Qualla: Bellows Air Force Station

Bellows Air Force Station: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USDProfessor, CC BY-SA 3.0. The name still says Air Force, but the last runway closed in 1958. Bellows Air Force Station sits on Oahu's windward coast near Waimanalo, a strip of white sand and ironwood trees that began its military life as a sugarcane plantation in 1917 and spent the next century cycling through identities -- wartime airfield, Cold War radio relay, recreation beach, Marine Corps training ground. On the morning of December 7, 1941, a B-17 bomber nicknamed "Skipper" was forced to land here because Japanese aircraft had made Hickam Field unreachable. That emergency landing is among the quieter footnotes of a day defined by catastrophe, but it captures something essential about Bellows: always part of the larger story, never quite at its center.

Image: USDProfessor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bellows Air Force Station: Signals Across the Pacific

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Department of Defense. American Forces Information Service. Defense Visual Information Center. 1994, Public domain. After the war, Bellows found a second life transmitting messages across the ocean. From the late 1950s through the satellite era, the station operated as the Air Force's long-haul high-frequency radio transmitter site in Hawaii. Highly directional Sloping V antennas aimed signals...

Image: Department of Defense. American Forces Information Service. Defense Visual Information Center. 1994 | Public domain

Bellows Air Force Station: A Beach With Barracks

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USDProfessor, CC BY-SA 3.0. Since 1958, Bellows has operated primarily as an Armed Forces Recreation Center. Beachfront duplex cabins line the shore, each with a charcoal barbecue and picnic table. Active duty, reserve, and retired military personnel can book camping spots or condominium-style apartments al...

Image: USDProfessor | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bellows Air Force Station: Where Marines Practice Landing

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marines from Arlington, VA, United States, Public domain. In 1999, the Marine Corps acquired a significant portion of Bellows from the Air Force. Marine Corps Training Area Bellows, now part of Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay, is the only place in the state where amphibious landings can transition directly into overland maneuver...

Image: Marines from Arlington, VA, United States | Public domain

Bellows Air Force Station: The Graves and the Watershed

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USDProfessor, CC BY-SA 3.0. Hidden on the base grounds is the Bellows Japanese Cemetery, a small burial ground with approximately 57 graves and 45 markers inscribed primarily in Japanese. Most of the burials date to the 1910s, when Japanese laborers worked the sugarcane fields that preceded the military res...

Image: USDProfessor | CC BY-SA 3.0