Military | Page 43 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

November 20, 2015 by Peter T Young 6 Comments

Kainalu Plane Crash

2nd Lt William Wright and Kainalu Elementary School student Steven Schmitz were killed at 8:30 pm, November 20, 1961, when a “Skyhawk” attack bomber crashed in Kailua.

Two marine jet bombers collided over a residential area and one of them crashed into a home, killing the pilot and the 8 year old boy (son of Coast Guard Commander Frank C Schmitz.)

The planes were returning from a run at the target island (Kahoʻolawe). One plane made it back and landed safely with vertical stabilizer and rudder damage, the other plane went down.

In reconstructing the pieces of the plane in a base hangar, it was evident that Lt. Wright survived the initial impact and could have ejected, but chose to stay with his airplane and tried to dead stick it over the town and into Kailua Bay. Unfortunately, it wasn’t successful despite the heroic efforts of Lt. Wright. (Norm Spilleth)

A military crash crew reported it was unable to approach the plane for an hour after the crash. The jet hit the house squarely after parts of it fell near the Kainalu Elementary School.

Mrs. Robert Craig, principal of the school, said she heard the jets fly over during the PTA meeting (held that night,) then a loud explosion. She said a fence near the school was set afire and she saw the nearby home in a huge sheet of flame. (Chicago Tribune, November 21, 1961)

The matter was the subject of a public presentation by Dr Paul Brennan at a Kainalu Elementary School PTA meeting.

The following link will take you to a video of the presentation; it is followed by a forum discussion by some of the eye witnesses to the event.

The presentation by Brennan and following discussion by the eyewitnesses gives a broad perspective of what happened.

(I had been a 2nd grade student at Kainalu Elementary the year before – Nelia has been a Kainalu 5th grade teacher for the past 10+ years.) The image shows the sad headline.

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Kainalu_Crash-Honolulu Advertiser, November 21, 1961

Kainalu_Crash-Kingsport News, TN, November 22, 1961

Kainalu_Crash-Long Beach, CA Press-Telegram, November 21, 1961

Kainalu_Crash-Evening Times, MD, November 21, 1961

November 16, 2015 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Fueling the Forces

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.

In 1942, US victory at the battle of Midway altered the role of Hawaii from a defense position to “a springboard for the Pacific offensive. Troops poured into the islands en route to the western Pacific, and were housed in barracks and makeshift camps throughout the islands.”

“There were 43,000-soldiers on Oʻahu on December 7, 1941, plus a handful on the other islands. In the first six months of the war, the total swelled to 135,000. By June of 1945, when plans were mounting for an offensive against the homeland of Japan, troops on Oʻahu alone numbered 253,000.” (Allen; army-mil)

Jungle training and coordinated Army-Navy amphibious landings were practiced in anticipation of the island-hopping battle strategy of the western Pacific. Areas on Oahu that had been taken over by the military at the onset of war were developed as training areas.

“Hawaiʻi served as an invaluable training ground for the amphibious and jungle warfare which characterized the Pacific fighting. Well removed from the combat zone, yet 2,000 miles nearer the battlefront than the Mainland …”

“… there was sufficient area and enough equipment in the Islands to handle many thousands of troops and to embark them for large-scale operations. More important, some of the varied climates and terrains in Hawaii were like those of the target areas.” (Allen; army-mil)

To fuel the forces, the military had three major fuel storage sites located in the mauka lands of Oʻahu: Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility, Waikakalaua Fuel Storage Annex and Kipapa Gulch Fuel Storage Annex (other storage areas supplemented the effort.)

The Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility was started the day after Christmas 1940 and continued through 1943; 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.

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.

Each tank is able to store up to 12.5 million gallons of fuel. 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.

Waikakalaua Fuel Storage Annex near Wheeler Army Airfield, one of two Air Force Fuel Storage Annexes, was made up of nine 1.75-million-gallon underground storage tanks.

It borders the Wheeler Army Airfield on the Schofield Plateau; underground fuel storage tanks are reported to have been constructed between 1942 and 1945, and were used to store various fuels since 1943.

The other Air Force fuel storage facility was the Kipapa Gulch Fuel Storage Annex that consisted on four massive underground tanks. Each tank is three times the length of a football field. Each tank could hold 2.4-million-gallons of fuel.

A 20-mile, 10-inch pipeline connected the Waikakalaua Fuel Storage Annex and the Kipapa Gulch Fuel Storage Annex with Hickam Air Force Base. Fuels that were stored in the tanks included aviation and motor gasoline and later, JP-4 and JP-8 jet fuel. (army-mil)

The image shows the aboveground fuel storage tanks at the Submarine Base in Pearl Harbor. (October 13, 1941)

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May 11, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Boles Field

On August 1, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the country’s 13th national park into existence – Hawaiʻi National Park. At first, the park consisted of only the summits of Kilauea and Mauna Loa on Hawaiʻi and Haleakalā on Maui.

