Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Honouliuli

The island of Oʻahu is divided into 6 moku (districts), consisting of: ‘Ewa, Kona, Koʻolauloa, Koʻolaupoko, Waialua and Waiʻanae. These moku were further divided into 86 ahupua‘a (land divisions within a moku.)

‘Ewa was divided into 12-ahupua‘a, consisting of (from east to west): Hālawa, ‘Aiea, Kalauao, Waimalu, Waiau, Waimano, Mānana, Waiʻawa, Waipi‘o, Waikele, Hōʻaeʻae and Honouliuli.

‘Ewa was at one time the political center for O‘ahu chiefs. This was probably due to its abundant resources that supported the households of the chiefs, particularly the many fishponds around the lochs of Puʻuloa (“long hill,) better known today as Pearl Harbor. (Cultural Surveys)

Each had fisheries in the harbor, floodplains with irrigated kalo and fishponds, and interior (lower kula valley streams/gulches) and mountain forests.  One of these, Honouliuli, had a large coastal area, including what it is typically referred to as the “ʻEwa Plains.”  (Kirch)

Honouliuli includes lands extending from the mountains, to the watered plains where loʻi kalo (taro pond fields) and loko ia (fishponds) were developed, to the arid plains and rich fisheries on the ocean. Along the ocean-fronted coast of Honouliuli are noted places in lore and ancient life, such as Keahi, Kupaka, Keoneula (Oneula), Kualakai, Kalaeloa and Koʻolina.  (Maly)

Honouliuli (dark bay) includes a wide plain back of Puʻuloa (Pearl Harbor) and Keahi (a point west of Pearl Harbor) where the homeless, friendless ghosts were said to wander about. These were the ghosts of people who were not found by their family ʻaumakua or gods and taken home with them, or had not found the leaping places where they could leap into the nether world.  (Pukui)

In 1793, Captain George Vancouver described this area as desolate and barren:  “From the commencement of the high land to the westward of Opooroah (Puʻuloa – Pearl Harbor) was … one barren rocky waste, nearly destitute of verdure, cultivation or inhabitants, with little variation all to the west point of the island. …”

In 1839, Missionary EO Hall described the area between Pearl Harbor and Kalaeloa as follows: “Passing all the villages (after leaving the Pearl River) at one or two of which we stopped, we crossed the barren desolate plain”.  (Robicheaux)  In the 1880s, these lands were being turned over to cattle grazing and continued through the early-1900s.

Nearby Moku ʻUmeʻume (Ford Island) provided pili grass for house thatching. Ewa’s house builders gathered their pili grass for house thatching here until the time came when foreign shingles were introduced, then thatching was discontinued.

It was also covered with kiawe trees; it was noted that the kiawe forests there and the Honouliuli region supplied much of the fuel for kitchen fires in Honolulu.

Reported in 1898, a few fishermen and some of their families built shanties by the shore where they lived, fished and traded their catch for taro at ‘Ewa.  Their drinking water was taken from nearby ponds, and it was so brackish that other people could not stand to drink it. (Cameron; Maly)

James Campbell, who arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1850, ended up in Lāhainā and started a sugar plantation there in 1860 (later known as Pioneer Mill.)  He also started to acquire lands in Oʻahu, Maui and the island of Hawaiʻi.

In 1876, he purchased approximately 15,000-acres at Kahuku on the northernmost tip of Oʻahu from HA Widemann and Julius L Richardson. In 1877, he acquired from John Coney 41,000-acres of ranch land at Honouliuli.

Many critics scoffed at the doubtful value of his Honouliuli purchase. But Campbell envisioned supplying the arid area with water and commissioned California well-driller James Ashley to drill a well on his Honouliuli Ranch.

In 1879, Ashley drilled Hawaiʻi’s first artesian well; James Campbell’s vision had made it possible for Hawaiʻi’s people to grow sugar cane on the dry lands of the ʻEwa Plain.

