Editing Wheeler Army Airfield (section)

===World War II===
[[File:Wheeler Field (7 Dec. 41).jpg|thumb|[[Curtiss P-40]]s burning at Wheeler, 7 December 1941|left]]
Wheeler Army Airfield was a primary target and site of the first attack on 7 December 1941, leading up to the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]].<ref name="nhlsum" /> The Japanese attacked the airfield to prevent the numerous planes there from getting airborne and engaging them. Most of the planes were destroyed, but 12 pilots assigned to the 15th Pursuit Group at Wheeler (predecessor of the present day [[15th Wing]]) succeeded in getting their [[P-36 Hawk]] and [[P-40 Warhawk]] aircraft off the ground, engaged the Japanese in furious dogfights, and scored some of the first American victories of World War II.

2nd Lieutenant [[Phil Rasmussen]] found an old, unscathed Curtiss P-36 Hawk and taxied it to a revetment where he had it loaded with ammunition. During a lull in the bombing, he took off with three other pilots. Lieutenant Rasmussen managed to shoot down a [[Mitsubishi A6M Zero]] and the American pilots subsequently engaged 11 Japanese aircraft.

The installation has a [[National Historic Landmark District]] in association with the attack on 7 December 1941. The 1941 Flightline, hangars and barracks survive today.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceID=2002&resourceType=District |title=NHL Details |access-date=3 July 2008 |archive-date=13 January 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090113234810/http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=2002&ResourceType=District |url-status=live }}</ref>

Casualties at Wheeler totaled 33 killed and 75 wounded. Of the 233 aircraft assigned to the Hawaiian Air Force, 146 were in commission before the attack; afterward, only 83 were in commission (including 27 P-40s) and 76 had been totally destroyed. During World War II as part of the [[US Army Air Forces]] and until 1949 as part of the newly established [[United States Air Force]], Wheeler was assigned to the [[Seventh Air Force]] (former Hawaiian Air Force) and successor commands.