Eventually, Kilauea Caldera was added to the park, followed by the forests of Mauna Loa, the Kaʻu Desert, the rain forest of Olaʻa and the Kalapana archaeological area of the Puna/Kaʻu Historic District. (On, July 1, 1961, Hawaiʻi National Park’s units were separated and re-designated as Haleakala National Park and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.)

On-the-ground administration of the park began with the arrival of Superintendent Thomas R Boles in April 1922. Boles’ designation was made effective two months before he entered on duty.

Born in Yell County, Arkansas, he was the son of Judge Thomas and Catherine (Keith) Boles (his father voted in favor of the establishment of the world’s first national park, Yellowstone, back in 1872.)

Boles was educated in the grammar and high schools of Fort Smith, Arkansas, and took a civil engineering course at the School of Mines, University of Missouri.

For a few years, Boles was involved in various construction and engineering endeavors, as construction engineer for the Illinois Steel Bridge Co, in Arkansas and Oklahoma; assistant field engineer, Interstate Commerce Commission; chief engineer, Fort Smith Light & Traction Co., and chief engineer, Fort Smith & Western Railroad Co. (Nellist)

Boles arrived in Hawaiʻi in March, 1922; he became the first superintendent of the Hawaiʻi National Park, appointed to the position by the Secretary of the Interior. He has jurisdiction over a total area of 118,000 acres of the volcanic area of the Territory.

At the same time the Park was created (1916,) the military opened a rest and recreation Camp within the Park boundaries – the Kilauea Military Camp (KMC.)

KMC was the military’s rest and recreation facility on the Island of Hawaiʻi; it was situated on about 50-acres within the Park boundaries.

A military landing field was constructed on volcanic sand at the area called Sand Spit Horst, located just south of Halemaʻumaʻu crater. It was referred to as Kilauea Airfield.

However, shortly after completion, on the morning of May 11, 1924, a ranger from Hawaiʻi National Park noticed several hot boulders on the rim of Halemaʻumaʻu. Evidently, a small explosion had occurred in the pit overnight.

The park superintendent, Thomas Boles, put up roadblocks a half a mile from the crater and ventured out to investigate with two other observers.

Boles was within 10 feet of rim when he heard a “thud” followed by a “prolonged whooosh.” Thousands of red-hot boulders shot up amidst a fury of black ash. The ash column rose 3,000-feet above the crater.

Fortunately, all three made it back to their vehicle, sustaining only a few cuts and bruises. They found that a boulder weighing nearly 100-pounds had sailed over the vehicle during the explosion, landing more than 2,000 feet from the crater.

They pushed the roadblocks back 2-miles from the crater.

Similar events followed; the largest occurred on May 18. The dark, mushrooming column “loomed up like a menacing genie from the Arabian Nights.” Static electricity generated between ash particles produced streaks of blue lightning and condensed steam mixed with the ash to create a rainstorm of gray mud. (Boles; NPS)

Truman Taylor, a young accountant from Pahala sugar plantation had slipped past the road blocks set up by the Superintendent and was within 2,000-feet of the rim (near today’s Halemaʻumaʻu parking lot) when the explosion occurred.

He was hit by a boulder and severely burnt by the falling ash. Rescuers hurried in to the caldera when the explosion ended some 20 minutes later, but the unfortunate man died on the way to the hospital.

Scientists estimate that approximately 400 million cubic meters (520-million cubic yards) of magma shuttled down the east rift zone conduit in 1924. That’s enough magma to fill 265,000 Olympic swimming pools. (USGS)

A news article in March 1925 reported that a New Army field was under construction on the bluff between Uwekahuna and KMC (Hilo Tribune-Herald 1925.) The new field was named Boles Field after the park superintendent, Thomas R Boles.

Although originally anticipated to be in a much more desirable location than the original Spit Horst field, it was almost immediately found to be dangerously short, and was evaluated in a report on landing fields on the island of Hawai‘i (Hawaiian Department 1925:)

“I ‘shot’ the field and found the wind currents so treacherous and uncertain that it was next to impossible to land short without a good chance of being dashed to the ground prematurely. Personally, I would rather trust my parachute than use this field.”

The location of this second field has been variously identified as “outside Kilauea Crater about one half mile North-East of Uwekahuna toward KMC, close to the belt road” and “west of the great Kilauea Crater” (Hilo Tribune-Herald 1925.) (NPS)

The field remained in use for fifteen years primarily for recreational purposes. As part of its war planning, the military surveyed several sites on Hawaiʻi as possible airfields and emergency landing strips. The optimum site was Keauhou, though cost ultimately prevented its development.