“At 240 feet the water commenced to overflow. The bore was continued to 273 feet, the flow increasing and coming to rise from one-half to two-thirds of an inch crown above the pipe, 7 inches in diameter.  This success was a happy surprise to the community. (There was) a sheet of pure water flowing like a dome of glass from all sides of the well casing, and continuing to flow night and day, without diminution.”  (Congressional Record, 1881)

What they discovered was vast reservoirs of artesian water; the groundwater here is composed of a freshwater lens that generally moves toward the ocean but is impeded by a wedge of caprock that overlies the volcanic rock near the coast.  (Nellist, Bauer)

When the first well came in at Honouliuli the Hawaiians named it “Waianiani” (crystal waters.)  (Nellist) The ʻEwa Plain has been irrigated with ground water since 1890. By 1930, Ewa Plantation had drilled 70 artesian wells to irrigate cane lands; more were drilled later.

It was some years after the first artesian wells were brought in before there was a general understanding of the formation of the coastal caprock and its vital importance in the creation and functioning of the artesian reservoirs.

Discovery of artesian water at Honouliuli was beyond question the most important single contribution to the development of Oʻahu and Honolulu as we know the island and city today.  (Nellist)  (The flow from the well continued for 60-years until it was sealed by the City and County of Honolulu in 1939.)

In 1889, Campbell leased about 40,000-acres of land for fifty years to BF Dillingham (of Oʻahu Railway and Land Co;) after several assignments and sub-leases, about 7,860-acres of Campbell land ended up with Ewa Planation.

By 1923, Ewa Plantation was the first sugar company in the world to raise ten tons of sugar per acre and, by 1933, the plantation produced over 61,000-tons of sugar a year.

Ewa Plantation was considered one of the most prosperous plantations in Hawaiʻi and in 1931 a new 50-year lease was executed, completing the agreement with Oʻahu Railway and Land Company and beginning an association with Campbell Estate.

By 1936, ʻEwa Plantation Company was the first plantation to have a fully mechanized harvesting operation and by 1946 tests were made to convert the hauling of cane from railroads to large trucks.

During WWII, Japanese Americans were put in internment camps in at least eight locations on Hawaiʻi; one of those sites was at Honouliuli Gulch.  The forced removal of these individuals began a nearly four-year odyssey to a series of camps in Hawaiʻi and on the continental United States.

They were put in these camps, not because they had been tried and found guilty of something, but because either they or their parents or ancestors were from Japan and, as such, they were deemed a “threat” to national security.

In 1962, Castle and Cooke purchased majority control of ʻEwa Plantation Company stock and in 1970 ʻEwa Plantation Company merged with Oʻahu Sugar Company in Waipahu (the ʻEwa mill closed in the mid-1970s after the sale; the mill was demolished in 1985.)

Campbell became known by the Hawaiians as “Kimo Ona-Milliona” (James the Millionaire).  Despite his success in sugar, his interests turned to other matters, primarily ranching and real estate.

When James Campbell died on April 21, 1900, the Estate of James Campbell was created as a private trust to administer his assets for the benefit of his heirs (in 2007, the James Campbell Company succeeded the Estate of James Campbell.) The Estate played a pivotal role in Hawaiʻi history, from the growth of sugar plantations to the growing new City of Kapolei.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The Last Survivor

The message: “Air Raid, Pearl Harbor. This is no drill” came at 0755 on December 7, as Japanese planes swept overhead in an attempt to cripple the Pacific Fleet.  Taney, moored alongside Pier 6, Honolulu Harbor, stood to her antiaircraft guns when word of the surprise attack reached her.

The US Coast Guard Cutter Taney (originally launched as the Roger B Taney) was named for Roger Brooke Taney, who was born on March 17, 1777 in Calvert County, Maryland.  Roger Taney was a lawyer and later served in President Andrew Jackson’s administration as Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury – he was later appointed as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.

