History
A communications station called Camp Kawaihapai was established here in 1922 on 67 acres (27 ha) along the Oahu Railway and Land Company line. In the 1920s and 1930s, the railroad transported mobile coast artillery to the site. By 1941, the Army leased additional land and established Mokulēʻia Airstrip. Curtiss P-40 fighters were deployed at North Shore airstrips at Kahuku, Haleʻiwa and Mokulēʻia when the attack on Pearl Harbor took place. Aircraft taking off from nearby Haleʻiwa destroyed several attacking aircraft.
The runway was paved, extended to 9,000 feet (2,700 m) long, and a crosswind runway added from 1942-1945. By the end of World War II, Mokulēʻia Airfield could handle B-29 Superfortress bombers. In 1946, the Army acquired an additional 583 acres (236 ha). In 1948, the airfield was inactivated and renamed Dillingham Air Force Base in memory of Captain Henry Gaylord Dillingham, a B-29 pilot who was killed in action over Kawasaki, Japan on July 25, 1945. Captain Dillingham was the son of Walter F. Dillingham and grandson of Benjamin Dillingham who founded the railroad which evolved into Hawaiian Dredging Company and the Dillingham Corporation.
Nike missiles were installed in the 1950s, but were obsolete by 1970.
In 1962, the State of Hawaii leased Dillingham for general aviation use. In the 1970s the base was transferred from the Air Force back to the Army. The state signed new leases with the Army in 1974 and 1983. In the 1980s, hangars, a control tower, and a fire station were built.
Read more about this topic: Dillingham Airfield
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