Other fields, notably Morse Field at Ka Lae (South Point,) became the primary airfields for the military in Hawai‘i. The military and NPS approved the existing airfield at Kīlauea for emergency use, but the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) cautioned that it was unsafe for military aircraft.

In 1941, following the Pearl Harbor attack, Civilian Conservation Corps workers assisted the military in plowing and obstructing the single field to render it unusable by the enemy.

Nearly two years later, in December 1943, the Army leveled the field again to use as a training site for spotter planes employed in exercises at the Kaʻū Desert Training and Impact Area.

The Park Service indicated in August 1945 that airfield were incompatible with NPS policy; in 1946, the CAA concluded there was no need for an airfield in the park, a policy later reinforced by legislation. (Chapman) (Boles retired from the National Park Service in 1951.)

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Thomas R Boles

Some Military Uses-Kilauea-Map-Nakamura

Kilauea Military Camp, 1936-Chapman

Kilauea Military Camp-(NPS)-1923

Kilauea Airfield-1923-Chapman

Halemaumau-Eruption-1924

8-10 ton boulder-formed an impact crater in the aviation strip. View looks away from Halemaumau-sent May 18, 1924

April 28, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Often Overlooked – Not Forgotten

When you think of military facilities out on the ʻEwa Plain, your attention is most often brought only to the Naval Air Station Barber’s Point. Yet, that was not the first military installation, there. An often-overlooked airfield and battlefield are there, too.

Let’s look back.

On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright piloted the first powered airplane 20-feet above a wind-swept beach in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina; the flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. Over the following years the fledgling flight industry evolved and grew. Within a decade, tactical use was evident in the US military.

Prior to powered, winged flight, military used blimps, airships and dirigible balloons (lighter than air craft using gas to lift the craft.) The US military looked to bring them to the Islands.

On March 28, 1917, folks looked for a location for a lighter-than-air base in Hawaiʻi; “the most suitable site for the location of a rigid airship station in Hawaiʻi is, on the south side of Oʻahu, between Pearl Harbor and Barber’s Point.”

Back then, runways weren’t needed/used for the airship; they were tied to mooring masts (a line from the mast was tied to the bow of the airship to hold it there, while not in use.)

On May 4, 1925, the Navy contracted with Louis R Smith of Honolulu “to erect the mooring mast, clear the site, erect buildings, and install incidental machinery and piping.” A circular railroad for tethering the airship was later added. (Frye & Resnick)

The ʻEwa Mooring Mast was meant to be used by the helium-inflated airships USS Akron and USS Macon. They were designed for long-range scouting in support of naval operations. Each carried Curtiss Sparrowhawk biplanes which could be launched and recovered in flight, extending the range over the open ocean, looking for enemy vessels.

Sometime later, the Navy also constructed an oil-surfaced, 150-foot by 1,500-foot emergency landing field at ʻEwa.

Although intended to provide an air station for lighter-than-air craft, none ever visited the station. The crashes of the Akron (1933 off New Jersey) and the Macon (1935 off California) resulted in the Navy cancelling the program. But that didn’t end aviation activities in the ʻEwa Plain.

On February 15, 1935, the Honolulu Advertiser reported on the closure of the Mooring Mast and also noted “The field will be put in condition to make it suitable for emergency airplane landings.”

That year, the Army broke ground for a more than 2,000-acre airbase to be known as Hickam Field. Additional work continued at the ʻEwa Field.

The construction of what would become Marine Corps Base ʻEwa (ʻEwa Field) was part of the US military and economic expansion into the Pacific region starting in the 1930s and early-1940s to counter the Japanese Empire.

The US Navy’s plan for expansion of its bases was part of a larger mobilization of the American economy for war, which began in 1939, picked up sharply in mid-1940 after the Germans overran Western Europe.

Because of the growing needs of Naval and Marine Aviation in the Pacific as part of the expansion to a 10,000-aircraft Navy, the Navy decided to make ʻEwa its own base for the Marines, rather than a part of the larger Naval Air Station.

ʻEwa was made available for Marine Corps aircraft use in 1939. In September 1940, after the original lease expired, an additional 3,500-acres were acquired from the Campbell Estate for the enlargement of the emergency landing field.

Ewa Field’s war-time configuration was begun in January 1941 when Marines arrived to begin expanding the station from the short landing mat and airship mooring mast into an installation that could house a Marine aircraft group. By January 29 of that year, it was pronounced “available for use … for carrier landing practice”.

Additional construction on the station commenced that month; men were quartered in tents for several months until housing was finished in late-1941. In the interim, runways and permanent operations and support facilities were built. A control tower (‘crow’s nest’) for the emerging runways was built in the mooring mast. (AECOM & Mason)

By December 1941, the station had paved runways in the form of a large X, a concrete aircraft warm-up platform, and many support and operational buildings.