Roger B Taney, Coast Guard Builders No. 68, was laid down on May 1, 1935 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.  She was launched on June 3, 1936.   The Roger B Taney departed Philadelphia on December 19, transited the Panama Canal from the 27th to the 29th, and arrived at her home port, Honolulu, Territory of Hawaiʻi, on January 18, 1937.

The Taney had arrived in the Pacific at a time when the US, and Pan-American Airways in particular, was expanding its commercial air travel capabilities.  The “Clipper” flights across the Pacific to the Far East made islands like Hawaiʻi, Midway, Guam and Wake important way-stations.

In the 1930s, the US Bureau of Air Commerce (later known as Department of Commerce) was looking for islands along the air route between Australia and California to support trans-Pacific flight operations (non-stop, trans-Pacific flying was not yet possible, so islands were looked to as potential sites for the construction of intermediate landing areas.)

To affirm a claim on remote Pacific islands, international law required non-military occupation of all neutral islands for at least one year.  An American colony was established at Canton (Kanton) and aney transported and supplied colonists on the island (1938-1940.) (Canton was picked by Pan-Am for its trans-Pacific flight flying boat operations.)

The 327-foot Secretary class cutter Taney was designed and initially missioned to interdict opium smugglers and carry out search and rescue duties from the Hawaiian Islands through the central Pacific Ocean.  In 1940 and 1941, Taney received successive armament upgrades in anticipation of war, with 3- and 5-inch guns capable of shooting at both surface and airborne targets, additional .50 caliber machine guns, depth charge racks and throwers, and sonar for locating submarines.

On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Taney was officially assigned to the US Navy’s Destroyer Division 80, though she retained her Coast Guard crew. When Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor and other American military installations in Hawaiʻi on December 7, 1941, she was tied up at Pier 6, Honolulu Harbor, where she was able to repeatedly engage Japanese planes which flew over the city.

When the attack subsided, Taney immediately commenced anti-submarine patrol duties off Pearl Harbor and was at sea for 80 of the first 90 days of the war.

After service in the Pacific and a major retrofit, Taney was sent into the Atlantic serving as the Flagship of Task Force 66, US Atlantic Fleet and command vessel for six convoys of troop and supply ships between the US and North Africa. Returning to the Pacific after a dramatic reconfiguration as an Amphibious Command Ship in 1945, Taney participated in the Okinawa Campaign and the occupation of Japan.

Immediately after the end of the Pacific war in September 1945, Taney steamed into Japanese home waters where she assisted with the evacuation of Allied prisoners of war.

Following World War II, Taney was reconfigured for peacetime duties and from 1946 until 1972 she was home ported in Alameda, California. Known as “The Queen of the Pacific,” Taney carried out virtually every peacetime Coast Guard duty including decades of Ocean Weather Patrol throughout the Pacific, fisheries patrols in the Bearing Sea and countless search and rescue missions.

During the Korean War, Taney received additional anti-submarine weapons and frequently carried out plane-guard duties off Midway Island and Adak, Alaska.

The mid-1970s were a period of transition for the Coast Guard with the passage of the Fisheries Conservation and Management Act and the nation’s shift towards increased interdiction of narcotics smugglers.  These operations called for off-shore patrols of up to three weeks.

Stationed in Virginia, Taney completed the last Coast Guard ocean weather patrol in 1977, and from 1977 to 1986 carried out search and rescue duties, training cruises for the Coast Guard Academy and drug interdiction in the Caribbean.

She was formally decommissioned on December 7, 1986 (after more than 50-years of continuous service) and turned over to the city of Baltimore, Maryland for use as a museum ship in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.  Over her distinguished career, Taney received three battle stars for World War II service and numerous theatre ribbons for service in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Since the 1960s, Taney is the last ship still afloat that fought in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Consequently, from that time on she was often referred to as “The Last Survivor of Pearl Harbor.”  A plaque memorializing her participation in the attacks is at Pier 6, Honolulu Harbor.  (Lots of information here from USCG.)

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Mitchellism

World War I, also known as the Great War or the War to End All Wars, began in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His murder catapulted into a war across Europe.

