"We figure it means we can have some cake," said Lt. Col. Stephen D. Clutter, a PACAF spokesman.

The command has participated in many of the defining moments of military history, from World War II to the ongoing wars in the Middle East, and many humanitarian missions in-between.

The creation of Far East Air Forces, or FEAF, made a considerable difference to airmen in the region, said retired Air Force Col. Jack DeTour, a WWII B-25 pilot whose career extended through Vietnam. The Pacific theater often got short shrift before FEAF, which was first headquartered in Brisbane, Australia, DeTour said.

"Men, equipment, technology: Most of it went to Europe," DeTour said. "Kenney changed that. He really ... got things going."

Gen. George C. Kenney was FEAF's first commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur's man in the air forces, said Dr. Tim Keck, PACAF's command historian. He was a man to get things going.

"He had a reputation as being one of the most innovative men in the air force," Keck said.

One of the main problems that Pacific Air Forces faced was Japanese shipping. Bombers flying at 10,000 feet found it hard to hit the tiny targets against the sea. Kenney developed solutions.

One was a technique called skip-bombing: going in low and skipping a bomb across the water like a flat rock on a pond. The other was outfitting B-25s with 14 50-caliber guns for low-level strafing runs.

"We went over the ships in twos, wingtip to wingtip," DeTour said. "With us spraying the deck with 50 calibers like that, there wasn't going to be anyone standing up and shooting back at you. Not anyone with any sense, anyway."

The technique was effective, and combined with side-to-side and up-and-down evasive movements at the end of the run, helped protect the crews.

After World War II came the Cold War and then a "hot war" — Korea. FEAF, now headquartered in Tokyo, responded with some of the first aircraft — F-82s, F-80s and B-26s — against the North Koreans, and ushered in the jet age with F-86 Sabre pilots going head to head with Russian fighters in MiG Alley.

The Air Force was created Sept. 18, 1947, and its inventory of high-tech jet aircraft expanded in the years that followed.

FEAF became Pacific Air Forces on July 1, 1957. Its headquarters was established at Hickam Air Force Base in a former Army barracks that still bears scars from the attack on Pearl Harbor.

By the Vietnam War era, PACAF was an integral part of life in Hawai'i, and its B-52s — big workhorses with oversized wings that seemed to flap on takeoff — became familiar symbols of the Vietnam era.

PACAF crews participated in the first Gulf War and flew escort and attack missions in the first attacks against Baghdad in the current war against Iraq.

Crews and support personnel now serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, Keck said, and the command, which has resources from tankers to fighters to space technology, looks forward to the arrival of its fleet of state-of-the-art C-17s, to be stationed at Hickam and in Alaska.

But Keck's favorite part of PACAF history is its humanitarian missions. "We have provided relief in practically any natural disaster imaginable," he said.

Victims of earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and typhoons have seen relief arrive aboard PACAF aircraft, as have victims of man-made disasters.

When Saddam Hussein began taking revenge against pro-U.S. Kurdish resistance fighters in 1996, PACAF troops rescued nearly 6,500 of them in Operation Pacific Haven.

In 1975, as Saigon fell to North Vietnamese fighters and U.S. forces departed, troops gathered orphaned babies from the city and loaded them into boxes lining the floors of PACAF C-5s. Despite the tragic crash of one of the planes, more than 2,000 orphans were rescued in Operation Baby Lift.

For many Americans, the end of the Vietnam War recalls images of another PACAF mission: evacuating America's prisoners of war from the "Hanoi Hilton."

A plaque at Hickam Air Force Base marks the site where, on Feb. 14, 1973, the first of more than 600 POWs first stepped from C-141s onto U.S. soil.

Reach Karen Blakeman at 535-2430 or kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.