Military | Page 19 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 22, 2021 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Bombing the River of Fire

Like most Hawaiian eruptions, the eruptive activity was immediately preceded by a swarm of earthquakes, followed by tremor. Mauna Loa (“Long Mountain”) began erupting at 6:20 pm on November 21, 1935.

The eruption started with a curtain of fountains near North Pit within the summit caldera, Mokuʻāweoweo. The vents migrated 2-miles down the northeast rift zone.

During the six days of the main event, fissures opened up along the northeast rift zone of the mountain, fountaining lava 200- to 300-feet into the air.

On November 26, the summit eruption died and the northeast rift activity was reduced to a single vent at the 11,400-foot elevation. A small vent also opened up further below on the north flank of the mountain at the 8,600-foot elevation. (USGS)

Lava flows from Mauna Loa were generally fast-moving and voluminous. Lava moved relentlessly at a rate of five-miles each day; it pooled up between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa at about where the Saddle Road is situated.

The ponded lava eventually began to follow the lay of the land, a natural drainage … Then, things “got interesting.” Lava was heading directly toward Hilo. (USGS)

Dr. Thomas A Jaggar Jr, the government volcanologist, estimated that the flow would reach Hilo by January 9, 1936. He suggested using dynamite to collapse lava tubes near the source of the flow in order to stop or divert it.

Explosives were first suggested as a means to divert lava flows threatening Hilo during the eruption of 1881. However, Jaggar’s plan of mule teams hiking the explosives up the mountain would take far too long – the lava flows were moving a mile a day.

Guido Giacometti, a friend of Jaggar, had suggested using US Army Air Corps bombers to precisely deliver explosives. Jaggar agreed, and the call was made.

The US Army Air Corps approved, and the mission and plans to strategically bomb Mauna Loa were set into motion. Lieutenant Colonel George Smith Patton was called on to oversee the Army operation. (He’s the same Patton who would go on to WWII fame.)

Lava tubes are cooled and hardened outer crusts of lava which provide insulation for the faster-flowing, molten rock inside. Such a conduit enables lava to move faster and farther.

The theory was bombs would destroy the lava tubes, robbing lava of an easy transport channel and exposing more of the lava to the air, slowing and cooling it further. (BBC)

On December 26, 1935, six Keystone B-3A bombers of the 23d Bomb Squadron and four Keystone LB-6A light bombers from the 72d Bomb Squadron joined the rendezvous circle in the predawn darkness off Diamond Head, and then headed to Hilo.

Jaggar briefed the crews on the methods he had in mind to divert the lava flow. He then flew over the volcano to assess the flows and select the right points for bombing.

8:30 am, December 27, 1935, the first five bombers departed on the bombing mission. (A second flight of five aircraft was planned for the afternoon.) Each plane carried two 300-pound practice bombs (for practice and sighting,) as well as two 600-pound Mk I demolition bombs (355 pounds of TNT each.)

The bombers opened formation and fell into a huge circle for a follow-the-leader dummy run over the target area. They were flying at about 12,500-feet, not far above the 8,600-foot altitude of the volcano’s flows.

As the lead pilot tipped the control column forward for his run he lowered the wheels, so that by the time he neared the clump of koa trees which served as reference point his plane would be moving only a little faster than the 65-mph landing speed.

‘OK?’ he called to his bombardier as they began their climb after passing over the flow. Standard radio-voice procedure was unneeded. … ‘OK,’ the bombardier grunted. (Johnson)

Five of the twenty bombs struck molten lava directly, most of the others impacted solidified lava along the flow channel margins; one of them turned out a dud.

“Colonel William C Capp, a pilot who bombed the lower target, reported direct hits on the channel, observing a sheet of red, molten rock that was thrown up to about 200′ elevation and that flying debris made small holes in his lower wing.”

“Bombs that impacted on solidified, vesicular pāhoehoe along the flow margin produced craters averaging 6.7-m diameters and 2.0-m depth….” (Swopes)

“Pilots observed that several bombs collapsed thin lava tube roofs, although in no case was sufficient roof material imploded into the tube to cause blockage.”

Jagger wrote that “the violent release of lava, of gas and of hydrostatic pressures at the source robbed the lower flow of its substance, and of its heat.”