During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers).

Four years later, when Germany, facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the homefront and the surrender of its allies, was forced to seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.  (The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919.)

At the dawn of WWI, aviation was a relatively new field; the Wright brothers took their first sustained flight just eleven years before, in 1903.  WWI was the first major conflict to use the power of planes, though not as impactful as the British Royal Navy or Germany’s U-boats.

The use of planes in WWI presaged their later, pivotal role in military conflicts around the globe.  During WWI, there was no ‘Air Force’ as we identify it today; the aviation forces were under the US Army Air Service, created during WWI by executive order of President Woodrow Wilson after America entered the war in April 1917.

Later, Congress created the Air Corps on July 2, 1926, and it was abolished with the National Security Act of 1947, establishing the United States Air Force on September 18, 1947.

Gen. William ‘Billy’ Mitchell, a staunch advocate and visionary of air power, became regarded as the ‘Father of the United States Air Force,’ because he was instrumental in bringing to the forefront the need for air superiority.

“Mitchellism” was coined by the press to symbolize the concept that airpower was now the dominant military factor and that sea and land forces were becoming subordinate.

In the intervening years, the correctness of his thinking, the accuracy of his predictions, the risks he took, the sacrifices he so willingly made of his health and his career, and, by far the most important, the influence he had on his successors have conferred a new, higher, and entirely contemporary meaning on “Mitchellism.” (AF Mag, Boyne)

Born Dec. 29, 1879 in Nice, France, Mitchell was the eldest of John and Harriet Mitchell’s ten children. John Mitchell was a representative and a senator from Wisconsin.

Billy Mitchell grew up in Wisconsin and enlisted in the Army in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. He served in Cuba, the Philippines, Alaska and in Europe.  In 1913, Mitchell was promoted to captain and became the youngest officer to serve on the general staff.

In 1916, he transferred to Virginia to become interim commander of Army Aviation, which at that time was a division of the Army Signal Corps.  After the new commander arrived, Mitchell was promoted to the rank of major, and assumed the position of deputy commander of Army Aviation.

Army Aviation is where Mitchell got his first taste of flying, and where his passion for aviation began to grow, so much so that he decided to become an Army pilot; he enrolled in a civilian flying school and paid for flying lessons.

In 1917, Mitchell was already in France studying the production of military aircraft, when the US declared war on Germany. He was promoted to the war-time rank of Brigadier General and given command of all of the American aerial combat units in France.

Putting his knowledge into practice at the Battle of St. Mihiel, Mitchell commanded 1,481 American and Allied airplanes. There he demonstrated what air power could do by massing an assault that sent wave after wave of planes to attack the Germans across battle lines destroying their ground power.

His strategy proved to be successful. Mitchell was the first American Army aviator to cross enemy lines and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for valor. In 1919, Mitchell was awarded the Legion of Honor by France.

After World War I, Mitchell returned to the US and despite his achievements was reverted back to his permanent rank of colonel, due to Air Service drawdown in manpower.

Mitchell became an advocate of an independent Air Force, and promoted the small Army Air Service with border patrols, forest fire patrols, aerial mapping missions and any other activity that demonstrated the value of aviation.

Mitchell asked to do a test/demonstration to confirm that airplanes could bomb ships.  Congress and the Navy gave in and on July 20 and 21, 1921, Mitchell and the 1st Provisional Air Brigade demonstrated to the world the superiority of air power.

He and his unit sank the famous, ‘unsinkable,’ Ostfriesland, a captured German battleship. That proved that battleships were vulnerable to bombing attacks by aircraft (the enemy’s and your own).

Then, the Navy began developing aircraft carriers.

Mitchell was transferred to Fort Sam Houston, where he was assigned as the aviation officer of the Eighth Corps in 1925.  He lived on Fort Sam and resided in Quarters 14 (now designated as the Billy Mitchell House) on Staff Post Road. His office was in the Quadrangle.

