Military | Page 42 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

June 23, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Red Hill Underground

Originally Top Secret, Red Hill’s hidden facility became generally known in the early-1990s, when the facility was declassified.

Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor all of the Navy’s fuel was stored in unprotected above ground tanks at Pearl Harbor, next to the submarine base.

When RADM Chester Nimitz was Commander of the Bureau of Yards & Docks (in 1940) he wanted the Navy’s 2 ½-year supply of fuel oil protected from aerial attack – existing aboveground unprotected tanks next to the Submarine Base presented a vulnerable enemy target.

Standard practice was to dig a trench and bury the tanks, but this was impractical to store 255-million gallons of fuel oil; here, the Navy’s initial plan was to dig a series of tunnels and insert the tanks

Instead, consulting engineer James P Growden came up with excavating large vertical tank chambers instead of horizontal tunnels. (Nothing like this had ever been attempted before.)

This would increase the volume of material that could be excavated simultaneously and decrease the number of heavy equipment needed for hauling muck. It also decreased the unit cost for rock removal substantially.

Starting the day after Christmas 1940, 20 underground fuel storage tanks were built more that 100-feet below the surface. (The facility was designed as an impenetrable, bombproof reserve of fuel for the military.)

To determine the depth necessary to protect the fuel from Japanese aerial attack, the engineers gathered data from the Army, multiplied it four-fold and rounded the figure off to 100 feet of rock cover.

The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 had little effect on the work site – work on the storage facility proceeded virtually without interruption.

Each vertical tank is 100 feet in diameter and 250 feet high, roughly the size of a 20-story building, and lined with quarter-inch steel plates (it has an overall design capacity of 6-million barrels of fuel oil (9.97-billion gallons.))

Dug from the inside, the storage facility is connected with pipes (32-inch-diameter diesel pipe, and 18- and 16-inch jet fuel pipes) and tunnels down to a Pearl Harbor pumping station, more than two-and-a-half miles away.

The tanks were set up in two parallel rows with two main access tunnels, one above the other, bisecting the rows; smaller tunnels branched from these main axis tunnels to the tank cavities.

The upper dome of each fuel chamber was excavated first, starting with a ring tunnel, then working upward, towards the central shaft. They started digging in the upper portion of each tank chamber.

Upon completing the ring tunnel, the miners dug upwards in a hemisphere from all points around the ring, narrowing as they reached the central shaft. As soon as the upper hemisphere was concreted, workers were lowered down the central shaft to begin excavation of the tank chamber.

The miners continued to dig downwards in a cone until they reached the lower hemisphere of the tank chamber; tThe lining for the lower hemisphere was placed similarly to the top.

Then, they steel-lined the walls of the tank chamber. Reinforced concrete was placed against the rock and smooth continuously welded steel plates formed the inner liner. (Rogers)

Think of the scenario: with limited above ground disturbance, hollowing out twenty 20-story building-sized cavities 100-feet underground, lining each with ¼-inch steel (with concrete-backing,) testing and repairing leaks, and tunneling them together and to Pearl Harbor, 2 ½-miles away – in secrecy.

In 1995, the American Society of Civil Engineers placed the facility alongside Hoover Dam, the Eiffel Tower, Panama Canal and Statue of Liberty as a historic landmark.

In 2014, evidence of fuel leakage was noted. The Navy and City & County, State and Federal agencies have come together to evaluate the impact to the environment and community, and to look at solutions in dealing with the leak and strategies to mitigate the impacts.

While at DLNR, I had the opportunity to visit the Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility above Pearl Harbor; it’s a secured facility with no public tours or access.

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RedHillStorageTanks

RedHillStorageTanks-construction

RedHillStorageTanks-drawing_construction_inside-tank

RedHillStorageTanks-drawing_inside-tank

200 feet down to the bottom of an empty fuel tank-(honoluluadvertiser)

Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks

An intersection, about 450 feet beneath Red Hill-(honoluluadvertiser)

Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks

Honu_in_Tunnel_(honoluluadvertiser)

Red Hill Underground Storage Tanks

Walking_in_Tunnel_(honoluluadvertiser)

Honu_in_Tunnel-(honoluluadvertiser)

Layout-map-(honoluluadvertiser)

BWS Slide noting Red Hill Storage Tanks

BWS Slide noting Red Hill Storage_Tanks

May 30, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Memorial Day

On May 5, 1866, the village of Waterloo, New York was decorated with flags at half mast, draped with evergreens and mourning black, and flowers were placed on the graves of those killed in the Civil War. In the following years, the ceremonies were repeated.