The lava stopped flowing on January 2, 1936. The effectiveness of the lava bombing is disputed by some volcanologist. (USGS)

Here’s a link to a video of the Army bombing runs in 1935. (Lots of information here from Army, USGS, hawaii-gov, 4GFC, Johnson, Lockwood & Torgerson, Swopes and This Day in Aviation History.)

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675069574_bomb-Mauna-Loa_divert-lava_Keystone-B-3A_Keystone-LB-6A_United-States-fliers

Three Keystone B6As of 20th Bombardment Squadron, 2d Bomb Group, release their bombs on a practice mission

Plume from a test bombing of an old lava flow on Mauna Loa, performed in 1975

Lieutenant General Patton in 1935, prior to World War II

Keystone B-3A Bomber of the type used in the bombing of the volcano above Hilo in 1935

Dr. Thomas Jaggar and wife, Isabel Maydwell – 1917

Advancing lava flow, December 1935. (USGS)

May 26, 2020 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

The Hole

Fear of a repeat-attack on Pearl Harbor prompted the Army and Navy to plan a less vulnerable, bomb-proof complex, designed and built as an underground open bay with floor space for an aircraft assembly and repair plant.

Construction on the $23-million underground complex began in 1942 and was completed in late-1944. It was a free-standing structure that was later covered with 5-feet of soil for pineapple cultivation.

It was in immediate proximity to Wheeler Army Airfield and Waieli Gulch Field. (While Wheeler remains an active military facility, Waieli Gulch Field only lasted through the war – however, remnants of the runway can still be seen.)

The secret underground facility was constructed as an open bay area, without interior cement blocks. The outer walls are composed of reinforced concrete and dirt.

The entrance was placed in the steep side of the gulch to obscure visibility; access to the structure was by means of a quarter-mile-long tunnel. The access was built on a curve with a 90-degree bend, intended to provide protection for the entrance to the bunker, at the end of which were elevators for the different levels.

It was nicknamed the “Kunia Tunnel” or simply, “The Hole.”

It is not a true tunnel; rather, a freestanding 3-story structure with approximately 250,000 square feet in overall size with a total of three floors. 220,000-square feet were available for assembly of folded winged aircraft (each floor was the equivalent of a football field,) with 30,000-square feet used for power generation and air conditioning.

The main shop was designed to provide space for three B-17 planes, two without wings and one with wings and was later modified to accommodate larger bombers. The work area was surrounded by smaller repair shops and storage rooms. To light the facility, it took almost 5,000 fluorescent tubes.

Two elevators serviced the field station – one capable of accommodating four 2 1/2-ton trucks or “an average size four-room cottage.” For passenger service, another elevator was provided with a carrying capacity of 20-people.

It had a cafeteria that could turn out 6,000-meals a day. Huge air conditioning and ventilating systems ensured a constant flow of fresh air drawn from the open countryside.

One World War II soldier described the tunnel as “the great underground cavern”. The soldier said the tunnel was “equipped with every modern facility and the three floors of the huge bombproof structure were found to be ideal for our purpose”.

Aircraft including the B-24s, B-17s, B-26s bombers and other types were serviced in the bunker; these bombers were used in major bombing operations in the Mariana Islands, the Philippines, Japan and Okinawa. There is no historical evidence to suggest the field station was ever used for aircraft assembly.

After the danger of further enemy attack passed, this facility housed the Engineers’ extremely important map and chart reproduction services.

It provided personnel, information and communications support to the Pacific Theater and National warfare requirements; working with photographs supplied by Army and Navy fliers, they produced maps and aerial photographic mosaics.

These first “Kunians” were shift workers, working three, 8-hour shifts, making maps. They produced a staggering number of maps; in one month, more than 2,700,000-maps were printed and used by Allied forces in the war in the Pacific.

At the end of WWII, the facility was turned over to the Air Force. Then, in 1953, the US Navy officially took over the facility and used it for ammunition and torpedo storage; they then renovated it and converted the building into a secret security structure.

With renovations completed in the early-1960s, the Commander in Chief of the Naval Pacific Forces used Kunia as a command center. Further renovations to strengthen the structure against chemical and radioactive attacks were completed in the mid-1960s. The Fleet Operations Center was moved to another location in 1976, and the Kunia base was turned over to the General Services Agency.

January 1980, it became Field Station Kunia under Army control and later renamed the Kunia Regional Security Operations Center (KRSOC) to reflect the change to a more “joint” mission, with Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines assigned to the unit. It also hosted the other members of the “Five Eyes” (US, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.)