He was concerned about the lack of priority to air power. Mitchell’s frustration climaxed after the Navy’s airship Shenandoah crashed due to weather in September 1925. Mitchell publicly accused the Navy and War Departments of “incompetence and criminal negligence.”

In November 1925, Mitchell was called to Washington D.C. and court-martialed on the charge of “Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline and in a way to bring discredit upon the military service.”

Mitchell was convicted of insubordination, but rather than serve a five-year suspension, Mitchell decided to resign his commission.  During retirement in Virginia, he continued to be outspoken on the importance of air power. He wrote books, newspaper and magazine articles, and gave lecture tours until his death, Feb. 11, 1936.

Mitchell received several honors following his death including a posthumous promotion to major general by President Harry Truman.  A military aircraft bomber, the B-25 Mitchell, was named after him. In 1979, Mitchell was inducted in the International Hall of Fame.

Mitchell predicted that one day rockets would travel across continents and oceans and people would zip between New York and London in as few as six hours on fast commercial airliners.

He foresaw air forces attacking targets with unmanned aerial vehicles – he didn’t call them drones – and cruise missiles. He predicted that someday planes would be used for firefighting, evacuating the sick and wounded, photographing terrain, crop dusting and spying on enemies. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

One notable action by Mitchell was his prediction that a war between Japan and the US was inevitable.  After visiting Japan while stationed with the Army in the Philippines, Mitchell wrote in 1910, “That increasing friction between Japan and the US will take place in the future there can be little doubt, and that this will lead to war sooner or later seems quite certain.”

In 1924, Mitchell toured Hawaii and Asia to inspect America’s military assets. After touring China, Korea, Japan, Siam, Singapore, Burma, Java, the Philippines and India, Mitchell wrote a 340-page report warning that the Asia-Pacific Rim could soon rival Europe in military might and America’s security depended on its foothold in the region.

To Mitchell, Japan was the country that posed the greatest threat because of its growing military strength and its quest for external sources of oil and iron for Japanese industries.

In a report he submitted after a trip to Japan in 1924 Mitchell predicted the attack on Pearl Harbor. He discussed Japanese expansionist ambitions and his belief that a Pacific War would begin with an attack at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines.

He wrote in 1924, “The Japanese bombardment, (would be) 100 (air) ships organized into four squadrons of 25 (air) ships each.  The objectives for attack are: Ford Island, airdrome, hangers, storehouses and ammunition dumps; Navy fuel oil tanks …”

“… Water supply of Honolulu; Water supply of Schofield; Schofield Barracks airdrome and troop establishments; Naval submarine station; City and wharves of Honolulu.”

“Attack will be launched as follows: bombardment, attack to be made on Ford Island at 7:30 a.m.” “Attack to be made on Clark Field (Philippine Islands) at 10:40 a.m.”

“Japanese pursuit aviation will meet bombardment over Clark Field, proceeding by squadrons, one at 3000 feet to Clark Field from the southeast and with the sun at their back, one at 5000 feet from the north and one at 10,000 feet from the west. Should U.S. pursuit be destroyed or fail to appear, airdrome would be attacked with machineguns.” (Mitchell; City on a Hill)

On December 7th, 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor at 7:55 A.M. and the Philippines’ Clark field at 12:35 P.M.

Mitchell’s claims about naval power being vulnerable to air power were ultimately proven true at Pearl Harbor when Japan sank or severely damaged nineteen U.S. warships, including eight battleships.

The minor differences include the actual number of aircraft (110 instead of 100), their launch from carriers instead of from Niihau, and the reduction of Wake Island instead of Midway.  (Billy Mitchell Court-Marshal-Mulholland)  (Information here is from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; US Army; NC Historical Marker Program; American Heritage; Air Force Museum; Air Force Magazine.)

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Hickam

The first successful air flight was in a hot air balloon in 1783; since heated air is lighter than cool air, the balloon would rise into the sky. The pilot would ride in a basket attached to the balloon and control the height by adding and subtracting more heat.

