Naval HOSPITAL
Camp Pendleton
In March 1942, the Secretary of the Navy acquired the Santa Margarita Ranch located in San Diego County as a Marine Corps Training Center. Subsequently, the U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery recommended the construction of a hospital be built on the western shore of the Training Center’s Lake O’Neill. It was designated as U.S. Naval Hospital, Santa Margarita, Calif.
Naval Regional Medical Center, 1974; photo courtesy of Camp Pendleton Archives
As a result of confusion in mail delivery with a town of the same name, the hospital was re-designated as U. S. Naval Hospital, Santa Margarita, Oceanside, Calif. on Aug. 1, 1950. Since then, the hospital had numerous name changes until 1983, when it was given the current name of Naval Hospital, Camp Pendleton. The various other names included U.S. Naval Hospital, Camp Joseph H. Pendleton, Oceanside (1967); Naval Hospital/Naval Regional Medical Center (1972); and Naval Regional Medical Center (1974). The construction of the original $5 million hospital took about one year. The facility was placed in commission on Sept. 3, 1943 with Capt. Joseph Schwartz, MC, USN, as the Commanding Officer. Although primarily built to care for patients returning from South Pacific warfare, it was also used to treat ill and injured Marines and Sailors in the area. The hospital compound encompassed 117 acres of former farmland, 91 acres of river bottom, 7 acres of slough and steep hillside, and 37 acres of lake for a total of 252 acres. The hospital complex consisted of 76 separate, temporary, wood frame buildings. The hospital had a 600 bed capacity and a network of corridors that connected the buildings. In August 1967, the Commandant of the Marine Corps authorized the reassignment of ninety acres of land aboard Camp Pendleton to the Navy for the purpose of providing a site for the construction of a new, modern, nine-story,
Postcard, Naval Hospital, Camp Pendleton, circa 1947 Courtesy Oceanside Historical Society
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CAMP PENDLETON – Celebrating 75 years
600-bed Naval Hospital. On May 13, 1971 ground was broken at the new hospital site and in December 1974, the hospital was opened and received its first occupants. The $26 million, 427,500 square-foot hospital was located adjacent to the site of the old facility, next to Lake O'Neill, and was staffed and funded for 185 beds. It included seven operating rooms, six labor and delivery rooms, outpatient clinics, laboratory and radiology facilities, food preparation, service and support facilities and administration offices. The building was completely air conditioned and incorporated the most modern technological advances and had parking for 1,257 vehicles. On March 19, 2009, construction of a new Navy hospital for Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton was approved in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The replacement of the Camp Pendleton hospital was the largest ARRA project in the Department of the Navy. Groundbreaking for the 500,000-square-foot, four story building was held www.oceansidechamber.com
