Attack on Pearl Harbor On December 7, 1941, Barbers Point was one of the many targets attacked by the Japanese during the
attack on Pearl Harbor. During the second wave, American pilots
George Welch and
Kenneth Taylor engaged Japanese aircraft over Barbers Point, shooting down two aircraft. The Navy acquired the airfield in early 1943. At that time it consisted of two short runways and four
hangars that were just two feet above
hightide. When they were done there would be three runways. The Navy would turn the airfield into a major facility by sending Seabees from the 13th, 64th and 133rd Construction Battalions to do it.
Army use In 1972 the United States Army posted a
CH-47 Chinook company, the 147th Assault Support Helicopter Company "Hillclimbers", supporting the Army's
25th Infantry Division and
United States Army Pacific, and it was moved to the historic
Wheeler Army Airfield,
Schofield Barracks, for Hawaii Army National Guard use. In May 1976 the
Joint Casualty Resolution Center moved here from
Thailand.
Closing NAS Barbers Point was closed by
Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action in 1999, with the Navy aircraft, primarily
P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft assigned to squadrons of Patrol Wing Two, relocating to
Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, now
Marine Corps Base Hawaii, on the other side of the island.
Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point, with its complement of
HH-65 Dolphin helicopters and
HC-130H
Hercules aircraft, remained after the Navy's departure; Barbers Point is the only
Coast Guard Air Station within the 14th US Coast Guard District. With the closure of NAS Barbers Point, the present day Kalaeloa Airport / John Rodgers Field became home to
Naval Air Museum Barbers Point, which preserved the history of the base and a collection of aircraft that reflected the US Navy's, US Marine Corps', US Coast Guard's and US Army's aviation presence on Barbers Point and in the state of Hawaii. The museum closed in 2020.
Production studio By early 2017, the massive building which once served as the air station's aircraft intermediate maintenance facility had been leased by
Navy Region Hawaii to the Hawaiian Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism and the Hawaii State Film Office for use as a
film and
television studio. The Hawaii State Film Office had been interested in developing space on the former airfield into a filming studio to complement the department's first studio, the
Hawaii Film Studio at
Diamond Head in East Oahu. Donne Dawson, commissioner of the Hawaii State Film Office, stated that the new facility would "have all the components of a film office, such as office space for all departments, space for their props and wardrobes and a mill for set construction," and noted that, had Navy Region Hawaii not agreed to the lease, "there were not a lot of options" available to interested production companies beyond retrofitting warehouse space.
ABC Studios and
Marvel Television's
Inhumans was the first production to use the newly created production facility. ==Environmental contamination==