The problem with hot air balloons is that you cannot go the way you want. If the wind is blowing west, that means you would have to go west, too.

Flight took a new turn with the invention of the airplane in 1903; the military quickly became aware of its use in combat. “It can go faster and higher than horses,” said one Army aviator. The US War Department bought its first plane in 1909 and it was assigned to the new Army Air Corps.

It wasn’t until the National Security Act of 1947 became law on July 26, 1947 that a separate, independent Department of the Air Force was created, headed by a Secretary of the Air Force.

In Hawaiʻi, the US Army built Luke Field on Ford Island (constructed in 1917;) by 1928, they recognized the benefit of an expanded air presence, including in Hawaiʻi, and they began looking for a new site for modernizing the national defenses here.

Site selection narrowed to about 2,200-acres of land bordered by Pearl Harbor channel on the west, Pearl Harbor Naval Reservation on the north, John Rodgers airport on the east and Fort Kamehameha on the south.

The land was acquired from Bishop, Damon and Queen Emma Estates and on May 31, 1935 Hickam Air Field was dedicated (it was named in honor of Lt. Col. Horace Meek Hickam, a distinguished aviation pioneer who was killed in an aircraft accident on November 5, 1934, at Fort Crockett in Galveston, Texas).

In naming boulevards and avenues on Hickam Field, the War Department deemed it appropriate to remember those early aviation pioneers who were killed in the Hawaiian Islands as a result of airplane accidents: Fox Blvd. -1st Lt. Robert E. Fox, killed 1920; Cornet Ave. -Pvt. Harman J. Cornet, 1920; Boquet Blvd. -1st Lt. Ulric L Boquet, 1921; Manzelman Circle -1st Lt. Earle R Manzelman, 1921; Vickers Ave. -SSgt. Vernon Vickers, 1921; Owens St. -Sgt. Ross Owens, 1922; Julian Ave. -1st Lt. Rupert Julian, 1923; Monthan St. -1st Lt. Oscar Monthan, 1924; Moore St. -1st Lt. William G. Moore, 1924; Catlett St. -2nd Lt Carter Catlett, 1925; Porter Ave. -TSgt. Aaron A. Porter, 1925; Worthington Ave. -1st Lt. Robert S. Worthington, 1927; Signer Blvd. -Capt. John A Signer, 1927; Kuntz Ave. -1st Lt Clyde A. Kuntz, 1929; Atterbury Circle -2nd Lt. Ivan M. Atterbury, 1930; Mills Blvd. -SSgt. Ralph O. Mills, 1930; Scott Circle -2nd Lt William J. Scott, 1931; Baker St. -2nd Lt. George C. Baker, 1931; Wilson St. -Pfc Hicks G. Wilson, 1935 and Beard Ave. -1st Lt. William G. Beard, 1936.

Hickam Field, as it was then known, was completed and officially activated on September 15, 1938. It was the principal Army airfield in Hawaiʻi.

By the end of 1939, the Air Corps organization located at Hickam Field were, Headquarters, 18th Wing; 5th Bombardment Group; Headquarters Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group; 23rd Bombardment Squadron; 31st Bombardment Squadron; 72nd Bombardment Squadron; 4th Reconnaissance Squadron and 17th Air Base Commando (shortly after, the 11th Bombardment Group was included.

In connection with defense plans for the Pacific, aircraft were brought to Hawaii throughout 1941 to prepare for potential hostilities.  The only airfield large enough to accommodate the B-17 bomber (the Flying Fortress, at the time, the Air Corps’ most-modern airplane,) in May 1941, Hickam received the first mass flight of bombers (21 B-17s) from Hamilton Field, California.

When the Japanese attacked Oahu’s military installations on December 7, 1941, Hickam Field was an important objective; because the success of the Japanese attack was dependent on eliminating air opposition and precluding US planes from following their aircraft back to their carriers and bombing the task force.  Hickam suffered extensive damage, about half of its planes had been destroyed or severely damaged, and personnel casualties totaling 139 killed and 303 wounded.