A state-of-the-art Hawaiʻi Regional Security Operations Center (HRSOC) was constructed near Wahiawa, which replaced the Kunia Regional Security Operations Center (KRSOC).

It is now known as NSA/CSS Hawaiʻi, an intelligence receiving hub for the National Security Agency; much of what goes on at Kunia is top secret. (Lots of information from the Army, Navy and Marines websites.)

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Entrance to Underground NSA-Naval Security Group Kunia Regional Security Operations Center

Entrance to The Hole just above helipad - Kunia

Entrance-Underground NSA-Naval Security Group Kunia Regional Security Operations Center

NSA-CSS Hawaii Regional Security Operations Center-that replaced the Elephant Cage-GoogleEarth

Waiele Gulch Airfield under construction-July_9,_1942

April 15, 2020 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Elephant Cage

It doesn’t exist anymore (and was relatively short-lived,) and contrary to its nickname, it didn’t house pachyderms. It was actually an antenna array, constructed near Wahiawa, Oʻahu, and used during the Cold War.

More formally known as the AN/FRD-10 Circularly Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA) at NCTAMS (Facility 314,) it was a part of the efforts to gather foreign intelligence information.

Along with fourteen other FRD-10 CDAAs worldwide, it was a part of the Naval Security Group’s Classic Bullseye network, a program for strategic signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection and transmitter locating.

This technology was a radical improvement in the performance of high-frequency direction finding. Its design, with uniformly spaced outside the rings of reflector screens, was able to intercept and detect the direction of high-frequency radio transmissions covering 360 degrees. (NPS)

Early work on CDAA systems had been undertaken by the German navy’s signal intelligence research and development center early in World War II.

At that time, it was given the name, Wullenweber, or Wullenweber Antenna (named after Jürgen Wullenweber who was the mayor of Lubeck, Germany from 1533 to 1537. He was an opponent of injustice and a supporter of the Protestant cause who became a legendary figure.)

In addition to the nickname noted above, it was referenced by some as a “Dinosaur Cage; “ the names came from the nature of its construction.

The structure had concentric circles of posts and wires; the innermost ring was an antenna reflector screen made up of 80-vertical wood poles 94-feet high that were spaced evenly about 28′-6″ apart in a circle about 732-feet in diameter.

Moving outward, another circle of 40-poles, 58-feet high, spaced evenly a little over 61-feet apart formed a ring 776-feet in diameter. A third ring, 847-feet in diameter consisted of 120 wood poles, 25-feet in height, spaced 22-feet apart. The outer-most ring had 120-poles, 22-feet in height forming a circle with an 873-foot diameter.

With poles, wire and netting, it looked like a cage to control some big animals, thus its nicknames.

But it served a greater purpose; throughout the post-World War II years, advancing technology helped to shift the means of intelligence gathering by the US, from networks of agents operating on the ground in foreign lands to electronic and over flying systems that could gather data from much greater distances.

Remember, in the 1950s technology was still in its relative infancy; it was only in 1957 that the Soviets launched the first earth-orbiting satellite (Sputnik I.)

The Wahiawa facility was positioned to pick up all radio signals from Asia and the Pacific region, but the antenna was so sensitive that it could also pick up signals from around the world. Its sub-antennas in a complete circle also let operators inside know the direction from which the signal was coming.

Although human intelligence gathering efforts continued, technology played a greater role in the collection of information. The 1950s saw a greater capability of aerial reconnaissance in intercepting voice, radiotelephone, facsimile or Morse code communication, either transmitted in the clear or encrypted.

In addition, electronics were beginning to be able to pick up non-communications signals, such as the releases from foreign radar, and signals sent back from missiles or satellites that indicate performance and operation during a flight.

Supporting this aerial surveillance, during the 1950s and 1960s, work on ways of improving the capabilities and performance of high-frequency direction-finding equipment was improving – part of that research was the refinement of circular arrays, the CDAAs.

Besides the Wahiawa facility (built between 1962 and 1964,) CDAA were operational at Agana, Guam; Homestead AFB, FL; Imperial Beach, CA; Marietta, WA; Howard AFB, Panama Canal Zone; Sebana Seca, PR; Skaggs Island, CA; Sugar Grove, WV; Winter Harbor, ME; Canada: CFB Gander, NF; CFB Masset, BC; Europe: Brawdy, UK; Edzell, UK; Keflavik, Iceland; NAS Rota, Spain; and Asia: Hanza, Japan.

