Military | Page 4 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

December 21, 2025 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Liberty Ship SS Quartette

Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the US during World War II. They were inexpensive and quick to build, and used for deliveries of war materiel to Britain and to the Soviet Union.

Liberty ships were products of early prefabricated mass production, in large part an industrial response to wartime needs and a definite response to the threat of submarine attacks against merchant vessels.

Eighteen American shipyards built 2,751 Libertys between 1941 and 1945, easily the largest number of ships produced to a single design. (Ships had an original design life of five years.)

They were relatively simple in design and operation, reducing both construction time and time needed to train engineers. The Liberty ships and their crews of merchant seamen faced, and some falling victim to, surprise attacks from unseen enemy submarines.

The first Liberty ships required about 230 days to build, but the average eventually dropped to 42 days. The record was set by SS Robert E. Peary, which was launched 4 days and 15½ hours after the keel was laid.

The ships were made assembly-line style, from prefabricated sections. In 1943, three Liberty ships were completed daily. They were usually named after famous Americans, starting with the signatories of the Declaration of Independence.

The keel of the USS James Swan was laid June 23, 1944 and launched in Savannah, Georgia, August 12, 1944; she was built for the US Maritime Commission by the Southeastern Ship Building Corporation.

James Swan was a member of the Sons of Liberty and participated in the Boston Tea Party. Swan was twice wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill, he later became secretary of the Massachusetts Board of War and the legislature.

During the time he held that office, he helped fund the Continental Army. After the American Revolution, Swan privately assumed the entire United States French debts at a slightly higher interest rate (which he later sold.) The US no longer owed money to foreign governments, although it continued to owe money to private investors both at home and in Europe.

Following the war, the USS James Swan was sold to Standard Steamship Company of Wilmington Delaware and used to deliver freight. She was renamed the Quartette.

The Quartette was a three-masted single-screw triple-expansion steam engine vessel, 422-feet long, 57-feet in beam, and with a draft 35 feet deep. Her two water-tube boilers and triple expansion engine were capable of 2,500 horse power. She had three cargo holds forward and two aft.

In 1952, the Quartette was chartered by the Military Sea Transportation Service and en route from Galveston Texas to Pusan, South Korea (via an interim stop at Honolulu) with a load of 9,000-tons of milo yellow grain, consigned to the US Army.

Then, at 7:10 am on the morning of December 21, 1952, navigation fixes had placed the ship some nine to ten miles further away from any danger – it was wrong.

The lookout had reported a line of white breakers to the chief mate shortly after 7:00 AM, but allegedly no action to avoid the approaching obstacle was taken.

Then, heavy seas and 35-mph winds drove the 7,200-ton SS Quartette into the eastern reef crest of Pearl and Hermes Atoll, damaging two forward holds.

The ship was firmly aground, but in no immediate danger of sinking. Attempts to back the vessel off from the reef with the engines failed.

The Navy dispatched a Catalina flying boat and 170-foot patrol craft from Midway. Thirty-six crewmen were rescued on the following day, thirty-three of them being taken to Midway Island. The ship’s captain and two others (the chief engineer and radio operator) remained standing by on the patrol boat, waiting for the salvage tug.

The Ono arrived on December 25th; seas were expected to increase as a storm passed to the northwest, raising concerns that salvage efforts would be postponed.

In an effort to stabilize the vessel, anchors were dropped and a tow line attached. On January 3rd, the tug’s anchors parted at the shank, and the Quartette was blown broadside onto the reef.

She was deemed unsalvageable, a total loss.

Weeks later the ship broke her back (keel) and snapped in two, the bow portion forward of the superstructure was pushed into the shallow lagoon, and the stern and midsection (where engine was) remained in deeper water.

After three successive investigations (2007, 2008 & 2010,) teams of maritime archaeologists documented the shipwreck. Debris of the ship are scattered across the reef, including an impressive propeller, steering gear, triple-expansion steam engine and 4 massive anchors.

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Quartette broken in two on Pearl and Hermes Reef

Quartette broken up

Quartette Milo maze offloaded in bags

Quartette The loaded barge aground on Pearl and Hermes Reef

Quartette Whale boat passing through the bow and stern sections of the SS Quartette

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December 14, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

DUKW (Duck)

“Auto that sails the seas and boat that runs on land”

“An Alaskan expedition to study explosive Mount Katwain in 1927 furnished Dr (Thomas Augustus) Jaggar with the motive for developing an amphibious motor car.”

