines oriented and used to operating -- moving and talking -- in a jungle environment," he said.
United States Marine Corp Base Hawaii
