Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam

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Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam
Hickam Air Force Base (1977)
Characteristics
ICAO code PHIK
IATA code HIK
Coordinates

21 ° 19 ′ 7 ″  N , 157 ° 55 ′ 21 ″  W Coordinates: 21 ° 19 ′ 7 ″  N , 157 ° 55 ′ 21 ″  W
Height above MSL 4 m (13  ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center 15 km west of Honolulu
Street H-1
Basic data
opening 1938
operator United States Air Force
surface 1120 ha
Runways
04R / 22L 2743 m × 46 m asphalt
04L / 22R 2119 m × 46 m asphalt
08R / 26L 3658 m × 61 m asphalt
08L / 26R 3749 m × 46 m asphalt

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i7 i10 i12 i14

The airfield of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (formerly Hickam Air Force Base / Hickam AFB , before that Hickam Field ) in the state of Hawaii is a base of the US armed forces; the military airfield is home to the headquarters of the Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), an air fleet of the United States Air Force .

The base is located on Oahu immediately west of Honolulu International Airport and shares with it the four runways 04L / 22R (2120 m), 04R / 22L (2745 m), 08L / 26R (3750 m) and 08R / 26L ( 3660 m).

The base is also the seat of the Joint POW / MIA Accounting Command , a working group of the Ministry of Defense of the United States to search for POWs (English Prisoner of War , POW) and missing soldiers (English Missing in action , MIA) of all branches of the armed forces of the Armed Forces of the United States .

history

In 1934 the US Army Air Corps decided to build a new airfield on Oahu. During the construction phase - on May 31, 1935 - it was named Hickam Field , after Horace Meek Hickam (born August 14, 1885 in Indiana ), an officer and promoter of the Early Air Force who crash-landed on November 5, 1934 in Texas was killed.

The first planes were moved here from nearby Ford Island in September 1937; the official commissioning of Hickam Field took place on September 15, 1938. This made it the main military airfield in Hawaii. Hickam was the only one big enough to hold the B-17 bombers .

During the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the airfield was also attacked. 139 people died and around 300 were injured. In the further course of the Pacific War  - as in the Korean War and during the Vietnam War  - the base was of great strategic importance for supply and transfer flights. After the Second World War it was renamed Hickam Air Force Base .

The headquarters of the Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) of the USAF has been located here since July 1, 1957 . In May 2005, the USAF moved the 13th Air Force from Andersen Air Force Base to Hickam. Since June 2005, it has been supplemented by the Kenney Warfighting Headquarters . On February 8, 2006, the base received its first of eight planned C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft .

While the space shuttle was in operation, Hickam Air Force Base was an “Augmented Emergency Landing Site” and was ready for unscheduled landings. The airfield has been a National Historic Landmark since September 16, 1985 . At the same time, the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a Historic District .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Justine Whitman: Space Shuttle Abort Modes. Aerospaceweb.org, June 25, 2006, accessed October 7, 2011 .
  2. ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Hawaii. National Park Service , accessed July 21, 2019.
  3. ^ Hickam Field in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed August 8, 2017.

Web links

Commons : Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files