“After several months of experimentation, he completed his pioneer water bug and dubbed it ‘Ohiki,’ which is Hawaiian for sand crab.” (Popular Mechanics)

“In preparation for this expedition, the Hawaii Volcanoes Observatory machine shop built a wooden amphibious boat around a ‘low-geared small motor car with balloon tires,’ that Jaggar had used over tundra and beach of the Alaskan Peninsula in 1927.”

“Inlets, rivers, and rocks were obstacles that made Jaggar mentally design modifications of the car into a ‘car-skiff.’”

Jaggar invented the first practical wheeled amphibian. (Popular Mechanics)

“She first took to the sea at Ninoʻole Cove in the Kaʻū District, and she quickly revealed the need for additional work.” (USGS)

“Several hundred skeptical spectators witnessed the formal launching January 17, 1928, at Hilo, Hawaiʻi. Many wagers were lost as the Ohiki lumbered off the highway and trundled along the beach into the water.”

After modifications (freeboard raised, length slightly increased, paddle-wheels enlarged, a winch and cable mounted in bow, 5-horsepower outboard motor added,) an extended trip was made along the west coast of the Island of Hawaii to make beach and sea tests.

Lorrin Thurston went along as a passenger and publicity man; Mrs Jaggar served as stewardess. The car with the boat body excited all the roadside children of Kona with delight. (USGS)

“Dr. Jaggar’s initial amphibian was a skiff 21-feet long with a beam of five feet four inches, mounted on an elongated Ford chassis … just forward and mounted through the sides of the boat was a Ruckstall axle to which sidewheel paddles were attached … the front wheels were disked and served as rudders.” (Popular Mechanics)

“Jaggar’s Ohiki made a speed of about 4 mi/h in water with the combined power of paddle wheels and outboard motor… It made more than 20 mi/h over highways.” (USGS)

He later created another amphibian, the Honukai (sea turtle;) it was a twin-screw steel amphibian, built in Chicago by the Powell Mobile-Boat Corp.

In 1928, when the National Geographic Society joined with the USGS to sponsor an expedition with Jaggar in charge to map, photograph, and survey in the Aleutians around Pavlof Volcano, the Society supplied an amphibious boat.

In the 400-miles along the coast of Alaska, from Shumagin Islands to King Cove, the expedition did not even have to pump up the tires. (USGS)

The Honukai’s numerous excessively low gears even enabled them to drive up to the snowline and bring out the heavy fur and bones of a bear that Jaggar had shot on the snowy volcano, Mount Dana. Jaggar brought the Honukai back to Hawaii with him and based it in Kona. (Popular Mechanics)

“As a result of his experiences and design work with the Ohiki and the Honukai, Jaggar was later able to help the US Army with the design of amphibious vehicles for World War II, and he received in 1945 the Franklin L Burr Prize of the National Geographic Society for this work.” (USGS)

In 1942, the Army, faced with challenges in landing troops and supplies, modified a 1 ½ ton GMC truck – it was called the DUKW (D = built in 1942; U = amphibious 2½ ton truck; K = front wheel drive and W = rear wheel drive.) (Army Transportation Museum)

Today, we simply call these vehicles ‘Ducks.’

Jaggar was considered grandfather of the ‘Duck,’ which has played a prominent part in amphibious landings both in the European and South Pacific theaters of war. (Mount Caramel, February 27, 1945)

(Lorrin Thurston and George Lycurgus were instrumental in getting the volcano recognized as Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. In 1912, Jaggar moved to Kilauea to start the observatory, studying volcanoes.)

(On August 1, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the country’s 13th National Park into existence – Hawaiʻi National Park (later (1961) split into Haleakalā National Park and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.)

December 7, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Battery Pennsylvania

On the morning of December 7, 1941, a fleet of Japanese carriers launched an air strike against the US Pacific Fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor. The attack decimated the ships and personnel of the fleet and thrust the US into WW II.

The USS Arizona (the second of two Pennsylvania-class battleships – built in 1916) was moored on “Battleship Row.” Just before 8 am, the ship’s air raid alarm was sounded and the crew was ordered to general quarters. During the attack the Arizona was struck by as many as eight aerial bombs.