During the war years, the base played a major role in pilot training and aircraft assembly work, in addition to serving as a supply center for both air and ground troops. Hickam served as the hub of the Pacific aerial network, supporting transient aircraft ferrying troops and supplies to, and evacuating wounded from, the forward areas.

On March 26, 1948, Hickam Field was renamed Hickam Air Force base.   After World War II, Hickam was the US primary mobility hub in the Pacific comprised of the Air Transport Command and its successor, the Military Air Transport Service, until July 1957 when Headquarters Far East Air Forces completed its move from Japan to Hawaiʻi and was redesignated the Pacific Air Forces.

Hickam Air Force Base supported the Apollo astronauts in the 1960s and 1970s; Operation Homecoming (return of prisoners of war from Vietnam) in 1973; Operation Babylift/New Life (movement of nearly 94,000 orphans, refugees and evacuees from Southeast Asia) in 1975; and NASA’s space shuttle flights during the 1980s and into the 1990s.

The 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) Report to the President combined the once-independent Pearl Harbor Naval Station (Navy) and Hickam Air Force Base (Air Force) management functions with the establishment of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (effective October 1, 2010.)

Hickam now consists of 2,850 acres of land and facilities sharing its runways with the adjacent Honolulu International Airport as a single airport complex, operated under a joint-use agreement.

In October 1980, the Secretary of the Interior designated Hickam AFB as a National Historic Landmark, recognizing it as one of the nation’s most significant historic resources associated with World War II in the Pacific. A bronze plaque reflecting Hickam’s “national significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America” took its place among other memorials surrounding the base flagpole. (Lots of information here is from NPS and ‘Hickam’)

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The Call of the Sea

“It began in the swimming pool at Glen Ellen. Between swims it was our wont to come out and lie in the sand and let our skins breathe the warm air and soak in the sunshine. Roscoe was a yachtsman. I had followed the sea a bit. It was inevitable that we should talk about boats.”  (London)

In 1906, Jack London announced he was planning a trip on a boat – the Snark – he was to build and do blue-water sailing on a round-the-world cruise.  (The Snark was named after one of Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poems.)

“‘Honolulu first,’ said London yesterday. ‘After that we are not very definite. Everybody’s in good health, the bourgeoise tradesmen have finally freed us, the boat is staunch, the weather fine. What more a man wants I don’t know.’”

“‘Meet me in Paris,’ called Mrs. Jack London back through the megaphone as the boat disappeared. ‘Isn’t it glorious? Good-by, everybody!” [April 23, 1907]

“The remaining members of the crew of the Snark are: Captain Rosco Eames, under whose personal direction the Snark was built; Herbert Stoitz of Stanford University; Martin Johnson, cook, and Hideshisa Hochigi. Cabin boy.”

“Flying from her mainmast the red flag of Socialism, Jack London’s Snark, towed by a gasoline launch, passed through the Oakland estuary shortly after noon yesterday.”

“She had been freed from Federal surveillance and scores of the author’s friends thronged her deck as she lay at Franklin-street wharf to bid godspeed to him and his wife on their long cruise.”

“Cheer after cheer rent the air as the Snark moved down the channel and passed out into the bay, on her way to Bonita Cove, near Sausalito, where she will await the ebb tide this morning before sailing through the Golden Gate.”

“In the farewell levee on the deck leaders in Socialism hobnobbed with literary workers and a staid burgher friend or two mingled in the gathering with men of the professions. But for the most part the throng that gathered was made up of workingmen as negligee in attire as the author himself.”

“They all called him ‘Jack,’ and he seemed to know them all. They cheered when the two banners of red, the one bearing the initial S. for Snark and Socialism: the other, a black and white star, the London emblem,” were hauled by Captain Eames to the masthead.”

“There they will fly until the cruise is done, carrying the message of Socialism to the people of the seven seas.”  (PCA, April 30, 1907)

“The arrival of Mr. Jack London in the Snark is looked forward to with pleasant anticipation by certain society folk who will doubtless wine and dine him most hospitably.”

