Editing Hickam Air Force Base (section)

=== Origins ===
In 1934, the [[United States Army Air Corps|Army Air Corps]] saw the need for another airfield in Hawaii when [[Naval Auxiliary Landing Field Ford Island|Luke Field]] on Ford Island became too congested for both air operations and operation of the Hawaiian Air Depot. {{convert|2,225|acre|km2}} of land and fishponds adjacent to [[Daniel K. Inouye International Airport|John Rodgers Airport]] and [[Fort Kamehameha]] were purchased by the [[United States Department of War|War Department]] from the [[Bernice Pauahi Bishop|Bishop]], [[Samuel Mills Damon|Damon]] and [[Queen Emma of Hawaii|Queen Emma]] estates for a new air depot and air base at a cost of $1,095,543.78.<ref name="afs33">Arakaki and Kuborn (1991), p. 33 (p. 19 in text)</ref> It was the largest peacetime military construction project in the United States to that date and continued through 1941.

[[Image:Hickam-1940.jpg|thumb|Hickam Field, 1940. Pearl Harbor Navy Yard is in the upper left corner and the main barracks is immediately left of the eight hangars in the center.]]
[[File:B-17s over Hickam Field, Summer 1941.jpg|thumb|Boeing B-17D Fortresses of the [[5th Bombardment Group]] overfly the main gate at Hickam Field, Hawaii Territory during the summer of 1941. 21 B-17C/Ds had flown to Hawaii in May to reinforce the islands' defense.]]
The [[Quartermaster Corps (United States Army)|Quartermaster Corps]] was assigned the job of constructing a modern [[Aerodrome|airdrome]] from tangled [[Prosopis|algaroba]] brush and sugar cane fields adjacent to Pearl Harbor. Planning, design, and supervision of construction were all conducted by Capt. Howard B. Nurse of the QMC. The site consisted of ancient, emerged [[coral reef]] covered by a thin layer of soil, with the Pearl Harbor entrance channel and naval reservation marking its western and northern boundaries, John Rodgers Airport ([[Daniel K. Inouye International Airport|HNL]] today) to the east, and Fort Kamehameha on the south.<ref name="afs">Arakaki and Kuborn (1991), p. 32 (p. 18 in text)</ref> The new airfield was dedicated on 31 May 1935 and named in honor of Lt Col [[Horace Meek Hickam]], a distinguished aviation pioneer who was killed in an aircraft accident the previous November 5 when his [[Curtiss A-12 Shrike]], ''33-250'', hit an obstruction during night landing practice on the unlighted field at [[Fort Crockett]] in [[Galveston, Texas]] and overturned. Construction was still in progress when the first contingent of 12 men and four aircraft under the command of 1st Lt Robert Warren arrived from Luke Field on September 1, 1937.<ref name="afs33"/>

Hickam Field was completed and officially activated on September 15, 1938. By November 1939 all Air Corps troops and activities—including most facilities such as the chapel, enlisted housing, and theater, which were dismantled and ferried in sections across the channel—had transferred from Luke Field with the exception of the Hawaiian Air Depot, which required another year to move.<ref name="afs33"/> In early 1939 construction began on the main barracks, a single three-story nine-winged structure to house 3,200 men at a cost of $1,039,000. Personnel began moving into the barracks in January 1940, and by its completion on 30 September 1940, it was fully occupied and the largest structure of any kind on an American military installation. It included barber shops, a 24-hour medical dispensary, a laundry, a post exchange, multiple squadron dayrooms, and a massive consolidated mess hall at its center, and thus was dubbed the "Hickam Hotel".<ref>Arakaki and Kuborn (1991), pp. 35–36 (21–24)</ref>

Hickam was the principal army airfield in Hawaii and the only one large enough to accommodate the [[B-17 Flying Fortress]] bomber. In connection with defense plans for the Pacific, aircraft were brought to Hawaii throughout 1941 to prepare for potential hostilities. The first mass flight of bombers (21 B-17Ds) from [[Hamilton Field, California]] arrived at Hickam on 14 May 1941. By December, the [[Hawaiian Air Force]] had been an integrated command for slightly more than one year and consisted of 754 officers and 6,706 enlisted men, with 233 aircraft assigned at its three primary bases: Hickam, [[Wheeler Field]] (now [[Wheeler Army Airfield]]), and [[Bellows Field]] (now [[Bellows Air Force Station]]).