Camp Holloway was a former French Colonial airfield abandoned in 1954 after the First Indochina War. It was reestablished in 1962 located on a plateau on Highway 19 just outside of Pleiku, Pleiku Province, II Corps Tactical Zone, in the western Central Highlands as a base for the U.S. Army 52nd Combat Aviation Battalion "Flying Dragons," and headquarters to numerous Army aviation, maintenance, security, and support units.

      The Camp was named after CWO Charles E. Holloway who was mortally wounded on 22 December 1962.

     For additional information and photographs of Camp Holloway use this Link.

     The city of Pleiku was also situated at the northeast corner of the infamous Ia Drang Valley, a traditional route from Cambodia into II Corps Tactical Zone for the movement of the first North Vietnamese Army units attempts to cut the country in half.

7 February  The Viet Cong attacked the MACV Advisor Compound and the Camp Holloway airfield at Pleiku. American forces suffered 136 casualties and twenty-two aircraft were damaged or destroyed.

17 October  As part of the Air Force Top Dog 145 Project (first Department of Defense (temporary) feasibility study of sentry dog deployment to South Vietnam), twenty-five of the fifty Air Force handler teams who arrived at Tan Son Nhut were subsequently ordered to the air base at Pleiku.

     Upon arrival they discovered that like their arrival at Ton San Nhut Air Force Base, they were unexpected. There were no kennels for the dogs so the handlers built temporary kennels for the dogs and shared quarters with an infantry division prior to beginning their guard duty.

23 October  With the enemy buildup in the Ia Drang Valley the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) moved its 1st Brigade into Camp Holloway to reinforce the area.

Personal Reflections “I came to Vietnam in July of 1966 and that same month was assigned to the 188th MP Company [92nd MP Battalion, 89th MP Group, 18th MP Brigade] Ships Security Detachment at Vung Tau [Phuoc Tuy Province]. I think it may have been in October 1966 when there was an 18th MP Brigade reorganization, and I was reassigned to the Docks Security Detachment in Saigon [Gia Dinh Province].

     I left the Company and volunteered for the 212th MP Company (Sentry Dog) and volunteered to go to Okinawa, Japan for eight weeks of training at Fort Buckner and returned to Vietnam with my dog “Smokey” upon completion of training (I think it may have been January 1967) and was assigned to the Camp Holloway Detachment in Pleiku, [Pleiku Province] where I walked perimeter security, and then the 1st Cavalry Division’s Camp Radcliff in An Khe [Binh Dinh Province], Vietnam."  SP/4 Richard R. Maloney, 188th MP Company July-October 1966 & 212th MP Company (Sentry Dog) January-July 1967.