This is another Port that there are just no good photos of . This is the small
aerial photo of where I believe that we berthed at when ever a ship I was on
called here. Again so much has changed. All the times that I was there it was
under control of the US Army and we did not have NDF or DFM there when we took
on fuel but rather MOGAS a close
cousin of JP5. When I was in the Navy I got here twice on the USS
KILAUEA but I did not get to go ashore back then we were only
there for a few hours. I would suppose that there are no surface shots
of this place due to photography restrictions. The few times I went to
Chin Hae I had been used to seeing drab green Quonset huts. In fact the
famous historical MASH that the TV show was based on had been located
there. Remnants of that MASH were there in the mid 70's . All that
remained in the 90's was an historical marker. A new medical facility
had been built. During the MSC years I called on Chin Hae aboard the USNS
KILAUEA and if memory serves aboard USNS OBSERVATION ISLAND. The ships
actually spent some time there and so one time I was able to go check
out Chin Hae proper and bought one of those animal print blankets.
Looking down from the air I see that so much has changed that the
Quonset huts no longer appear to be there. One thing that puzzles me is
that both in the 70's and the 90's we had stopped at Pusan first and
then transited around to Chin Hae. By air it appears that the two cities
are only 30 miles apart yet when we departed Pusan it seemed as if it
took us 12 hours to transit. Perhaps it is due to drastic tides that the
transit has to take so long.
