United States Naval Base Subic Bay

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Subic Bay 1981, in the foreground the USS Bainbridge

The Subic Bay in the Philippines was until the early 1990s, the largest US - naval base in Asia . It was located about 100 kilometers northwest of Manila in Subic Bay .

In 1885, the Spanish colonial power established the typhoon-proof naval base for the Spanish Armada in the natural deep-water harbor on the west coast of the Philippine island of Luzon .

After the Spanish-American War from 1898 to 1899 and the occupation of the Philippines by the United States as a result of the Philippine-American War , Subic Bay became a base for the US Navy and the US Marines . Even after the end of the US colonial rule in the Philippines on July 4, 1946, the Subic Bay base and other military bases remained under the control of the US military.

The 7th US Fleet, which included 70  warships , 425  aircraft and 50,000  soldiers and marines, maintained extensive maintenance, repair and docking facilities here with the largest depot of the US Navy outside the USA. Subic Bay was one of the central transshipment and supply bases for the military supplies of the US Army and Navy during the Korean and Vietnam wars . Subic Bay was by a 60-kilometer pipeline to the fuel supply to the Clark Air Base , a huge air base connected to the United States to Luzon. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung noted on December 2, 1984: "Nowhere else can even large warships, with the exception of aircraft carriers, be laid on dry dock."

An average of 9,000 marines and 12 warships were stationed here. 20,000 Filipinos kept the infrastructure of the extensive area going. The presence of so many American soldiers has been associated with amusement shops and extensive prostitution in neighboring Olongapo City .

In 1991, the Philippine Senate refused to renew the lease for the base. One of the last missions of the soldiers stationed in Subic Bay was Operation "Fiery Vigil", the participation in evacuation measures during the eruption of the Pinatubo volcano in June 1991. After the last ship of the US Navy left the base, the base was opened on 30 Disbanded September 1992.

After the American withdrawal, an industrial and commercial zone called Subic Bay Freeport Zone was established in Subic Bay under the administration of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority . 70,000 jobs were within the first four years of private investments in the amount of 3 billion US dollars created.

After the People's Republic of China , the Scarborough Shoal as part of the territorial conflicts in the South China Sea had brought in 2012 in fact under their control, US warships were under the again EDCA agreement stationed in Subic Bay.

Web links

Commons : United States Naval Base Subic Bay  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Emily Rauhala: With China pressing south, US ships return to the Philippines' Subic Bay , Washington Post, May 6, 2016.

Coordinates: 14 ° 48 ′ 28 ″  N , 120 ° 16 ′ 41 ″  E