CPO Bungalow 90, with the USS Missouri behind, 2018. NPS.
The site
The Ford Island Chief Petty Officer (CPO) Bungalows Neighborhood and Battleship Row is part of Pearl Harbor National Memorial, inside Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on Oʻahu. It is a tangible reminder of the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, and an early example of a twentieth-century Navy base, begun in 1902, that was central to the rise of U.S. naval power in the Pacific.
From the USS Arizona Memorial: the Arizona and mooring quay F-7N in front, quays F-8S and F-8N beyond, Oʻahu behind. NPS.
From fishponds to naval base
Pearl Harbor, or Puʻuloa Lagoon, is a naturally sheltered estuary on Oʻahu's south coast: a narrow channel to the sea, three lochs (West, Middle and East) split by the Waipiʻo and Pearl City peninsulas, and an islet in East Loch — Ford Island. It was once a rich center of farming on land and sea, with extensive wetland fields and fishponds.
Early Hawaiians called Ford Island Mokuʻumeʻume — also the "Island of Attraction" and the "Island of Strife." Its strategic spot made it prized by the Navy; when landowners refused to sell, the land was condemned and taken by eminent domain.
- 1902: the military began dredging sand and coral from the harbor entrance for big ships. The Army and Navy both used the island until 1939.
- Building out: as space ran short, dredged fill was added to the shallows to make more land.
- 1923–1938: the CPO bungalows were built to house personnel who kept the base running.
- 1930s: mooring quays in the deep water offshore held battleships along Battleship Row.
CPO bungalows from mooring quay 4, November 13, 1934. NPS (14th Naval District photos).
Ford Island from 17,200 feet, May 3, 1940. U.S. Navy / Naval History and Heritage Command.
December 7, 1941
Japanese bombers struck at 7:55 a.m. Many Navy families in the bungalows reportedly thought nothing unusual of the roar of aircraft overhead. Many lives were lost and ships sunk or badly damaged, but the bungalows suffered only minor damage from nearby explosions and fires on Battleship Row.
Afterward, Ford Island, the bungalows included, was repaired and improved, and the neighborhood kept housing Navy families. The USS Arizona Memorial was dedicated on Memorial Day 1962, and Pearl Harbor National Memorial was created by President George W. Bush's Proclamation 8327 on December 5, 2008.
The line of mooring quays and the USS Arizona Memorial, from Ford Island, 2018. NPS.
What survives
The landscape's history lives in five historic CPO bungalows, six mooring quays of Battleship Row, the USS Arizona, and the USS Arizona and USS Oklahoma memorials. The bungalows are the only surviving historic housing at Pearl Harbor built for enlisted Navy personnel, and they show:
- a use of Hawaiian architectural style for low-cost housing;
- how the placement and design of buildings and open space reflected rank.
The Belleau Wood Loop road, concrete foundations, lawns, foundation plantings, clotheslines and mature trees still convey the place as it was in its period of significance, 1902–1965.
The open central lawn, contrasting with the smaller, planted spaces around the bungalows. NPS, 2017.
Belleau Wood Loop, lined with trees. NPS.
Quick facts: a historic site, nationally significant under National Register criteria A, C and D, part of a National Historic Landmark; period of significance 1902–1965.
More: the Cultural Landscape Inventory, the Cultural Landscape Report (2020), the National Historic Landmark nomination for the Pearl Harbor naval base, and NPS cultural landscapes.
Sources
Based on "Ford Island CPO Bungalows Neighborhood and Battleship Row Cultural Landscape," Pearl Harbor National Memorial, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. A context map credited to the University of Oregon is not reproduced.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
1
0
0
0
Comments
