CHAPTER XVI 

MILITARY AVIATION

             For close to half a century, military aviation units have been permanently stationed in Hawaii. Steadily, the numbers of aircraft and people have been increased.  Today, they are an accepted part of the Hawaiian scene. Military spending is Hawaii’s number one source of income.

AIR FORCE

            Following the Korean War, up to 1957, the Air Force in Hawaii was represented almost exclusively by the Air Transport Command and its successor, the Military Air Transport Services (MATS).  The 1502d Air Transport Wing uses Hickam as home base and center of operations for airlift forces in the Pacific.  MATS aircraft fly from Hawaii to every navigable landing facility in that part of the Pacific.

            Headquarters for Far East Air Forces moved to Hickam from Japan (redesignated Pacific Air Forces--PACAF) in 1957.  PACAF is the aerospace arm of the USAF in the Central and Western Pacific, the Far East and Southeast Asia.  Its prime mission is to insure that the United States and its Allies maintain control of the air in an area which covers 40% of the earth.  Comprised of some 70,000 officers and men, and approximately 40 tactical squadrons of strike, support and air defense aircraft, PACAF operated from more than 25 air bases in more than half a dozen countries through the Pacific.  Directions come from Hickam.

         The strategic locations of Hickam and Wheeler became useful to other missions: air rescue, communications, weather reconnaissance, security, photography, logistical coordination, charting services, aircraft delivery, postal and others.  Their sphere of operation is the entire Pacific.  Air Defense of the islands is performed by the 326^th Air Division. Today, there are some 20 major and 80 other tenant units at the two bases.  They represent almost every major command in the Air Force, and other government agencies.  To support these and all other Air Force activities in Hawaii, PACAC Base Command was established with headquarters at Hickam. Growing out of Seventh Air Force fame during WWII and the Korean War, the 4,000-man command was geared to meet its support mission.  PBC operates one of the largest fuel servicing operations overseas, also a busy aircraft maintenance complex.  In 1963, over 29,000 aircraft were refueled, 360,000 passengers were accommodated and almost 50,000 tons of cargo and mail were handled.  Trans-Pacific tactical fighter deployments passing through Hickam underscore the global mobility of modern strike forces.

            In command of the 326^th Air Division is the commander of PACAF Base Command.  The Division’s responsibilities are important to the nation: detection, interception and destruction of any aircraft or missile which may pose a threat to the security of the Hawaiian Islands.  During an emergency the commander would have operational control of all aircraft and men assigned to the Hawaii Air National Guard, certain aircraft and units of the Navy and Marine Corps based on Oahu, and the missile units of the Hawaii Army National Guard.  Hickam-based Hawaii Air National Guard (HANG) F-102 interceptors are on continuous five-minute air defense alert.

            The Hickam-based 1502d Air Transport Wing compiled an unsurpassed record of achievement, while performing a variety of functions.  For the first time in the history of organized aviation, a military unit has flown more than one-half million hours without an accident—the 1502d, by July of 1964.  During 1963, the Wing’s 32 aircraft flew more than 50,000 hours ranging west over the Pacific islands to Japan; south to the Philippines and Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand; north to Alaska; and east to the mainland United States and on to Europe.  Hickam is transited by almost all mainland-based MATS aircraft on flight to the Far East and to Southeast Asia.  A 1502d plane has landed somewhere in the world every 20 minutes for the past 80 years.

ARMY

            While Wheeler Air Force Base today accommodates a number of major units, a majority of the airplanes based there belong to the U.S. Army. Light fixed-wing monoplanes, two-engine utility craft, and helicopters are flown from Wheeler for training, interisland transport of personnel and materials, and other Army aviation missions.  They belong to U.S. Army Hawaii and the 25^th Infantry Division, both of Schofield Barracks nearby.  Light airplanes belonging to the Civil Air Patrol and the Hickam Aero Club also are based at Wheeler and use its facilities.

NAVY

           The Navy component in Hawaii is Pacific Fleet, which is in direct communication with its chief striking force, the U.S. Seventh Fleet based in the Western Pacific. The Commander, Naval Air Bases, Fourteenth Naval District, has headquarters at Barber’s Point Naval Air Station on Oahu.  He also has command of the Marine Corps Air Station in Kaneohe, and the Naval Air Stations on the islands of Midway and Kwajalein.  The Barber’s Point activity is one of the Navy’s largest, and is a supporting base for aircraft of the Pacific Fleet, as well as a home base for utility, patrol and rescue aircraft.  It is also the home of the Pacific Barrier headquarters where operations of early warning radar planes and radar-picket destroyer escorts are directed.   Here is a nerve center to warn of approaching hostile forces crossing over an imaginary line that reaches out from Barber’s Point to Midway, and thence to the Aleutians where it joins Canada’s fixed Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line.

            Commander, Fleet Air Hawaii, also at Barber’s Point, controls Naval air power for almost one-sixth of the Pacific Ocean area and supervises the training activities of carriers and their air groups while in Hawaiian waters.

Operating under a mobility concept, the U.S. Pacific Fleet shifts its strength where most needed.  There are few ships in Pearl Harbor.  Aircraft carriers and other combat ships spend the majority of their time at sea. Pacific Fleet forces are divided into the U.S. First and U.S. Seventh Fleet, capable of mounting a sea-air offensive or provide naval defense for the United States.  In almost every phase of the Fleet’s operations, the key ship is an aircraft carrier, of which the Fleet has nine at present.  In addition, the Fleet has four antisubmarine warfare support aircraft carriers; added, too, are three amphibious assault ships.  These ships are mobile bases for planes and helicopters.  An aircraft carrier is able to travel over 600 miles in any direction in one day; carrying her striking force hundreds of miles further are the aircraft on board.  Surrounding the aircraft carriers are a variety of ships, equipped with anti-air and anti-submarine missiles, depth charges, torpedoes and rockets.  In the air, the Fleet has fighters, bombers and interceptor aircraft with air-to-air and air-to-surface missile capabilities.

  MARINES

            United States Marines of the Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, add yet another dimension to the Fleet’s striking capability.  Teaming up with ships of the Amphibious Force, these “infantrymen of the sea” are geared to fight either a limited or general war.  Marine Corps helicopter squadrons aboard amphibious assault ships transport men behind enemy lines directly from the ship.  Marine Corps aircraft fly from Pacific bases and from front line airstrips, providing ground troops with aerial coverage.

FLEET SUMMARY

            The United States Pacific Fleet today is the world’s largest, and probably history’s most powerful, naval command, with more than 400 ships, 3,000 aircraft and 250,000 men.

 COAST GUARD

            Situated at Barber’s Point is the Coast Guard Air Detachment, one of the Coast Guard’s 23 air facilities from which 107 aircraft of varying types operate.  Aircraft based at this facility include the long range HC-130B and the medium range HUY-16E amphibian, providing speed, range and versatility for the primary mission of the unit—search and rescue (which annually accounts for nearly 50% of total activities).  It is a vital unit of the Pacific Maritime SAR Region, covering the Central Pacific, and is controlled by the Commander, 14^th Coast Guard District in Honolulu  Also situated in the Islands are long range ships, home ported in Honolulu, and 95-foot Patrol Boats based at Kauai, Oahu, Maui and Hawaii, and utility boats, among the other equipment.

            From Pearl Harbor until the end of World War II, Coast Guard aircraft delivered 61 bombing attacks on enemy submarines, located some 1,000 survivors of downed aircraft and torpedoed surface craft, and actually took part in the rescue of 95 of these.  Since its beginning, Coast Guard aviation has been directly responsible for saving more than 8,000 lives at sea.  The unit operating in the Islands has contributed a large share.