Later, Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, declared that “Decoration Day” should be observed on May 30. It is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

“The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.” (General Order 11)

The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC.

By the end of the 19th century, Decoration Day ceremonies were being held on May 30 throughout the nation. State legislatures passed proclamations designating the day, and the Army and Navy adopted regulations for proper observance at their facilities.

In May 1966, Congress unanimously passed a resolution and President Lyndon B Johnson signed a Presidential Proclamation recognizing Waterloo as the Birthplace of Decoration Day / Memorial Day.

It was not until after World War I, however, that the day was expanded to honor those who have died in all American wars.

In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress, though it is still often called Decoration Day. It was then also placed on the last Monday in May.

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Memorial Day

May 17, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Salvaging Oklahoma

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was planned as the initial step of their Pacific campaign. Admiral Isoruku, then Commander-in-Chief, Combined Fleet, supposedly originated the plan in early-1941.

The force assembled 2 battleships, 6 carriers, 3 cruisers, approximately 20 destroyers and 5 submarines, including midgets which were carried by mother submarines.

The force departed at 6 am, November 26, Japan time, and set an indirect northern course for the next rendezvous, 200 miles north of Oahu. On December 6, when the force was still 800 miles north of O‘ahu; it received the long awaited code message to proceed with the attack.

When the Japanese attacked, 86 vessels, including 8 battleships, 7 cruisers, 28 destroyers and 5 submarines, plus the usual complement of small craft, were based in the harbor (there were no aircraft carriers moored at Pearl Harbor at the time.)

When the onslaught subsided, nearly every ship bore scars. One of the worst damaged, the Oklahoma, was salvaged by one of the most complex operations in history. (Morris) Salvage efforts concentrated on the least damaged ships first, the Oklahoma was one of the last ships to receive serious attention.

The Oklahoma was, at the time of the attack, located outboard of the battleship Maryland, which was moored alongside Ford Island. She was struck on the port side by four to nine torpedoes, which caused the ship to capsize quickly and come to rest on the bottom at an angle of over 150-degrees from upright.

The righting and refloating of the capsized battleship Oklahoma was the largest of the Pearl Harbor salvage jobs, and the most difficult. Because the Oklahoma was old and very badly damaged, future active service was not seriously contemplated. The salvage effort focused on clearing an important mooring berth for further use.

Refloating operations were commenced by installing four independent patches in breaches of the hull, the largest of which consisted of five sections and was 130 ft long by 57 ft high.

The external structure served to reinforce the patch, which consisted of 4-in. thick siding sealed with packing materials. The sections were secured to the sides by means of hook bolts installed in holes burned by divers through the damaged shell of the ship. The patches were sealed by means of concrete poured into forms along the bottom and up both ends.

Fuel oil, ammunition and some machinery were removed to lighten the ship. Coral fill was placed alongside her bow to ensure that the ship would roll, and not slide, when pulling began.

Oklahoma’s port side had been largely torn open by Japanese torpedoes, and a series of patches had to be installed. Divers worked in and around her to make the hull as airtight as possible; their work was critical to the salvage success.

They wore deep-sea diving dresses weighing 185-lbs, and worked for many hours several hundred feet from access openings. All of this was done in total darkness, underwater lamps being of no use because of the excessively murky water.

All in all, about 6000-individual dives were made, during salvage operations at Pearl Harbor, averaging approximately four hours per dive.

An extensive system of righting frames (or “bents”) and cable anchors was installed on the ship’s hull, twenty-one large winches (the winches were powered by motors from Honolulu street cars) were firmly mounted on nearby Ford Island, and cables were rigged between ship and shore. (Navy)

The Oklahoma capsized in a position parallel to the shore. Righting operations involved the use of 21 five hp DC motor-driven winches, each of which, through two 17-part tackles, applied an approximately horizontal force transverse to the ship.

