Schofield was built to protect Pearl Harbor

Colleen Tsuji wrote me recently. She’s a fourth-grade teacher at Solomon Elementary on Schofield Barracks and encouraged me to write about the base.

There are many interesting things about Schofield Barracks.

Here are some I thought her students and my readers would enjoy.

FORTS VERSUS BARRACKS

A fort houses troops that protect it. A barracks houses troops that deploy and protect another place.

Which place was Schofield Barracks designed to protect?

“Forts are meant to protect themselves,” the late four-star Gen. Fred Weyand, who commanded the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks in the 1960s, told me years ago. “Schofield Barracks was built chiefly to protect Pearl Harbor.”

Military planners 100-plus years ago thought that an overland attack from the North Shore was undefended. An enemy could land on the North Shore, they thought, and march through Central Oahu and attack Pearl Harbor from the rear.

SCHOFIELD’S EARLY YEARS

King Kamehameha IV owned much of today’s Schofield Barracks and named the area Leilehua around 1860. Ten years later King Kalakaua built a hunting lodge about where the Schofield Barracks golf course clubhouse stands today.

Construction of a military base began in 1908 with tents and wooden barracks under the direction of Capt. Joseph Castner, according to Patricia Alvarez in her book “A History of Schofield Barracks.”

The base was initially named the Waianae-Uka Military Reservation. Some military personnel referred to the base as Castner Village, while people in Honolulu called it the Leilehua Barracks.

In 1909 the U.S. War Department named the post after the late Gen. John M. Schofield, who served in the Civil War and was superintendent of West Point military academy in 1876.

Schofield was sent to Hawaii in 1872 to see whether Pearl Harbor would make a worthwhile naval base. The kingdom of Hawaii had offered Pearl Harbor to the U.S. in exchange for reciprocity – duty-free trade between the two countries. He believed Hawaii was vital to the defense of the United States and urged U.S. leaders to sign the Reciprocity Treaty, which they did in 1875. This made island sugar production profitable, and the industry took off.

The OR&L completed a railroad spur line from Wahiawa in 1909, shortening the time it took to get to Honolulu to about five hours.

Father Ignatius Fealy, who was stationed there in 1914, painted a bleak picture of the town.

“To the cavalrymen and their wives it looked like a raw, hick town, a frontier village deep in red dust and mud,” he wrote.

Military personnel did find ways to entertain themselves. On long physical endurance rides around the island, wives and daughters frequently joined the cook wagon and band so that when the soldiers arrived food and music awaited them. Swimming was usually nearby, and often there was dancing after dinner.

THE HAWAIIAN DIVISION AND TROPIC LIGHTNING

The Hawaiian Division was established at Schofield Barracks in 1921. Most Army divisions were numbered. The Hawaiian Division, also known as the “Pineapple Army,” was named rather than numbered.

Hawaiian Division soldiers wore a red-and-yellow taro leaf shoulder patch. A lightning bolt was superimposed over the taro leaf in 1944. It symbolized the speed and aggressive spirit the division displayed during battle.

In 1941 the Hawaiian Division was split into the 24th and 25 Infantry Divisions.

The Army officially approved use of the nickname Tropic Lightning in 1953 for the 25th Infantry in recognition of the fact the division had spent its entire existence in the tropics. This was the first time a divisional unit had been given permission to use a nickname.

HAWAII’S SECOND LARGEST CITY

By 1938 Schofield Barracks’ population had risen above 20,000 personnel, making it Hawaii’s second-largest city, newspapers said. Instead of a mayor, though, it had a general.

That also made it the Army’s largest post. More than 10 percent of the Army’s soldiers were based at Schofield Barracks during the 1930s.

Athletics were encouraged, with baseball, basketball, volleyball, football, golf, tennis, boxing, polo, bowling, gymnastics and fencing facilities built for both recreation and physical fitness.

The base also had five movie theaters. The largest, now called the Sgt. Smith Theatre, could seat about 1,500. Buses took soldiers to beaches in Haleiwa or Honolulu. Weekly dances were held on base, with women bused in from Honolulu.

During World War II nearly 1 million men passed through Schofield Barracks and received jungle combat training there before going on to fight in the Pacific Theater.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower toured Schofield Barracks in 1946 and said “the post was the most important single base the United States had in the world.”

Celebrities such as Bette Davis, Sammy Davis Jr., Bing Crosby, Shirley Temple and Elvis Presley have visited throughout the years. Bob Hope brought his USO shows to Schofield in 1950, 1957 and 1971, and 20,000 attended. He joked that the base’s purpose was to protect surfers.

Today more than 16,000 military personnel are stationed there.

LEILEHUA HIGH SCHOOL

Leilehua High School was once on the grounds of Schofield Barracks. It began in 1913 as a branch of McKinley High, and was originally named Schofield High and Grammar School. It was on a 22-acre site near Carter Gate.

It was the first public high school in the Leeward and Central areas and attracted students from as far away as Waipahu and Kahuku.

In 1926 the name was changed to Leilehua School for the abundant lehua trees in the area. The school colors, green and gold, represented the green of the pineapple fields and the gold of their fruit.

In 1932 Leilehua adopted the mule — the Army’s — as its mascot.

When World War II broke out, the Leilehua School grounds were commandeered for arriving soldiers, and it moved to three separate areas in Wahiawa. The present site was built in 1949.

The base also had schools for soldiers in baking and cooking, typing, driving, horseshoeing, saddling, electrical and radio. There was also a West Point Preparatory school.

KOLEKOLE PASS

Kolekole Pass is a natural cleft in the Waianae Mountains that connects Central Oahu with the Leeward coast. The word means “raw” or “scarred” in Hawaiian.

One myth that has survived over time is that Japanese “Zeroes” flew through the gap on the way to attacking Wheeler Army Air Field. It might have looked like that, said Kathleen Ramsden, Tropic Lightning Museum curator, but Japanese records indicate it wasn’t the case.

The first attack wave came from the north around Kahuku and split into two groups. One flew west of the Waianae range, turned at Barbers Point and attacked Pearl Harbor and Hickam AFB.

The second wave flew east of the Waianae range and attacked Wheeler and Schofield Barracks. Bullets and shell fragments hit Bishop Bank (now First Hawaiian) and are displayed at the museum. (The Tropic Lightning Museum is open to the public at no charge, but nonmilitary visitors have to stop for a pass at Lyman Gate to get on the base.)

‘FROM HERE TO ETERNITY’

Schofield Barracks became a glamorous movie set in April 1953 when James Jones’ book “From Here to Eternity” was filmed. The author was stationed at Schofield Barracks in 1941 and wrote about soldiers’ lives at the outbreak of World War II.

The movie starred Frank Sinatra, Deborah Kerr, Ernest Borgnine, Montgomery Clift and Burt Lancaster, who created a buzz by hanging out at the base’s officers’ club between takes.

More than 400 soldiers were hired as extras for the two weeks of filming.

One of the most famous love scenes ever filmed was between Kerr and Lancaster, who frolicked in the waves beneath Halona Blowhole. The area has since been called “Eternity Beach.”

The film won eight Academy Awards, including best picture and best supporting actor (Sinatra). Sinatra’s career was in decline, and the movie helped him get it going again.

The film’s title came from a 1892 Rudyard Kipling poem called “Gentlemen-Rankers.” It’s about British soldiers — “poor little lambs who have lost our way” — who were “damned from here to eternity.”

Bob Sigall, author of “The Companies We Keep” series of books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories of Hawaii people, places and companies. Contact him via email at sigall@yahoo.com.