Qualla: Ford Island

Ford Island: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mark Miller, CC BY-SA 4.0. Ancient Hawaiians called it Mokuumeume -- "isle of attraction" -- and used it for a fertility ceremony that involved singing around bonfires while a tribal leader touched chosen men and women with a maile wand. Christian missionaries shut down the ritual in the 1830s. Since then, Ford Island has been a Spanish deserter's goat ranch, a sugarcane plantation, an Army airfield, a Navy air station, the epicenter of the most consequential military attack in American history, and a national historic landmark so neglected that the National Trust for Historic Preservation once listed it among the country's most endangered sites. All of this on 441 acres in the middle of Pearl Harbor.

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Image: Mark Miller | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ford Island: From Bonfire to Barracks

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bradley and Rulofson, Public domain. Kamehameha I gave the island to Francisco de Paula Marin, a Spanish deserter who raised sheep, hogs, goats, and rabbits there to provision passing ships. The monarchy reclaimed it, and in 1865 it sold at public auction for $1,040 to James Isaac Dowsett, who immediately resold it ...

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Image: Bradley and Rulofson | Public domain

Ford Island: Runway and Runway

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit National Museum of the U.S. Navy, Public domain. What began as a rough landing strip became, by 1918, a working military air station with steel-and-wood hangars, concrete seaplane ramps, a machine shop, and a photography laboratory. The Army took the west side, the Navy the southeast. Naval Air Station Pearl Harbor was commissi...

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Image: National Museum of the U.S. Navy | Public domain

Ford Island: The Center of the Storm

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. On December 7, 1941, Ford Island sat at the literal center of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Battleship Row ran along its southeast shore, where eight battleships were moored in pairs at quays F6, F7, and F8. Japanese torpedo bombers flew at mast height across the harbor, their weap...

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Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain

Ford Island: Memorials in Every Direction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mark Miller, CC BY-SA 4.0. The island today is ringed by memory. The sunken hull of USS Arizona lies off its southeast shore, the white memorial structure visible from the island's roads. USS Utah, relegated to a target ship before the attack, remains capsized off the northwest side -- a memorial dedicated...

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Image: Mark Miller | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ford Island: An Island Still at Work

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Department of Defense Current Photos, Public domain. Ford Island is not a museum frozen in time. It remains an active military installation within Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. Navy housing occupies parts of the island, and the Fleet Integrated Synthetic Training/Testing Facility, unveiled in 2013, uses simulators and virtual rea...

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Image: U.S. Department of Defense Current Photos | Public domain