John Hay Air Station, more commonly known as Camp John Hay, is a major tourism and recreation attraction located in the city of Baguio, on Luzon island, the Philippines. It was a major hill station used for rest and recreation, or R&R, for personnel and dependents of the United States Armed Forces in the Philippines as well as United States Department of Defense employees and their dependents. It was last run by the United States Air Force. It was officially designated a communications station.
With an average elevation of 5,000 ft., Camp John Hay - and Baguio City in general - is much cooler and less humid than the rest of the Philippine Islands thereby providing a more familiar mild climate the typical American soldier knows back home. The facility housed The American Residence as well as Broadcasting facilities of the Voice of America.
In World War II, Camp Hay was bombed by the Japanese on December 8, 1941, captured by the Japanese army on December 27, 1941, and used for several months to house 500 civilian internees, mostly Americans, who were living in the area. It was recaptured by the United States army in 1945.
John Hay Air Station was established on October 25, 1903 after President Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order setting aside land in Benguet for a military reservation under the United States Army. The reservation was named after Roosevelt's Secretary of State, John Milton Hay. For a time, elements of the 1st Battalion of the Philippine Division's 43d Infantry Regiment (PS) were stationed here. Prior to World War II, a number of buildings had been constructed on base, including a U.S. Army Hospital and the summer residence of the Governor-General of the Philippines, later to be known as The American Residence, which is now used as the summer house of the United States Ambassador to the Philippines.