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In 2019, the historical restoration projects at Camp Johnson, N.C. began and aimed to preserve the Marine Corps’ legacy and history while supporting the future training needs of the Corps. The restoration projects are expected to be completed by the end of this year while new construction projects will continue into fiscal years 2025 and 2026.
In September of 2018, Hurricane Florence caused significant damage to multiple Marine Corps bases, including Marine Corps Base (MCB) Camp Lejeune and Camp Johnson, formerly known as Montford point. Aboard the installation are several historic facilities that were built in the early 1940s and housed the Marine Corps’ first African American recruits. Many of these buildings lost shingles and suffered extensive water damage and mold, leaving MCB Camp Lejeune to assess the damage and determine which facilities could be saved.
Prior to the hurricane, the 37th Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Robert B. Neller, signed the Infrastructure Reset Strategy on November 28, 2016. This directive aims to reduce excess and failing facilities across all Marine Corps installations and reduce operation and maintenance costs for facilities that no longer serve a mission-essential purpose or are in disrepair.
To help reach the reduction goal, Marine Corps Installations East (MCIEAST) at MCB Camp Lejeune proposed a 10-year demolition program and signed a programmatic agreement with the North Carolina Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) and Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, which included the historical buildings at Camp Johnson. MCB Camp Lejeune also partnered with the Montford Point Marine Association (MPMA) to preserve historical features and with the Marine Corps Combat Service Support Schools (MCCSSS), who currently uses some of those buildings, to ensure all training priorities and infrastructure needs were met.
After much consideration, the stakeholders selected six core facilities, referred to as the Golden Six, that both preserved the history of Camp Johnson while meeting the needs of MCCSSS. These buildings are the museum, mess hall, an academic building, gymnasium, auditorium and chapel.
“We worked with the schoolhouse to understand their training requirements to ensure that the facilities that we were preserving could provide the capabilities that were needed for the Marines that were trained there at Camp Johnson,” said Commander (CDR) Ross Campbell, Public Works Officer.
Unfortunately, there are buildings aboard Montford Point that were not able to be salvaged due to extreme damage, and those buildings will be torn down.
“When we started renovations and got the skin off the chapel, we discovered that the whole building shifted and it was structurally unstable,” said Jay Maddox, MCCSSS Facility and Utilization Manager. “It had a lot of termite damage and other damage beyond repair, so the fix was repair by replacement. To repair by replacement, we had to completely remove it and rebuild it exactly the same without the termites.”
When the camps at Montford Point were constructed, the facilities were built to be temporary and had less substantial structures, such as canvas tents, fiberboard huts, and one- or two-story wood-frame buildings, leaving them more susceptible to serious damage over time and from natural disasters.
“Each of the buildings that did get renovated were restored to better than their original state, and we’re utilizing them inside of the current Marine Corps entry level training continuum,” said Colonel (Col) Eric Adams, MCCSSS Commanding Officer. “The legacy of Montford Point is the history of the first African American Marines and the Marine Corps. So, each of the buildings will preserve the Montford Point heritage but will also be used for modern purposes.”
The current plan will restore or rebuild 11 buildings and tear down 46 buildings. Before Hurricane Florence, the base planned to restore more of the existing buildings, but many were beyond repair from the resulting damage.
“That land [where the buildings were] will remain as greenspace, which is good for a number of reasons,” said CDR Campbell. “It provides a historical footprint of what was there but also recognizes the threat that we’re under from climate change. We’re building resilience into the project by being able to move those facilities more inland and focus on the core historic district of Camp Johnson.”
Montford Point was commissioned on April 26, 1942 in Jacksonville, N.C. From 1942 to 1949, when President Harry S. Truman eliminated segregated units, approximately 20,000 African American men completed recruit training and became known as the Montford Point Marines.
Montford Point was decommissioned on September 9, 1949. On April 10, 1974, it was renamed Camp Johnson after Gilbert “Hashmark” Johnson, one of the first African Americans to enlist in the Marine Corps. In 2007 the 1,600-acre plot of land became home to MCCSSS, which consists of four military operational specialty (MOS) schools, four tenant commands and an 06 level (Colonel) command.
| Date Taken: | 02.28.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 03.15.2022 09:58 |
| Story ID: | 416490 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 211 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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