LIONS, CUBS, AND NAS CUBI POINT

WWII’s clouds were gathering in the late 1930s, and it was increasingly recognized that existing naval bases along our Atlantic and Pacific seaboards would be inadequate to fully support operations thousands of miles distant in Europe or Asia.  Thus, the Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks (BuDOCKS) began a project to develop advanced operational support bases that could be quickly deployed in distant theaters.  To launch this effort, a conference was convened on 23 January 1942 to address the CNO’s concerns that, “…immediate steps be taken to assemble materials and equipment required for four main advanced bases and twelve secondary advanced bases.”  The two forms of advanced bases were codenamed “LIONs” and “CUBs.”  LIONS 1-4 would provide logistic and personnel support for a major fleet group including specific repair capability for submarines, aircraft, and surface ships comparable to services provided with ARs, ADs, and ASs, as well as support for 210 aircraft.  Twelve secondary bases, CUBs 1-12, operated under the guidance of a LION and were exclusively afloat.  They served a task force unit, supporting 4100 sailors and Marines and providing logistics for ships and 105 aircraft.  The 3000 Navy personnel assigned to a CUB included supply and medical staff.  CUBs were moved across the Pacific as the war progressed.  It is not known how the codenames “LION” and “CUB” were derived.

By October 1944 the LION and CUB concept was in full swing.  That same month US forces began retaking the Philippine Islands from Japanese occupation.  Subic Bay, on the island of Luzon, had been a US Navy base before the war, and, after its recapture, it was rapidly revitalized.  BuDOCK’s CUB One was moved there to support the anticipated operations on Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and ultimately the Japanese home islands.  CUB One was positioned afloat, off the quiet fishing village of Banicain, on the jungled point of land opposite the Subic Bay docks.  The area soon became “CUB 1 Point” to Americans.  As the war ended and Naval Station Subic Bay expanded in the years following, the need for a CUB was obviated by more permanent facilities ashore.

Then in 1950, the Korean Conflict necessitated the construction of an airfield in the Philippines.  In an effort that harkened of the Panama Canal’s construction, Mobile Construction Battalions 2, 3, 5, 9, and 11, bulldozed a mountain ridge, backfilling a portion of the bay to create a 10,000-foot runway.  Construction took nearly four years, during which time sailors began shortening “CUB 1 Point” to “Cubi Point.”  On 25 July 1956, NAS Cubi Point was commissioned.  The NAS remaining active until, at Philippine request, our Navy vacated the base in November 1992.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  30 JUL 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

United States Naval Administration in World War II, Chapter VI, Advanced Base Units LIONS, CUBS, and ACORNS.  AT: https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/Admin-Hist/021-AdvancedBases/AdvanceBases-6.html, retrieved 28 May 2022.

Site visit and Personal History, CAPT James Bloom, Ret.  Naval Station Subic Bay and NAS Cubi Point, October 1988-October 1990.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The LION and CUB concept was further expanded as the war progressed to include advanced shore-based facilities, codenamed “OAKs” and “ACORNs.”

Airfield construction at Cubi Point necessitated the plowing under of the village of Banicain, whose residents were relocated to the town of Olongapo.  The site of the former village now lies under 45 feet of backfill.

The Cubi Point O-Club was perhaps the most popular in the Pacific during the Vietnam era.  In fact, when the base closed in 1992, the Cubi Point O-Club was disassembled, brought home, and reconstructed in its exact floor plan at the NAS Pensacola Naval Aviation Museum.

Urban legend holds that the name “Cubi Point” is an acronym for “Construction Unit Battalion 1,” the unit supposedly responsible for the airfield’s creation.  However, as above, MCB-1 did not participate in the effort.

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