To allow turning moments, pendants extending from the outer blocks were secured to the tips of 21 40-ft-high “A” frames mounted on the above-water portion of the starboard bilge.

The first pull began on March 8, 1943, the final pull was on May 20, 1943 – it took 74-days to turn the ship over. She was floated by pumping air into air-tight compartments and pumping water out of the hull.

The ship came afloat in early November 1943, and was drydocked in late December. Once in Ship Yard hands, Oklahoma’s most severe structural damage was repaired sufficiently to make her watertight.

Guns, some machinery, and the remaining ammunition and stores were taken off. After several months in Drydock Number Two, the ship was again refloated and moored elsewhere in Pearl Harbor

The Oklahoma was later sold to the Moore Drydock Co of Oakland, California, for scrapping. On May 17, 1947, while under tow, the Oklahoma sank 540-miles out of Pearl Harbor with no one on board.

In the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were 2,402 US deaths from the attack. 1,177 of those deaths were from the USS Arizona, while 429 of the deaths were from the USS Oklahoma (14 Marines and 415 Sailors.)

Thirty-five crew members were positively identified and buried in the years immediately after the attack. By 1950, all unidentified remains were laid to rest as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Recently, the Defense Department recovered for identification and return to families the last of 388 sailors and Marines killed on the battleship USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941, and later buried as “unknowns” in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. (Lots of information here is from Navy, Morris and USSOklahoma-com.)

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Capsizing of Oklahoma-illustration

Ship righted to about 30 degrees-29 March 1943

Backstay connections on the starboard hull. Cables attached here were connected to winches ashore

Ship righted to about 30 degrees, on 29 March 1943

Beginning of salvage operations, with righting bents and cables installed

View from off the port side, 24 December 1943, more than a month and a half after refloating and four days before the ship entered drydock

Installation of #1 and #2 righting bents on the capsized hull of the battleship

Oklahoma righted using Honolulu Street Car Motors-1943

Hauling blocks and tackles under preliminary tension, viewed from aft of the capsized battleship

Commencement of righting operations on the capsized battleship, at Pearl Harbor, 8 March 1943

Aerial view from off the port side, 6 November 1943, after the ship had been refloated

Refloated battleship enters drydock-12-28-1943

March 15, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Harold Melville Clark

Harold Melville Clark was born October 4, 1890, to Charles Asa Clark and Amanda Palmer Clark in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Clark family had a strong military tradition dating back to the Revolutionary War.

His father fought Spanish forces in the Philippines while assigned to Company E, 13th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, during the Spanish American War of 1898. Clark’s older brother, Charles, served as a field-artillery officer with the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe during World War I.

The end of the Spanish American War brought a period of growth and interest in the Philippines. In 1904, the Clarks moved to Manila, where they enjoyed considerable wealth and prestige due to the family’s business ventures. During this time, Harold attended the American High School in Manila; he graduated April 1, 1910.

Harold followed in his family’s footsteps and returned to the US for military training. After being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the cavalry in 1913, his first assignment was with 1st Cavalry Division.

A couple years later he transferred into the Signal Corps’ aviation section and went to the North Island Flying School in San Diego, Calif. On May 3, 1917, Clark received his rating as a junior military aviator.

While Clark was getting his Army wings, the Signal Corps’ aviation section and military aviation in general was getting a troublesome start in the Hawaiian Islands. The first Army airplanes, pilots and crews arrived in Oahu in July 1913. The planes were based at Fort Kamehameha, near present-day Hickam Air Force Base.

Lieutenant Harold Geiger, who commanded the aviation assets, noted his limited aircraft were in poor shape. His flights were limited to short flights in Pearl Harbor and a longer flight to Diamond Head and back to Fort Kamehameha.

Geiger was ordered to cease all flying operations in late 1913. The planes were sold locally, and the engines were sent back to the North Island Flying School. The Hawaiian Islands wouldn’t see any more Army aviation activity until 1917. (Romano; Arlington)

Major Harold Clark became Army Department Aviation Officer and arrived in the Territory of Hawaii in 1917 to take command of the Army’s 6th Aero Squadron.