In addition, one 1,700-lb armor-piercing shell penetrated the deck and detonated in the powder magazine, causing a “cataclysmic” explosion “which destroyed the ship forward” and ignited a fire which burned for two days. It is thought that most of the Arizona crewmen who perished in the attack died instantly during the explosion. (DPAA)

After the attack, the Arizona was left resting on the bottom with the deck just awash. (U of Arizona) Within one week of the attack, divers surveyed the submerged portions of the ship to determine which parts could be salvaged. (DPAA)

One of the divers, Lt Col Lawrence M Guyer of the Hawaiian Seacoast Artillery Command (HSCAC), concluded that, from an artillery viewpoint, Arizona’s aft turrets 3 and 4 (with three guns each) were serviceable and capable of being used on land.

Guyer was credited with establishing numerous seacoast gun batteries on O‘ahu, including four batteries, each armed with two twin-gun 8-inch 55-caliber naval mounts removed from the aircraft carriers Lexington and Saratoga in early 1942.

Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the coastal defenses for the island were considered extremely inadequate. Standard coast artillery then in production would have taken two to three years to procure, and Arizona’s 14-inch guns had much greater hitting power than the 6-inch and 8-inch guns being used on O‘ahu at the time. (John Bennett)

The Navy decided that the Army would receive gun turrets 3 and 4 for use as coastal defense guns. (NPS) In June 1942 the Hawaiian Department Engineer and representatives of the Hawaiian Seacoast Artillery Command examined potential sites on O‘ahu after the War Department gave preliminary endorsement to reusing both 14-inch naval turret batteries.

Two sites were selected: one at Mōkapu (Kāne‘ohe – to cover the eastern portions of O‘ahu) , and the other at Kahe, an area known today as Electric Hill (HEI generating plant) on the western shore of Oahu, up the slopes of the Waianae Mountains – to cover the south and west.

Arizona’s aft guns were removed in May 1942. Because the removal of the turrets began before any consideration was given to their reuse, no consideration was given to their reassembly, and no attempt was made to safeguard the integrity of the turret shells, which had been separated into two major components.

The Navy’s 150-ton heavy-lift floating crane transported Turret 4’s faceplate and slide assembly and the aft catapult to Waipio Point for safekeeping in early March 1942. The smaller turret components were removed from the Arizona, transported to the Pearl City Peninsula, and taken to a nearby yard and warehouse, where they were set aside for the salvage operation in May 1943.

Once ashore the equipment was disassembled completely; then the time-consuming task began – cleaning the small parts of corrosion caused by immersion in seawater for over a year. This included reworking and rewinding electrical motors and completely overhauling the hydraulic systems. (John Bennett)

Batteries Pennsylvania (at Mōkapu) and Arizona (at Kahe) were named on October 21, 1942, by a directive from Brig. Gen. Robert C. Garrett, commanding HSCAC. Garret approved the construction plans for both batteries on May 7, 1943.

The adjutant general of the army gave final approval to both projects on August 13, 1943, based on a Hawaiian Dept. letter of May 11, 1943, ‘Plan for Batteries Arizona and Pennsylvania.’

The most complex project undertaken during World War II at Mōkapu Peninsula was that of the construction of Battery Pennsylvania at Mōkapu Point.

Battery Pennsylvania is a 7-stories deep self-contained unit, gouged out of the side of Ulupa‘u Crater. It contains reinforced concrete rooms for radar, plotting, powder and shell storage and eating and sleeping quarters for approximately 160 troops. The battery was completely air conditioned.

Project engineers had to design a central concrete barbette well that extended 70 feet down in rock. The nucleus of the battery was the barbette (the gun mounting system): 42.5 feet in diameter and 70 feet deep.

To sustain a vertical load of 780 tons and a firing thrust of 2,620 tons, a heavy circular steel foundation ring supported the roller path, with radial webs anchored to the reinforced concrete barbette that ranged from nine to 15 feet thick.

The barbette contained three service levels; the first two levels were accessed from the powder and projectile magazines 70 feet below ground. Ammunition service was by a pair of naval-style shell skips powered by motor-winches that raised the shells from the floor of the magazine to the shell-loading platform in the turret 45 feet above.

The capacity of this room was 105 shells aboard ship; the number was increased to 150 at the batteries. A pair of powder hoists similar to those aboard ship raised the powder bags to the powder handling room, 25 feet above the magazine.

It took nearly four years to build the battery and reassemble the gun. In 1944, Army Ground Forces had scheduled Batteries Arizona and Pennsylvania to be manned by four officers and 157 enlisted men each when completed.

