Cnic // Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam

Pearl Harbor Naval Station and Hickam Air Force Base have grown up together around the historic port, known as Wai’momi to the native Hawaiians, on Oahu’s south shore. The naval station was constructed shortly after the turn of the 20^th Century as the United States began to take an active interest in Pacific affairs. Hawaii’s central Pacific location made it an ideal base by which to promote America’s interests in the Far East and to protect the vital shipping lanes from the Panama Canal to the U.S. west coast and beyond to the western Pacific. In December of 1911 the USS California, an Armored Cruiser, became the first large warship to enter Pearl Harbor and launch it into the future. Within a very few years a coaling station, shipyard, submarine base, naval magazine, Marine barracks, naval hospital and naval air station had been built.

In the 1930s the military presence on Oahu grew as the United States began to prepare for the eventuality of a confrontation with the ascending Japanese empire to the west. Hickam Field and Pearl Harbor’s naval station each played important roles in that preparation. In 1940 the Pacific Fleet would be homeported in Pearl to act as a deterrent to the expansionist desires of the Japanese military. The air field at Hickam saw a steadily increasing stream of aircraft being shuttled to America’s forward-most presence in the Philippines. These strategic moves by the Americans were not lost on the Japanese, and as early as December of 1940, a bold plan was initiated: strike Pearl Harbor and so deal a crippling blow to American forces which would allow the Japanese Empire to occupy Southeast Asia and establish a bulwark of defensive bases in the islands surrounding Japan.

On the morning of Sunday December 7, 1941 the plan was unleashed as two waves of 350 aircraft from the Japanese combined fleet, positioned 230 miles north of Oahu, attacked the ships of the Pacific Fleet berthed in the harbor and Army and Navy aircraft parked at various installations around the island, including Hickam Field and Ford Island. America’s military forces were caught completely off guard as plane after plane descended on their unsuspecting targets. In the end, the United States would suffer the loss of 2,403 Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Soldiers and civilians, and the battleships of America’s Pacific Fleet would lie at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, while U.S. air power lay in ruins scattered on Oahu’s airfields. The story doesn’t end there, however, as America quickly mobilized for the long war ahead. Due to the incredible tenacity of the military and civilian workforce, of the 21 ships that had been damaged or sunk in the attack, all but 3 would be salvaged and take their place with the victorious naval forces that fought their way to victory in 1945. At Hickam the base would recover from extensive damage and serve the important role as the hub of the Pacific aerial network.

Following the war, the combined functions of the naval station and airbase would secure their place as important forward bases for the United States prosecution of Pacific security. During the Cold War the presence of America’s Pacific Fleet based in Pearl Harbor proved to be an invaluable asset in confronting the Soviet threat to America’s national security in the Pacific region. Between 1948-2010 the Air Force operated the renamed Hickam Air Force Base as the primary U.S. mobility hub in the Pacific, supporting U.S. operations by servicing transient aircraft and facilitating the deployment, return, and supply of service members in Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, and on humanitarian missions.

The 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) Report to the President required the relocation of installation management functions and the establishment of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. The combination of the two bases brings together the “best practices” of both the Air Force and the Navy to realize true efficiencies in providing enhanced support of operational capabilities.

On Oct. 1, 2010, NAVSTA Pearl Harbor joined with Hickam Air Force Base to become Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JBPHH) combining the two historic bases into a single joint installation to support both Air Force and Navy missions in the Pacific.