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Bellows AFS

Bellows Air Force Station, Waimanalo, HI. was established in 1917 as the Waimanalo Military Reservation and was used as an infantry training area. The station covers almost 1500 acres on the windward side of Oahu near the southeast corner of the island.

The present site of the field as far back as 1935 was nothing but a plentiful growth of sugar cane and guava bushes.  For approximately seven years prior to December 7th, 1941, Bellows was known as the Waimanalo Army Reservation, Bellows Field. During the mid 1930s the Air Corps chiefly used this area for a strafing and bombing practice site. Those operations extended into 1938 when the total Air Corps personnel on duty only consisted of five to ten men supplied from Wheeler Field. It was also used for target practice area by the Coastal Artillery, they strung a line of 90mm guns along the beach. The infantry also used the beaches and inland area as a bivouac site.  

Bellows was among those installations attacked by the Japanese during the Pearl Harbor attack. The 44th Pursuit Squadron had 12 P-40's located at Bellows on December 7th, 1941. Unfortunately the planes had been flown the day before the attack and the guns of the aircraft had been removed for cleaning. After the attack began, men hurried to replace them but were not able to mount any response to the attack. All three P-40's that were readied were promptly shot down killing two pilots. A crippled B-17C Flying Fortress flying in from the mainland crash landed at Bellows. 

After the attack, a Japanese midget submarine was found beached on the shore at Bellows. The one crewman who survived became US P.O.W. Number One.

With the outbreak of war Bellows was transformed almost overnight into an important facility where aircraft were prepared for their duty in the Pacific Theater. Hundreds of men and aircraft flowed through Bellows requiring more runways and facilities. The 1943 USGS topo map depicted two different airfields - "Bellows Field (Army)" to the south, and "Bellows Field Bombing Range (Emergency)" to the north.

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Today there is little evidence of the old flying field days. The runways that were at their peak in the late 1940’s are overgrown, the hangers and wartime buildings are gone. Six years after the attack on Oahu, the first beach cabins began construction. Today, Detachment One, 15th Mission Support Group presently operates Bellows AFS as the premier recreation center for the Pacific Theatre. The Marine Corps uses the nearby beaches during the week for anphibious assault training. During the weekends the MCTAB beachs are open to the citizens for camping and recreation. Much of the Waimanalo community remains the same as it was more than 50 years ago.

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