Battery Arizona’s construction was halted on August 1, 1945. Although the turret and guns had been mounted, the battery still lacked some components. It was not probable that it was turned over to the coast artillery and manned. The heavy guns at Battery Arizona were never test fired.

Only Battery Pennsylvania was fully completed; it was completed just before the end of the war in the Pacific. Battery Pennsylvania was test fired on August 10, 1945 (the only firing of its guns). (HABS) Today both sites are abandoned; the guns were removed and cut up for scrap shortly after the war ended. (Lots of information and imagery is from John Bennett.)

November 22, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘Where America’s Day Really Begins’

An island is a body of land surrounded by water. (Continents are also surrounded by water, but because they are so big, they are not considered islands.) An atoll is a ring-shaped coral reef, island, or series of islets. The atoll surrounds a body of water called a lagoon. (National Geographic)

Wake is a small tropical coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean consisting of three islands (Peale, Wake, and Wilkes) enclosing a shallow, central lagoon and surrounded by a narrow fringing reef.

From reef to reef, the atoll is approximately 5 miles long and 2.5 miles wide. The atoll is about 2,460-miles west of Hawaiʻi, 1,600-miles east of Guam and 700-miles north of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands.

Oral traditions claim that the Marshallese knew of Wake Atoll prior to contact with European navigators. The Marshallese name for the atoll was Eneen-Kio or Ane-en Kio, “Island of the kio flower.”

The atoll was a source of feathers and plumes of seabirds. Prized were the wing bones of albatross, from which tattooing chisels could be made. In addition, the rare kio flower grew on the atoll.

Bringing these items to the home atolls implied that the navigators had been able to complete the feat of finding the atoll using traditional navigation skills of stars, wave patterns and other ocean markers. (Spennemann)

Today, it is more commonly referred to as ‘Wake Island’ or ‘Wake Atoll’ (rediscovery of Wake and its naming is usually credited to Captain William Wake of the British trading schooner Prince William Henry, enroute from Port Jackson, Australia to Canton in China in 1792). (NPS)

Wake, to the west of Honolulu, Hawaii, is the northernmost atoll in the Marshall Islands geological ridge and perhaps the oldest living atoll in the world. Wake Atoll was claimed by the United States in 1898; formal possession of Wake was made by the US on January 17, 1899.

Pan American Airways applied in 1935 for permission to establish a seaplane base at Wake for its “Clipper” flying boats, the pioneer trans-Pacific air route: San Francisco, Hawaii, Midway, Wake, Guam, Manila, and later, Hong Kong.

Pan Am commenced its profitable transpacific airmail delivery service on November 22, 1935, and its transpacific passenger service nearly a year later on November 4, 1936. (HALS UM-1) The flight across the Pacific then took six days. (NPS)

Pan Am the blasted over one hundred coral heads from within Wake’s lagoon to prepare a suitable landing area for its “Clippers”. Pan Am passengers debarked at the lagoon-end of a long docking pier and passed through a pavilion on the shore side of the pier on their way to the Pan Am hotel. (HALS UM-1)

Just as a prefab hotel was built on Midway, a prefabricated hotel building was built on Wake. The hotel was Y-shaped, with the lounge and dining room in the center and 20 rooms in each of the two flanking wings. It was sited to take advantage of views across the lagoon.

Between 1935 and 1941, the Pan Am seaplane station on Peale Island consisted of a landing docking and shelter, a single-story hotel, crew and personnel quarters, recreation building, sick bay, shop and warehouse buildings, utility structures and communication facilities. (HALS UM-1)

The location of Wake Island made it a strategic location for both the US and Japan. It was recognized that if war broke out between Japan and the US, Wake could: …

… provide for a defensive outpost; enable long range reconnaissance deep into enemy territory; enable the disruption of shipping; serve as staging ground for offensive operations; and be utilized as an emergency air station. (Butowsky)

Wake was substantially modified by the US to create a military base before WWII. As part of the WWII build-up, by mid-1941, construction of the Naval Air Station seaplane base included a seaplane ramp and parking area on the lagoon side of central Peale Island.

The Japanese declared war on the US with its attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the same day in another time zone attempted to seize Wake Island.

The Japanese opening attack of Wake came swiftly by air at 11:58 am (local time) on December 8, 1941; Wake was defended by about 500-military personnel (about one-quarter of its intended size.) In addition, there were about 1,200-civilian workers on the atoll.