The Marine Corps’ ʻEwa Field and the surrounding vicinity was one of several areas on Oʻahu that Japanese forces targeted during their surprise attack on December 7, 1941; it appears that ʻEwa Field was attacked approximately two minutes before Pearl Harbor.

While the ultimate Japanese military objective was the temporary destruction of the American Pacific fleet, a secondary objective included the targeting of aircraft (on the ground and in the air,) including ʻEwa Field, to guarantee air superiority and ensure success of the mission. (Frye & Resnick)

The Marines had 48-aircraft stationed at Ewa Field; in the attack the action was perceived as coming in three “separate and distinct attacks” and was undertaken by a large number of aircraft.

Strafing with their machine guns and cannon, the Zeros concentrated their fire on the “dispersed tactical aircraft” firing short bursts, the reversed course for repeated passes at their targets. (The first wave had destroyed all of the aircraft at ʻEwa.)

“(W)e noticed 20 or 30-airplanes in a traffic pattern at ʻEwa, the Marine landing field. We found they were Japanese dive bombers strafing the field.” (Welch; Bond)

With the expansion of naval bases in the Pacific, including the continued expansion of ʻEwa, the US created a new air base at Barbers Point, designed to provide the necessary landing field facilities for the plane complements of two aircraft carriers.” (The new airfield at Barbers Point started in November 1941.)

So, there were two nearby air stations built at the ʻEwa Plain: ʻEwa Field, the first (and smaller) and the Naval Air Station Barber’s Point, the larger. (After 1942, ʻEwa Field was known as Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) ʻEwa.)

ʻEwa was officially closed on June 18, 1952 and its property assumed by Naval Air Station Barbers Point. (The thirty-two revetments on the property, originally designed to shield aircraft from bomb blasts, have served as stables since the 1950s and provide a home for approximately 50 horses.)

Barber’s Point was decommissioned by the Navy in 1998 and turned over to the State of Hawaiʻi for use as Kalaeloa Airport and is used by the US Coast Guard, Hawaii Community College Flight Program, Hawaiʻi National Guard and general aviation, as well as an alternate landing site for Honolulu International Airport.

Several installations on Oahu associated with the December 7 attack are listed on the National Register as National Historic Landmarks: Pearl Harbor, Hickam Field, Kaneohe, and Wheeler Field.

ʻEwa Plain Battlefield, which is composed of former ʻEwa Field, was the only major battle site from the Japanese attack not currently listed in the National Register of Historic Places (on February 9, 2015, the Keeper of the National Register noted the Ewa Mooring Mast Field is eligible for listing on the National Register.)

Efforts continue to get it appropriated listed with the other battlefields. (Lots of the information here is from John Bond, Frye & Resnick and AECOM & Mason.)

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Ewa Field on December 2, 1941 NARA

Barbers (L) – Ewa Field (R)

Marine Corps Air Station Ewa (right) and Naval Air Station Barbers Point, left

Marine Corps Air Station Ewa (left) and Naval Air Station Barbers Point, right, September 1944

Marine Corps Air Station Ewa -ATC-B

Marine-Ewa_AirStation-(top)-Navy-BarbersPoint-(bottom)

Ewa MCAS 9-4-41

MCAS EWA WWII

Marine Corps Air Station Ewa

Ewa Field-NPS-Determination

Ewa Mooring Mast

Ewa Mooring Mast-12-July-1940

Orville_Wright-First_Flight-Dec_17,_1903

USS Akron-ZRS-4

USS-Macon-under-construction

USS-Akron-with-biplane

November 11, 2014 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Veterans Day

World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” – officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France.

However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany, went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words:
“To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926, with these words:
“Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and”

“Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and”

“Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.”

An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday—a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as “Armistice Day.”

Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen in the Nation’s history; and later, American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word “Armistice” and inserting in its place the word “Veterans.”

With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.

Later that same year, on October 8th, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first “Veterans Day Proclamation” which stated:
“In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans’ organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose.”

“Toward this end, I am designating the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs as Chairman of a Veterans Day National Committee, which shall include such other persons as the Chairman may select, and which will coordinate at the national level necessary planning for the observance. I am also requesting the heads of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch of the Government to assist the National Committee in every way possible.”

The first Veterans Day under the new law was observed with much confusion on October 25, 1971. It was quite apparent that the commemoration of this day was a matter of historic and patriotic significance to a great number of our citizens, and so on September 20th, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 94-97 (89 Stat. 479), which returned the annual observance of Veterans Day to its original date of November 11, beginning in 1978.

This action supported the desires of the overwhelming majority of state legislatures, all major veterans service organizations and the American people.

Veterans Day continues to be observed on November 11, regardless of what day of the week on which it falls. The restoration of the observance of Veterans Day to November 11 not only preserves the historical significance of the date, but helps focus attention on the important purpose of Veterans Day:

Today, Veterans Day, is a celebration to honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.

To all who served, Thank You.