The worldwide network, known collectively as “Iron Horse”, could detect and locate Soviet submarines and other high frequency communications almost anywhere on the planet.

The system was wound down at the end of the Cold War; in the mid-1990s, the network of facilities were started to be torn down. On October 4, 1998, the Wahiawa facility ceased operations and was dismantled in 2005.

In September 2007, it was completely removed to make way for new buildings of the Hawaiʻi Regional Special Operations Center (HRSOC;) the military relocated its state-of-the-art intelligence and data gathering and analysis facility, related to security operations in the Pacific, out to the Kunia Tunnel.

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April 12, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hawaiʻi and the American Civil War

When the first shot of the American Civil War was fired at Fort Sumter off the coast of South Carolina on April 12, 1861, nearly six thousand miles away, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was a sovereign nation.

On August 26, 1861, five months after the outbreak of hostilities and four months after the news of Civil War arrived in Honolulu, Kamehameha IV issued a Proclamation that, in part, stated, “hostilities are now unhappily pending between the Government of the United States, and certain States thereof styling themselves “The Confederate States of America”.”

With the Proclamation, the King also stated “Our neutrality between said contending parties.”

The discussion of neutrality versus partisanship had to include the reality that the Hawaiian kingdom had no standing army, and most importantly, no navy to protect its harbors if supporting either the Union or Confederacy brought the other side’s vessels to threaten the principal cities of Honolulu or Lāhainā. (Illinois-edu)

Likewise, while the majority of foreigners in Hawaiʻi were Americans from New England who supported the Union cause with great fervor, leadership and advisors to the King included European ties who believed that the Confederacy would succeed in securing its independence.

King Kamehameha IV declared a neutral stance but held largely Unionist sympathies – as did the majority of people living in Hawaiʻi. (NPS)

Although neutrality was declared, Hawaiʻi’s close relationship economically, diplomatically and socially with the United States ensured that the wake of the American Civil War reached the Hawaiian Islands.

Slavery was prohibited by Hawaiʻi’s Constitution of 1852; however, there was considerable debate comparing it to the contact labor system that brought workers from Asia to fill the growing need for labor on the sugar plantations.

This was a kind of indentured servitude, some in Hawaiʻi argued, that was little better than American slavery, a position that tended to fuel opposition to the American slaveholding South.

Prior to the Civil War, whaling and related activities were the primary economic engine of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. The war enabled Hawaiʻi to fill part of the void left by the absence of then-blockaded southern exports, including sugar.

Hawaiian-grown sugar soon replaced much of this southern sugar through the duration of the conflict. By the end of the war, over thirty extremely prosperous plantations were in operation and expanded to new levels previously unheard of before the war’s commencement.

In part, because of this boom in business, the majority of Americans living and working on the islands were devoutly pro-Unionist. In fact, many living in Hawaiʻi had an ardent desire to serve in the armed forces.

Hawaiʻi’s neutrality did not prevent many of its citizens from enlisting in either Union or Confederate forces. One, a Hawaiian from Hilo, was Henry Hoʻolulu Pitman, son of Kinoʻole O Liliha, a Hawaiian high chiefess of Hilo. He enlisted in the Union Army and later died of disease in Richmond, Virginia’s infamous Libby Prison.

A dozen Hawaiians (possibly from captured ships) also served as Confederate sailors aboard the famous raider CSS Shenandoah which circumnavigated the globe and sank or captured nearly forty Union and merchant vessels throughout the Pacific. (Captured sailors could be put in chains below deck, marooned on an island or be given the chance to join the crew of the Southern vessel – many chose the latter.)

About 40 individuals who were born and raised in Hawaiʻi served in the Civil War. As many as 200 immigrants to Hawaiʻi who were living here at the outbreak of the war in 1861 may have served in the conflict.

To honor these men, the Hawaiʻi Sons of the Civil War Memorial Committee installed a bronze and stone memorial at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. It is dedicated to those from Hawai’i who served in the war.

Oʻahu Cemetery has thirty Union veterans who rest in a Grand Army of the Republic section of the burial ground (it is identified with four cannons at each corner.) (The Grand Army of the Republic was founded by Union veterans in Decatur, Illinois, in 1866.)