Despite the earlier preparations, none of the defensive installations were sufficiently completed by the time of the Japanese attack. (The facilities were estimated to have been only 65-percent finished.)

The island finally fell on December 23, 1941; with the fall of Wake Island to the Japanese in late-December 1941, Midway became their westernmost US outpost in the central Pacific. More than 700-Japanese were killed during the attacks, while only 52-US military personnel lost their lives.

The Japanese took approximately 1,600 prisoners of war (POWs), 450 of whom were military personnel. The American POWs were sent to Japanese prison camps, mostly in China but some in Japan. Of these 1,600, 360 were retained by the Japanese to work as forced laborers for the Japanese.

In September, 1942, all were removed from the island except for ninety-eight of the prisoners (all civilian heavy equipment operators, except for one doctor) who were kept on Wake to assist the Japanese in developing their defensive positions on the atoll. (HALS UM-1)

(A sad side story notes that on October 7, 1943 when the Japanese saw subsequent invasion of Wake, Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered the execution of the 98-American civilian prisoners. They were taken to one side of the island and shot with machine guns.)

(One prisoner escaped and carved a memorial into a large rock “98 US PW 5-10-43;” it’s still there. This prisoner was caught and also executed shortly after. After the war, Sakaibara and his subordinate, Lieutenant-Commander Tachibana, were sentenced to hang for this massacre.) The memory of their sacrifice is sustained by the inscription on “POW Rock” on Wilkes Island.

During their almost 4-year occupation of Wake, the Japanese constructed elaborate shoreline defenses. The Japanese widened and lengthened the US-built runway on the eastern side of the south arm of Wake Island and built two additional runways.

From 1941 to 1945, the Japanese stationed as many as 4,000 troops on the atoll at any given time, and they continued their development of Wake Island unabated until June of 1943.

In July of 1943, American bombers, who had begun bombing and shelling Wake since February of 1942, attacked Japanese coastal defense positions. On August 13, 1945, Marine planes conducted their last attack on Japanese positions on Wake, and on September 4, 1945, Admiral Sakaibara surrendered Wake Island back to the US.

Today, Wake serves as a trans-Pacific refueling stop for military aircraft and supports Missile Defense Agency test activities. Wake is currently managed by the Pacific Air Force Support Center located at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Anchorage, Alaska, and falls under 11th Air Force. (15^th Wing)

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A little personal side story … When Pan Am used Midway and Wake as stopping points for flights across the Pacific, my grandmother (Laura Sutherland) was Assistant Head Librarian for the Library of Hawai‘i in charge of the “Extension Department.”

My grandmother took advantage of these flights and expanded the reach of her “Extension Department” by supplying reading material to residents on Midway and Wake, with the cooperation of Pan Am. Each week, a new supply of books was added to the flights in what is believed to be America’s only Flying Library Service.

Oh, the title to this piece? … Guam, a US Territory, adopted a de facto motto is “Where America’s Day Begins”; but that’s not technically true. Wake is 1,500-miles further east, right next to and west of the International Date Line. Given that placement with the Dateline, while most in America are experiencing a new day, folks on Wake are already into tomorrow.

“The dawn’s earliest light — the first rays of sun on US soil – shine upon Wake Island. Every morning America wakes up on Wake Island.” The sign on the Wake airstrip terminal building reads “Where America’s Day REALLY begins.” (CBSNews)

November 9, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Missile-Age Minutemen

It was not until World War II that the technology of using rockets and missiles in warfare became firmly established. During the final months of World War II, several major defense contractors studied the likelihood that evolving technologies could produce guided missiles to intercept bombers and surface-to-surface missiles.

The Cold War, a term used to describe the hostile relations between communist and non-communist countries, greatly accelerated missile and rocket technology. (Mason; HAER)

During the Cold War era that followed World War II, the threat of foreign attack on US soil shifted from naval assault to air attack, particularly by aircraft carrying nuclear weapons. Thus, the Army Air Defense Artillery took responsibility from the Coast Artillery branch for defending the US. (NPS)

The perception that the Soviet Union might be capable of constructing a sizable fleet of long-range, nuclear-armed bomber aircraft capable of reaching the continental US provided motivation to rapidly develop and deploy a missile system to defend major US population centers and other vital targets. (TheMilitaryStandard)

The potential threat posed by such aircraft became much more serious when, in 1949, the Russians exploded their first atomic bomb.

