This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
The large island in Pearl Harbor was known as Mokuumeume, or "island °- strife," by early Hawaiians. The island’s first foreign owner was Don F. Francis0 de Paula y Marin, a Spaniard who served as interpreter to King Kamehameha >' In 1825, a Royal Navy survey named the island Rabbit Island. The island sold at public auction in 1865, bringing a price of $1,040. The new owner, Jarne> L. Dowsett, in turn sold it for $1 to a Miss Caroline Jackson. In June of 18« Miss Jackson was married to Dr. Seth Porter Ford (left), a recently-arru'c Boston physician. After Dr. Ford’s death the island passed to his son, Seth Porid Ford, Jr. Young Ford sold the island, now bearing the family name, to the Hon0' lulu Plantation Company in 1891. It was then used for sugar cane production In World War I, Ford Island was transferred to the government. The firS
Service unit to arrive was the Army’s Sixth Aero Com- ^anV- Below left, are the Company’s flying officers. It was ^rrie time before their planes arrived. The Navy came to e island in January 1923, when Commander John °dgers ordered the Navy air detachment at the Pearl °rbor Navy Yard to the island to avoid damage from an ahproaching storm. Rodgers won fame in 1925 by mak- lrirJ the first flight from San Francisco to Honolulu. Be’ his plane leaves San Francisco; at right, Rodgers and Part of his crew in Hawaii. At top is the island in 1922 Wllh construction underway on Navy barracks.
The Army and Navy both built up their facilities on Ford Island during the 1920s and 1930s. The above photo, taken in 1922, shows the Army’s Luke Field at left and NAS Ford Island at right. After years of discussion and negotiation, the Navy became the sole possessor of Ford Island in November of 1939 when the Army abandoned Luke Field and moved its facilities to Hickam Field to the east of the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard. Below right, Navy Hangar No. 6 which was built in 1922. It was the only hangar on Ford Island to receive major damage during the air attack of 7 December 19fl. It still stands today. At far right SC-1 torpedo planes are lined up for admiral’s inspection and a newly-assembled F5L is rolled out onto the ramp in front of Hangar No. 6.
Ford Island was a center of activity in the Hawaiian Islands during the 1930s. At upper left, President Franklin D. Roosevelt looks over the island’s facilities during his visit of July 1934. The air station was often used by aviatrix Amelia Earhart Putnam. On 20 March 1936, her plane crashed on Ford Island while taking off on the second leg of an around-the-world flight with Paul Mantz. Beginning in 1936, Pan American Airways operated Clipper flights across the Pacific to the Far East with the planes being serviced at Ford Island and at Pearl City, just northwest of the island. But Ford Island’s main customers were the aircraft of the U. S. Pacific Fleet. The Fleet’s PBY patrol bombers, its long-range “eyes,” were divided between Ford Island and Kaneohe Bay on the northern coast of Oahu. The planes of Utility Squadrons One and Two also roosted at Ford Island as did the aircraft of the Pacific Fleet’s carriers when the flattops were in Pearl Harbor. Above is the all-Navy Ford Island as it appeared in early 194.1. The concrete mooring quays seen along the east and west sides of the island would soon serve as tombstones.
The naval aircraft on Ford Island and the seven battleships moored along the island’s eastern side were prime targets of the Japanese air attack on 7 December. At left, smoke rises from the shattered battleship Arizona (BB-39). Above, damage caused by a bomb striking Hangar No. 6. The bomb was possibly aimed at the nearby battleship California (BB-H). At far right, sailors man Ford Island boats to rescue survivors as the Arizona burns and the California lists to port. Japanese bombs and machine guns destroyed all but one of 29 PBYs on Ford Island when the attack began plus several utility planes. Fortunately, the Pacific Fleet’s aircraft carriers and their planes were away from Pearl Harbor.
I
Ford Island was busy around the clock during World War II. In the photo above, taken in early 19J/2, an aircraft carrier, either the Enterprise (CV-G) or Yorktown (CV-5), is moored on the island’s eastern side. Astern of her is the sunken battleship California, an oiler unloading, the overturned battleship Oklahoma (BB-37), the sunken battleship Tennessee (BB-fS), and the remains of the shattered Arizona. During the war, Ford Island became a staging area for naval aircraft and a base for the Naval Air Transport Service, whose aircraft were too big for the field but used it anyway. Below, an escort carrier unloads an R50 Lodestar, with a busy Pearl Harbor in the background. At right, the island swarms with some 300 carrier-type aircraft.
* i ***22 !5iS.SS5,",,“ *B **
With the post-World War II military cutback, operations on Ford Island declined. The advent of P-t propulsion and larger aircraft soon caused what air activities that did continue to move to NAS barber's Point some ten miles west of Pearl Harbor. The Korean War brought but a brief flurry of activity to the island. NAS Ford Island was officially decommissioned on 31 March 1962. At left is island as it appeared in 1961. In the upper photo, the aircraft carriers Ranger (CVA-61) and a new Yorktown (CVS-10) are tied up. The Yorktown’s air group sits on an apron in the lower Photo and the Ranger has shifted to a berth at the Naval Supply Center and can be seen beyond the Yorktown. The remains of the Arizona, over which the U. S. flag has flown daily since 7 March i950, have now been covered with a memorial listing 1,103 officers and men who died in her on 7 December 191+1. President John F. Kennedy placed a wreath at the memorial on 6 June 1963.
^.Wmwihe »
Commander, Antisubmarine Warfare Force, Pacific Fleet, watches ASVF operations from a destroyer steaming many miles from Pearl Harbor. His headquarters and the Pacific Fleet Intelligence Center are located at Ford Island, giving the island a new measure of importance. A third major Ford Island activity supporting the nuclear- missile-age Navy is the Fleet Ballistic Missile Training Center, where classes began in September 196f. The Center will be used to prepare crews to man the nuclear- powered Polaris submarines that will begin patrols in the Pacific this year. The first of these submarines, the USS Daniel Boone (SSBN-629) is seen above on her arrival at Pearl Harbor. Facilities of the Training Center duplicate much of the equipment found in these submarines, such as the 31-foot missile tube at left. Thus Ford Island continues to play a vital role in naval operations across the Pacific.
s