The war lasted from 1861 to 1865. Immediately following the war, many of the once prosperous sugar plantations collapsed as a result of the northern states reestablishing trade with their southern counterparts.

On May 11, 1865, Ka Nupepa Kuokoa (noting the death of Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865) noted “No words of ours can do justice to our grief. … All over the world the friends of liberty and justice, the poor, the oppressed everywhere, will weep for him, the Savior of his country, the Liberator of four million slaves, the People’s friend. … His name will forever be revered … The Nation still lives.”

In 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, a group of Union veterans established “Decoration Day” on May 30 as a time to remember and decorate the graves of service members with flowers, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. By the end of the 19th century, Memorial Day ceremonies were being held on May 30 throughout the nation.

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April 11, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The Skate

On April 11, 1900, the Navy purchased the Holland VI, an internal combustion, gasoline-powered submarine from John P Holland for $160,000, after demonstration trials off Mount Vernon, Virginia. This marks the official birth date of the US Navy’s Submarine Force.

Even before the United States entered World War I, the submarine was recognized for its deadly role in warfare as German U-boats torpedoed and sank British shipping in the Atlantic.

Military submarines made their first significant impact in World War I; U-boats saw action in the First Battle of the Atlantic, and were responsible for the sinking of Lusitania, and this is often cited among the reasons for the entry of the United States into the war.

USS F-4, an F-class US submarine, was originally named Skate, making her the first ship of the United States Navy named for the skate (a type of ray.) She was renamed F-4 on November 17, 1911.

The F-4 and three other F-class submarines, the F-1, F-2 and F-3, along with their support vessel, the tender USS Alert, made up the First Submarine Group, Pacific Torpedo Flotilla, participating in the development operations of that group along the west coast, and from August 1914, in Hawaiian waters.

They were the first US submarines to be stationed to the new naval facility at Pearl Harbor.

While on a training mission, on Thursday, March 25, 1915, the US submarine Skate (F-4,) with a crew of twenty-one men, exploded and sank in fifty fathoms of water three-quarters of a mile off of Honolulu harbor.

There had been other submarine fatalities and accidents in world history, but this was the first submarine disaster in US naval history.

There were round-the-clock attempts to make contact with the submerged vessel. It was lodged three hundred feet below the surface, and divers could not reach it.

After dragging cables across the ocean floor in the area in attempts to snag and locate the submarine, it was caught late in the morning of the 26th.

The 142′ long submarine, with a diameter of about 15′, displaced 330 tons and could not be moved. Using a combination of hard hat divers, cables, chains and heavy scows with winches, the F-4 was incrementally raised and moved closer to shore over the next two months.

Frank William Crilley, a Chief Gunner’s Mate, made dives to over 300 feet during salvage operations on the sunken Submarine. On April 17, 1915, he rescued a fellow diver who had become entangled at a depth of 250 feet.

For his heroism on this occasion, Frank William Crilley was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1929.

Five months passed before the submarine could be hauled to the surface.

After so many months underwater, only four of the 21 dead aboard the submarine could be identified. The 17 remaining bodies were sealed in four caskets and shipped to Arlington National Cemetery, where they were buried in a common grave.

Their headstone, the size of an individual marker, was marked simply “17 Unknown U.S. Sailors Victims of the USS F-4 March 25 1915.”

The headstone was going to be replaced and destroyed, but it was retrieved and is now part of the Bowfin Museum in Pearl Harbor.

After the drydock examinations of F-4, the vessel was towed by the tugboat Navajo, using the six pontoons, to “an out of the way spot at Pearl Harbor” with a depth of fifteen to twenty feet that was “as nearly beached as possible” with “the pontoons keeping her clear of the harbor floor”.

Apparently the F-4 was left in this spot, to “rot in the mud bank” presumably near the head of Magazine Loch.

Periodically since, the Navy has announced plans to either destroy or examine the F-4 – the oldest surviving U.S. Navy submarine — but because of the deep silt in Pearl Harbor, the exact location is unknown.

In 1957, a more successful Skate was commissioned (the third US submarine named Skate.) It was the first production model of a nuclear-powered submarine to make a completely submerged trans-Atlantic crossing (1958) and the first to surface at the North Pole (1959).

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