A place of history

After years of criticism from preservation agencies, the Navy is recommending that 81 acres of the old Marine Corps Air Station Ewa, a key battle site on Dec. 7, 1941, be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

That move and another step — preservationists received a federal American Battlefield Protection Program grant for Ewa Field — have the potential to lead to the creation of a new historic attraction on Oahu — and throw a monkey wrench into big development plans.

"It’s important from the history standpoint of recognizing that (Ewa Field) was really one of the major tactical features of the attack on Pearl Harbor," said Ewa Field historian John Bond, who suggested that an area larger than 81 acres should be sought for preservation.

Bond, who wants federal protection for Ewa Field as a national battlefield, said he and others envision tourist stops at Honouliuli Internment Camp, the Hawaiian Railway Society and a re-created Marine tent camp at the former Ewa air base.

He noted that according to the National Park Service, 4.9 million visitors to national parks in Hawaii spent $312 million in 2013.

While Ewa Field’s location and role on Dec. 7 are becoming better known, the weedy and overgrown airfield was little more than a forgotten historical footnote in 2009 when the Navy transferred leasehold interest in 540 acres of the shuttered Barbers Point Naval Air Station — including most of the original Ewa Field — to Texas-based developer the Hunt Cos.

After the attack, the base grew in size to include dozens of half-dome concrete aircraft revetments.

Steve Colon, president of development for Hunt’s Hawaii region, said the company would like to put solar panels on the old airfield.

Nearby is the planned 1.4 million-square-foot Ka Makana Alii mall being built at Kualakai (North-South Road) and Kapolei Parkways, and Hunt and Hawaii CommunityDevelopment Authority planning maps have shown an extension of the North-South Road running through Ewa Field.

A planning map on a Hunt website also reveals the city’s rail line routed through the old base.

The preservation of Ewa Field was not planned for.

"We’d like to see resolution on this," Colon said.

Hunt "recognizes the historic significance of certain parts of MCAS Ewa Field," Colon added. "We object to the proposed scope of the designation, as we believe that 81 acres is too large because it includes areas that do not meet the eligibility requirements. We believe that only those areas that were central to the Dec. 7 attack and retain physical integrity should be eligible."

Much of the 81-acre area is overgrown with kiawe trees and other growth "which have permanently damaged and modified the surrounding area," Colon said.

But the Navy’s National Register report and a July 12 draft of the American Battlefield Protection Program study say there’s much to be saved at Ewa Field.

At the time of the Dec. 7, attack, the airfield was transitioning to Marine Corps Air Station Ewa from a blimp station called the Ewa Mooring Mast Field.

The 160-foot-tall mooring mast was completed in 1925 for the 680-foot helium-filled airship Shenandoah, but the dirigible crashed during a thunderstorm in Ohio and never flew in Hawaii.

The Navy bought the leased site in 1940 along with additional acreage to develop the adjacent and much larger Naval Air Station Barbers Point.

At the time of the attack, the 206-acre Ewa Mooring Mast Field had nearly 100 temporary facilities and tents to the north of the X-shaped runways, the National Register report said.

The "Ewa Plain Battlefield" report, completed with a $54,000 American Battlefield Protection Program grant, noted that the attack on Ewa Field came about two minutes before Pearl Harbor was hit.

"For the Japanese this was a big deal," Bond said. "What they didn’t know was that the Marines had just shipped off (a lot of) planes to Midway and Wake Island, so they expected to see a ton of planes (at Ewa)."

Accounts vary, but the American Battlefield report said the attack destroyed nine of 11 Wildcat fighters and 18 of 32 scout bombers on the ground.

Marines fought back initially with sidearms and rifles, and one account noted how Lt. Yoshio Shiga, commander of nine Zero fighters, recalled one Marine, oblivious to the machine-gun fire striking the ground around him, stood his ground and emptied his pistol at Shiga’s Zero as it roared past.

Four Marines and two civilians were killed.

Japanese planes were attacked over Ewa by celebrated U.S. Army pilots George Welch and Kenneth Taylor, who took off from Haleiwa Auxiliary Airfield in P-40 fighters.

Welch and Taylor each shot down two Japanese planes over Ewa before returning to Wheeler Field and rearming. According to the National Register report, Welch shot down a third plane near Wheeler before scoring his fourth kill of the day again over Ewa.

The report notes that "most of the airfield’s defining features are missing," but an approximately 81-acre central portion "continues to convey the historic significance of the 1941 Japanese attack on Oahu."

The report says, "The historic landscape appears to retain sufficient integrity to illustrate Ewa Mooring Mast Field’s significance as a battlefield."

Among those features are a concrete aircraft warm-up area with evidence of strafing, a hangar foundation, remains of an asphalt mooring apron, a swimming pool that was used by Marines as a defensive position, and crisscross runways that were in place on Dec. 7.

The American Battlefield report said its analysis takes into account not only the Marine Corps airfield, but also the surrounding industrial and residential village that also was attacked.

A "relatively intact road network" still exists within Ewa Field, and "archaeological reconnaissance" including ground-penetrating radar used in 2013 identified intact features including a railroad spur, and foundations for the bachelor officer quarters, hangar and latrines, the American Battlefield report stated.

Kiersten Faulkner, executive director of the Historic Hawai’i Foundation, said the National Register study commissioned by the Navy and called a "determination of eligibility" had to adapt a ground-based approach to study something rare: a U.S. air battle site.

"The methodology for analyzing a battlefield was originally developed for Civil War and Revolutionary War sites," Faulkner said.

Hunt initially planned to build 433 civilian residential units on 40 acres on Ford Island, but Navy concerns were raised about civilian homes on an active base.

Hunt agreed to give up the Ford Island land in exchange for the 499 acres at Barbers Point. The total was then increased to 540 acres.

According to the Historic Hawai’i Foundation, the land lease at Barbers Point went through without a historic-resource inventory analysis required by the state.

In 2008 the state and three historic-preservation organizations raised concern about the land transfer.

Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 requires federal agencies to take into account the effects of their undertakings on historic properties and give preservation groups and the public a chance to comment.

Hunt was under pressure to build a solar farm on 20 acres near the original 1941 portion of Ewa Field and receive tax credits, and under a compromise to allow the project to go forward, the Navy agreed to thoroughly study the historic significance of the battlefield.

Bond, who lives in Ewa Beach, has been relentlessly persistent in publicizing the historical importance of Ewa Field, contacting Navy and Marine Corps groups, members of Congress and even writing to the president in an attempt to save the battlefield from development.

He’d like to see trails and signage and a relatively inexpensive re-creation of some of the wooden-floor tent facilities used by the Marines.

Historic Hawai’i’s Faulkner said the proposed listing on the National Register of Historic Places, which will be reviewed by the National Park Service, does not necessarily prevent the development of Ewa Field.

"But what it will do is provide a touch-point for any future planning, because up until this point, some people have thought (Ewa Field was) historically significant, and others thought it wasn’t," Faulkner said. "So this will at least give that common framework."