A major construction effort was initiated at the new Army air base at Pearl Harbor. Before long, Ford Island had two double seaplane hangars with concrete ramps, two wooden land plane hangars, one small motor repair and machine shop, and a supply warehouse.

In the center to the south end a narrow strip of land was cleared for land plane operation. By this time, the 6th’s strength increased to 10 officers. (hawaii-gov)

Clark quickly began to learn the Hawaiian winds and how to fly in them. On March 15, 1918, he flew to Molokai and back to Oahu – the first round trip inter-island flight ever made in the Hawaiian Islands.

His next feat was to try a three-island flight. Agreeing to take the mail, on May 9, 1918, Clark and mechanic Sergeant Robert Gray took off from Fort Kamehameha Oahu and flew to Maui. (Griffith)

After landing in Maui, they continued onto the island of Hawai‘i; nearing Hawai‘i’s coastline, Clark encountered thick cloud formations and promptly lost his bearings. Darkness added to his worries, so the Army flyer decided to land quickly. His airplane crashed on the slope of Mauna Kea.

Unhurt, pilot and mechanic found themselves in a jungle-like brush with no civilization in sight. Hoping to draw attention to their location, the pair set a fire some distance away from the wreckage … no rescuers came, so they started to walk out. (Hawaii-gov)

Two days after the crash, Clark and Gray emerged from the jungle unhurt. Clark delivered the letters, received an enormous welcome from the island’s residents and was the first airman to fly the mail in the Hawaiian Islands. (Griffith)

Clark continued to make regular flights among the islands. However, he was ordered back to the US mainland August 28, 1918, for pursuit training at the North Island Flying School.

Following this, Clark assumed command of Pursuit Group, First Provisional Wing, at Minneola, Long Island, N.Y. Clark commanded this group for only a short time before being ordered to Panama at the end of 1918.

On the morning of May 2, 1919, Clark and two other aviators, Lieutenant JRL Hitt and Lieutenant Thomas Cecil Tonkin, left France Field for Balboa in an Army seaplane. While enroute, the plane developed engine problems, but the trio made it to Balboa safely.

That same afternoon, the three aviators began the return flight to France Field with Hitt at the controls. Due to the plane’s earlier troubles, the flight followed the Panama Canal at an altitude of 250 feet. Shortly into the flight, the plane’s engine stopped.

The plane crashed into the front of Miraflores Locks at about 5 pm. “The machine crumpled up like a house of cards, and the three men were thrown into the water of the lock. Lieutenant Tonkin was undoubtedly killed instantly by the twisting timbers of the machine.”

“… Major Clark sank to the bottom of the lock, and it’s not known whether he was killed in the crash or whether he drowned.” (Panama Star & Herald; Romano; Arlington)

Hitt was severely injured in the crash, but bystanders rescued him. The Army ruled his death as an accident due to internal injuries caused by “aeroplane traumatism,” according to a Defense Department report on Clark’s death dated May 8, 1919. Clark was buried May 29, 1919, with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.

The base in the Philippines that would eventually bear Clark’s name was established in 1902 as Fort Stotensberg. The Army used this installation as a cavalry post following the Spanish American War. During World War II, this base would be pivotal in the Army Air Force’s effort to win the air war against Japan.

Following the end of World War II and creation of the U.S. Air Force in 1947, Fort Stotensberg was renamed Clark Air Base. The US turned over possession of Clark Air Base to the Republic of the Philippines November 26, 1991. Clark Air Base is now an international airport serving the Philippines. (Romano; Arlington)

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Maj_Harold_Melville_Clark

Harold_Melville_Clark-HS Diploma

Harold_Melville_Clark-Junior Military Aviator Certificate

Harold_Melville_Clark

In 1918 Maj Harold Clark & Sgt Robert Gray flew a Curtiss R-6 seaplane (similar to this) on the first flight from Oahu to Big Island

In 1918 Maj Harold Clark and Sgt Robert Gray survived a crash on Mauna Kea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii

Cloudy slopes of Mauna Kea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, where Maj. Harold Clark crashed in 1918

Harold Melville Clark gravestone

Clark Air Force Base

March 10, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Naked Warriors

They were equipped only with swim fins, face mask and a slate board with a lead pencil on which to record intelligence gathered … their only weapon was a knife (thus, nearly defenseless or ‘naked;’) they were part of the Underwater Demolition Team (UDT.)