“After many rumored departures, he is said to have really sailed from San Francisco and may be expected here shortly, wind, weather and his navigating officer permitting.” (PCA, April 28, 1907)

“Folks flocked down to the waterfront to get a glimpse of the little craft which was designed to circumnavigate the globe.”

“A glimpse was all they got, for the Snark gave a line to Young Brothers’ tug Waterwitch and was towed to Pearl Harbor, where she dropped anchor off the Hobron place, and will probably remain there for the best part of the next two months.”

“Mr and Mrs London made up their respective and collective minds to spend at least two months in the waters of Pearl Lochs and to take their residence ashore in the TW Hobron cottage.  They yearn for the shore awhile and want to be quite.”

“‘We are here for work,’ said Mrs London when the Londons were visited by a representative of the Star shortly after their arrival here at 11:20 o’clock this morning [May 20, 1907]. Continuing Mrs. London stated that her husband intended to put in a lot of time writing and that they could not Image a quieter place than Pearl Lochs.”

“They will not go to Honolulu today. They do not want the distractions of the city, preferring, for the present at least, the peacefulness of the Hobron cottage, whither the typewriter has already been transferred from the cabin of the Snark and where

its click will be heard until late in July.”

London noted, “‘Pearl Harbor is a dream. The coming through the breakers into the placid water of the lagoon is a sight I shall never forget.  We shall remain here and work as quietly as may be.  I’m sick of the hotels and steamships.’”

“There are years of adventure and romance before the people of the Snark and the beginning has been auspicious. The Snark has proved herself to be everything that London claimed she would be.”

“‘We’ve come 2600 miles In twenty-seven days,’ said the captain, ‘and while not tired of the trip must say that land looks mighty good to me.  We went south in order to fall in with the dolphins and flying fish and latterly bore southwest for the wind as far as the nineteenth longitudinal.’”

“‘We loafed along the whole way, with more wind the first four days out than we had all the rest of the trip. The voyage was singularly devoid of Incident.  Three days out a ship was sighted, after which nothing was seen till Sunday, when we saw a steamer hull down.’

“The Snark is thirty tons gross and ten tons net; fifty-one feet in length, fifteen and five-tenths beam and seven and fieve-tenths in depth of hold.  Her foremast is much taller than the main and she carries a big bowsprit.  Her deck is flush and living apartments occupy the whole vessel from stem to stern.”

“The Snark, according to present plans, will leave here in about twenty days for Hilo. From Hilo the South Seas, Australasia and the Orient, and the rest of the world, will be checked off the Snark’s chart.” (Hawaiian Gazette, May 21, 1907)

Charmian London (Mrs Jack London) made a couple of books about the two years’ with her husband in the forty-five-foot ketch Snark into the South Seas, by way of the Hawaiian Islands.

The seafaring portion of her notes was published in 1915 as “The Log of the Snark.” The record of five months spent in the Paradise of the Pacific, Hawaii, she made into another book, “Our Hawaii,” issued in 1917. Jack London had previously passed through Honolulu in 1893.

The South Sea trip was meant to be just the beginning of the cruise. London dreamt of threading the Arabian Sea and traversing the Mediterranean and the Atlantic but ultimately it was the savage climate of the south Pacific that did for him.

After about 2-years of sailing, at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands London became afflicted by a skin disease which meant his hands swelled up and chunks of skin fell off. Without his hands he could not write and earn the money to fund the voyage and, after seeking medical advice, he was urged to abandon the trip.

It was a devastating decision for London, and he and Charmian were distraught, as Jack recalled: “In hospital when I broke the news to Charmian that I must go back to California the tears welled into her eyes.”

“For two days she was wrecked and broken by the knowledge that the happy, happy voyage was abandoned.”  Thus one of the most offbeat and pioneering cruises ended rather abruptly.  Once the voyage was called off, Snark was sailed to Sydney and sold there.  (Jefferson) 

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