Hickam 'showplace' adds greenery

By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hickam Air Force Base is known throughout the Air Force as one of the most beautiful air bases in the world, primarily because its historic art-deco buildings and plantation-style cottages are framed by tree-lined streets, well-kept parks and shaded neighborhoods.

The Hickam base is known as the Air Force's "showplace of the Pacific," with tree-lined streets and well-kept parks. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

So as Arbor Day approached, Riggle put the call out for volunteers. More than 100 airmen turned out yesterday morning to plant 61 trees along Kuntz Avenue and Kamakahi Road, adding a few more splashes of green to what the Air Force calls its "showplace of the Pacific."

"I love this place," said Airman 1st Class Sarah Stimson as she and several other members of the 352 Information Operations Squadron admired their first planting, a banyan they named Betsy. "It is so beautiful here — compared to Iowa."

Riggle said most airfields were built in World War II for use by the Army Air Corps. They were intended to serve as temporary facilities, so aesthetics were not a priority. When the Air Force was born in 1947, the new service inherited the airfields. It worked hard to improve them and now boasts some of the most modern facilities in the military, but the bases do not have the historical continuity of older Army posts.

Hickam was different. Construction of Hickam Field started in late 1937 and was completed in 1941. It was built to serve as a permanent base, and its designer, Army Capt. Howard Nurse, created an ideal palette for nature's greenery by including broad boulevards with wide central medians, spacious lawns, parks and beaches.

The main entrance to the base, the shaded housing area near the old water tower, and the park that surrounds the Officers' Club and rolls down toward the waters of Pearl Harbor are among the most striking green spaces. A work of art in itself, with sculpted figures reaching out from around the top, the tower is said to be one of the few Hickam structures left untouched by Japanese fighter pilots who strafed the area on Dec. 7, 1941.

Arbor Day in Hawai'i, unlike the Mainland observance, is in autumn. The state observes the event on the first Friday in November, long after the springtime celebration on the Mainland. The fledgling trees are more likely to thrive during the rainy season, said Carl Masaki of the state's Division of Forestry and Wildlife.

The airmen planted 24 native kou, 24 rainbow showers, 12 banyans and one narra.

"I think this is the largest Arbor Day planting in the state," Masaki said. "Col. Riggle really loves trees. I've heard that when these guys need to cut down a tree, they have to ask him first and he usually says no."

Air Force officials said yesterday was the biggest Arbor Day planting in Hickam's history. Most of its trees were sowed as part of larger construction projects, said Capt. Dave McCleese of the 15th Civil Engineer Squadron. Smaller Arbor Day plantings have been a tradition for years, but this year Riggle gave his engineers and landscape people carte blanche.

Engineers worked with base landscape experts to come up with a layout for the plantings, then dug the holes and filled them with topsoil. The volunteers took over from there, and will continue to care for the trees until they have safely taken root. McCleese seemed nervous as he looked over the planting places, the waiting trees, the length of the grass and the crowd of volunteers and onlookers who included, he said, most of his chain of command.

"God, I hope they don't die," McCleese mumbled.

By 9:45 a.m., just more than an hour after the ceremony began, most of the trees were planted. Children from two nearby elementary schools, who'd come to listen to speeches on the history and significance of Arbor Day, were loaded aboard buses and driven away. Riggle looked around at his airmen and their saplings. He seemed pleased.

"They don't know it yet," he said as he left, "but we'll be doing this again on Earth Day."