75th Anniversary
Ewa Field Is Still Alive With History
By Kerry Miller
After much historical research, John Bond discovered the Ewa Marine Corps Air Field - located just off Geiger Road near the Barbers Point airfield - to be a place of importance during this time. Now the Ewa Beach resident and historian is fighting the Navy and a development company to get the former air field on the National Historic Register.
“The main thing is when the attack on Pearl Harbor was first happening, planes came down the coastline of this area of Barbers Point. This was their whole rendezvous rotation point,“said Bond.“Japanese Zeroes, they came into the airfield, and so this spot was being attacked before Pearl Harbor was even bombed.
We believe it was one of the very first spots attacked on Dec. 7.
“Civilians were killed out here. None of this story out here has ever been well-presented as part of the whole Pearl Harbor thing. Basically, the airfield has been totally ignored, historically, as an important battle site.”
“The big dogfight you see in Pearl Harbor movies, that actually happened here,“Bond attested.“There are a lot of other people assisting me with help and support. I’m carrying the flag publicly by letting people know what’s going on.”
The Navy and Ford Island Properties, a division of the Hunt Development Group, are currently negotiating a development deal for the Ewa field land. The Navy owns the land and plans to lease 499 acres to FIP for 40 years. Originally, FIP gave the Navy land on Ford Island to build civilian residential units. After the deal fell through because of concern about building residences on an active military base, the Navy agreed to give FIP the Ewa field land.
The Navy conducted a cultural resource inventory survey and concluded the Ewa Marine Corps Air Field was excess land, which was officially made part of the Barbers Point airfield in 1997.
In related news, a deal was finalized June 19 for Ka Makana Ali`i, a new West Oahu shopping center that will be located on land across from the Ewa field. The complex is anticipated to be larger than Pearlridge Center and will include a hotel. Bond feels this makes the Ewa field land all the more valuable to FIP/Hunt Development Group.
“They specifically wanted this land and wanted to try to get around this federal law requirement to do historical surveys,” said Bond.“They intentionally tried to depress the historic value of the site. We have a lot of help coming from former Marine Corps officers and veterans
While he disagrees with the Navy over the development of the Ewa field land, Bond said he is not against the Navy as a whole, or the rest of the U.S. military branches.
“I grew up here as a kid from a military family,“said the Kailua High School graduate.“I moved out here a few years ago (because) Dec.7 and Pearl Harbor seemed to be becoming part of my life. It’s an amazing, deep, historical subject. It is really, really fascinating.”