The goal of the Army in the 1950s was to establish a nationwide defense system of surface-to-air guided missiles (SAMs) placed in critical positions around major urban centers or strategic military installations within the continental US, Hawaii and Europe.

Prior to the guided missile era, the Hawaiʻi Air National Guard, armed with four batteries of 90-mm Anti-Aircraft Artillery guns, provided antiaircraft defense of Oahu. The battalion’s four firing batteries were deployed to Sand Island (two,) Fort Barrette (one) and Waianae (one,) with battalion headquarters at Fort Ruger. (Bennett)

The development of a missile-based air defense system necessitated the reorganization of the Army command structure. In 1950, all artillery units were joined to a new continental air defense system under the US Army Antiaircraft Command (later renamed the US Army Air Defense Command;) control was placed under the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD.) (Mason; HAER)

Nike, named for the mythical Greek goddess of victory, was the name given to a program which ultimately produced the world’s first successful, widely-deployed, guided surface-to-air missile system. (TheMilitaryStandard)

The missile was first test-fired in 1951, and the first Nike Ajax battalion was emplaced at Fort Meade, Maryland in 1953. As the Nike Ajax system underwent testing during the early-1950s, the Army became concerned that the missile was incapable of stopping a massed Soviet air attack.

To enhance the missile’s capabilities, the Army explored the feasibility of equipping Ajax with a nuclear warhead, but when that proved impractical, in July 1953 the service authorized development of a second generation surface-to-air missile, the Nike Hercules.

Conversion from conventional artillery to missiles in the continental US was complete by July 1958. The Nike Hercules placements in the field expanded over the next 6-years. (Federation of American Scientists)

Coastal defenses during this period largely depended on the Nike antiaircraft missile system. The Nike system was not only the most expensive missile system ever deployed, it was also the most widespread (300 sites in 30 states) and longest-lived (25 years nationwide.) (NPS)

The missile sites were designed and constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers, and standardized plans were generally used. (However, the Hawaiʻi facilities were typically above ground launching sites with berms protecting the launchers.)

Originally, the Army planned to build eight batteries at six missile sites around the island. This plan was eventually reduced in scope, and six batteries were built at four areas (two single and two double batteries.)

The four sites were at Dillingham Air Force Base in Mokuleʻia (Kawaihāpai;) Kahuku Army Training Area near Mt Kawela; Bellows Air Force Station at Waimanalo and Barbers Pt (Palehua,) on the southwestern portion of the Waianae Mountain Range.

Barber’s Point and Bellows Field each hosted two batteries and had 24 missiles, while the single batteries each had 12 missiles.

The sites were coordinated in their defense efforts through direction from the Army Air Defense Command Post located at Fort Ruger in a tunnel in Diamond Head and were manned by Army Guardsmen.

A typical Nike air defense site consisted of two separate parcels of land. One area was known as the Integrated Fire Control Area. This site contained the Nike system’s ground-based radar and computer systems designed to detect and track hostile aircraft, and to guide the missiles to their targets.

The second parcel of land was known as the Launcher Area. At the launcher area, Nike missiles were stored horizontally. While elsewhere, the missiles were stored in underground missile magazines, the Hawaiʻi facilities were typically above-ground magazines and launching sites with berms protecting the launchers.

The Nike missile sites were manned 24-hours a day by the Hawaiʻi National Guard and were armed with the nuclear-capable Nike Hercules surface-to-air-missiles. (Army)

Hawaiʻi and Alaska were the only locations where live Nike missiles were test fired. Targets included computer generated points in space and miniature airplanes. No missile was ever fired in anger.

While the rest of the Nike force conducted its annual live fire practices at the White Sands Missile Range in NM, the Hawaiʻi Guard was unique in that it conducted its annual live-fire certifications from mobile launchers firing off the north shore of the island of Oʻahu. (National Guard)

Hawaiʻi was also the only state to man all of its firing batteries with Guardsmen; in the continental US the Guard manned about a third of all Nike sites. (National Guard)

The Hawaiʻi units were the only National Guard units to operate a command post. Guardsmen had demonstrated their ability to conduct real-world missions while in a part-time, state-controlled, status, in the process proudly adopting for themselves the title “Missile-Age Minutemen.”

The facilities were continuously operated until the closure of all four Nike sites on O`ahu in March 1970, when the entire Nike Program was closed down as part of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) with the Soviet Union (with the exception of batteries in Alaska and Florida that stayed active until the late 1970s; by 1975 all Nike Hercules sites had been deactivated.)