The Pacific Underwater Demolition Teams originated at Waimanalo Beach in December, 1943. (A ‘Naked Warrior’ monument commemorates their training at Bellows.)

On November 19, 1943, five thousand US Marines invaded Tarawa Island in the Gilbert Islands. Offshore coral reefs and other obstacles in the surf had resulted in many of the Marines drowning or being hit by enemy fire because their landing craft could not reach the beach.

Tarawa proved that troops should not be sent against enemy beaches until a thorough off-shore reconnaissance had been made.

To prevent a repetition of Tarawa it was necessary for trained personnel to search the water off the beaches and remove obstacles to make the passage from ship to shore nearly safe as possible. UDTs were organized in the Pacific following the Tarawa invasion.

UDT-1 and UDT-2 (each with about 15-officers and 150-enlisted men) were formed at Amphibious Training Base (ATB) Waimanalo, which was situated in proximity of today’s Bellows Air Force Station (AFS.) (By the end of the war, there were 34 UDTs.)

War planners realized success would require massive and numerous beach attacks from Africa to Normandy to hundreds of islands in the Pacific. Every one of those beaches was defended by an intricate network of underwater obstacles, booms, mines, chains and barriers.

Some were straight angled pillars and some were L-shaped, X-shaped and H-shaped “hedgehogs” that functioned even when knocked over. The obstacles could rip the bottom out of landing craft and often were topped by “teller” mines, flat plate-shaped explosives (“teller” is German for “plate.”)

Initially, about thirty officers and one-hundred and fifty men trained in underwater demolition work at Waimanalo. The original teams were comprised of men from the Navy, Army and Marine Corps.

After their first combat deployment in January-February 1944, UDT training was moved to Kihei, Maui, because Waimanalo didn’t have the space or facilities needed for demolition training.

The Naval Combat Demolition Training and Experimental Base, Maui was set up on the beach near the pier of the Kamaole Amphibious Training Base. (A monument commemorating UDT-14 is at Kamaole Beach Park I, in Kihei.)

Some of the first to go ashore in combat were 6-man units, called Navy Combat Demolition Units; divers located obstacles, mapped lines of attack, disarmed mines and demolished natural and man-made beach blockages.

During their early missions, Navy combat swimmers were completely clothed in combat uniforms, boots and metal helmets. That changed during a mission in preparation for the invasion of the Japanese held atoll of Kwajalein in January 1944.

Ordered to conduct a reconnaissance mission to assess beach conditions in advance of the planned assault, the two man team of Ensign Lewis F. Luehrs and Chief Petty Officer Bill Acheson could not get close enough to shore because of a coral reef.

They stripped to their underwear and swam over the reef to complete the mission undetected, becoming the first “Naked Warriors.”

Following the success of that mission, training emphasized strong swimming skills and operating without the use of lifelines, wearing only face masks, swim trunks and fins.

Underwater Demolition Teams were the foremost precursors of today’s Navy SEALs (starting on the windward coast of Oʻahu, in Waimanalo.)

The concept for development of an improved “Naval Guerrilla/Counter-guerrilla Warfare” capability within the US Navy was delineated in a March 10, 1961 Navy memorandum of recommendations.

Included was a recommendation for a wide range of “additional unconventional warfare capabilities within, or as an extension of our amphibious forces.”

The same memorandum stated that, “An appropriate name for such units could be ‘SEAL’ units, SEAL being a contraction of SEA, AIR, LAND, and thereby indicating an all-around, universal capability.” (Navy)

A bronze “Naked Warrior” statue greets visitors at the Navy UDT-SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida. (Lots of information here is from Navy and Navy UDT-SEAL Museum.)

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