Pearl Harbor is the focal point of the heartbreak and heroism we remember during this week’s 75th anniversary of the Day of Infamy.

Just down the road in 1941 was a cow pasture owned by Damon Estates. Soon after the attack, the military acquired 300 acres of that parcel and created Camp Catlin.

It built a tent city to serve as a WWII staging area for U.S. Sailors and Marines heading to the South Pacific. It also became a holding area for their replacements and those returning from the war, and the site of Navy 128 Hospital. Quonset huts on concrete slabs were built for mess halls and officers’ and nurses’ quarters. An outdoor theater was put up.

Half of that cow pasture and tent city is now Navy-Marine Golf Course, which celebrates its 69th birthday Jan 2. That theater was located in the center of what is now one of the country’s most popular military courses, and one of Oahu’s most user-friendly layouts.

“One of the best things about it is location, location, location,” says Todd Nicely, Director of Golf in charge of Joint Base Pearl Harbor and Hickam. “It’s so highly desirable. And, it’s a nice course. It’s fun, it can fit your game and feed your ego. It’s in nice shape.

“We try to keep it nice and fun to play. We get big crowds, but we try to keep it moving so it’s enjoyable for everybody. It can leave you feeling really happy. It’s not hard and it’s not long so this could be one of your best rounds.”

It traces its origins, according to a 1998 Golf Journal story, to Vice Admiral John L. Hall Jr., an 8-handicapper who pondered its creation when the tents started disappearing in 1946.

The course was financed from slot machine revenue at Navy Clubs and designed by Billy Bell, who also drew up Torrey Pines and Bel Air Country Club. Construction was supervised by 70-something Joe Mayo, retired from Del Monte Corp’s Monterey Peninsula golf properties.

He decided to break up all those concrete slabs and use them to create mounds along fairways, elevation under greens and drainage. He brought in bagasse — dried remains of sugar cane after juice is pressed — from Ewa Sugar Mill to put under the soil below the greens and help retain water.

Mayo’s chemical of choice for chasing worms and insects was tobacco juice. He collected cigarette butts from Pearl Harbor clubs and put them in 50-gallon drums to cure.

Early on, golfers were enthusiastically encouraged to collect rocks as they played, and they easily filled up large cans and feed bags during their round. Blasting sand from the naval shipyard was brought in, sifted and spread on fairways. Sludge from Hickam’s treatment facility was dried and thrown in too.

When a new grass more suited to the tropics was developed and brought in for Navy-Marine’s greens in the 1950s, a large lard deposit was found under the fifth hole — remnants from the old mess hall. The original Camp Catlin officers’ mess was the clubhouse for years.

“Over a number of years, we’ve been able to upgrade/replace/renew all structural aspects of the golf course, from the underground up,” Nicely says. “All using no tax dollars — we operate on user fees only. That includes a new irrigation system, new greens and tees, reshaping a few holes, cart paths, water features, new clubhouse and maintenance building and cart barn, and driving range upgrades.”

The course requires military ID or a sponsor. Navy-Marine’s mission is “to provide a recreational/active outlet for the military to have fun,” Nicely says.

Any military.

“During RimPac we see a lot of young sailors from Australia and New Zealand with beards and tattoos,” he adds. “They look a little different than our sailors. We’ve also had sailors from Japan and Korea and other countries where they grew up playing golf and they are happy to be here. As long as they are active duty it’s the same price as what our active duty pay — $16, for a junior enlisted to walk.”

It has become a walk in a hallowed park.

Seven Royal Palms surround the ninth and 18th greens, a reminder of that tragic Dec. 7 of 75 years ago. In 1998, the course put in 18 tee markers to honor Heroes of Pearl Harbor. All but three have the names of the Naval Medal of Honor recipients from that fateful day. The 18th reads, “Dedicated To All Who Serve Honorably To Preserve Our Freedom.”

The late John Finn, one of the five Medal of Honor survivors from Dec. 7, rode around with Nicely the day the markers were introduced.

“We’d drive by them,” Nicely recalled, “and he’d say, ‘I knew him. I knew him, I knew him’ ….”

Finn was engaged, emotional and witty that day, but totally lost on the golf course.

“Hell no, I don’t play,” he said. “My brother’s a golfer.”