Histories Compiled By Ewa Historian John Bond
Waikakalaua Ammo Storage Sites (WASS) History
Oahu has many huge and numerous underground concrete WW-II tunnels for mostly storing ammunition
Waikakalaua Gulch Army ammunition storage tunnels are massive, large enough to drive fully loaded 2 1/2 ton Army trucks. Army concrete ammunition tunnels have been estimated to total at least 16 miles in length, from Koko Head to Moanalua.
No deaths but the explosion was massive in Army
Waikakalaua Gulch Tunnel #24A in 1946
Waikakalaua Ammo Storage Site (WAS) Storage Tunnels (WAST) This installation extends beyond the southern extreme of Wheeler Army Airfield, along the east slope of Waikakalaua Gulch, at the west edge of the community of Mililani. The facility was constructed during WWII and is presently in mothballed status. It consists of a series of steel-doored, horizontal storage bunkers tunneled into the steep gulch wall. Access is from a roadway constructed just above the OR&L right-of-way that once connected Waipahu to Wheeler, Schofield, Wahiawa and the Dole Pineapple operations to the north (until the rail system was abandoned in 1947-48). This system of tunnels was the location of the primary storage for ordinance for B-17s and other bombers stationed just above at the Kipapa Army Airfield.
Figure 88: Kipapa Army Airfield, April 1943. This area is now part of Mililani Town. Runway 3 roughly paralleled the lower ends of Kealakaa Street and Meheula Parkway, extending up to the latter intersection with Kamehameha Highway. The Ammo Storage Tunnels can be seen as a series of black openings along the roadway along the gulch bottom.
The Army Corps of Engineers contracted out for a Historical Records Review of the Waikakalaua Ammunition Storage Tunnels (WAS), Draft Historical Records Review, Waikakalaua Ammunition Storage Tunnels - TLI Solutions, Inc. August 2006). Excerpts from sections on the data collection and document review process as well as one of their maps of the installation.
Waikakalaua consisted of 52 tunnels built into the hillside and used for ammunition storage. Waikakalaua Ammo Storage Tunnels (WAST) 1944 1946 176.1 acres. The mission of Waikakalaua was to provide ammunition storage for the Army during and after World War II. Ordnance storage tunnels and underground fuel storage tanks are reported to have been constructed between 1942 and 1945, and the installation was active until the 1950s. Waikakalaua Ammo Storage Tunnels as AIR/FALLOUT SHELTER Building FEE NREC Contributing Element of NRE District (NREC) An individual facility that is identified as a contributing element of a larger district determined eligible for listing on the NRHP.
According to Army-Navy Explosives Safety Board Abstract Number 28, tunnel #24A exploded in 1946 blowing large pieces of the concrete baffle out of the tunnel and across the gulch with such force that it destroyed a railroad track 300 feet away and caused a 20-foot depression to form above the tunnel.
As WW II approached, portable storage units were replaced with extensive underground rooms and tunnels for ammunition storage at many locations on Oahu. One worker commented that the Engineers had built so many tunnels, if placed end to end– the entrance would be at Koko Head, the exit at Moanalua. (ACE)
A major defense project of the mid-1930s was the construction of ammunition tunnels into the sides of Aliamanu Crater, called Aliamanu Ammunition Storage Depot (now Aliamanu Military Reservation Intended for centralized storage of Army ammunition, eight tunnels were dug in 1934 and additional 35 magazines were completed in 1937. (Army)
At the onset of World War II, the Army was importing ammunition in huge quantities, requiring construction of ammunition storage facilities. Small facilities were built above ground, but the bulk of the ammunition was stored in massive underground storage facilities.
The first to be developed was in Waikakalaua Gulch just south of Wheeler Field, as well as at Kipapa Gulch.
“Tunnels driven into the almost vertical walls of the two gorges would have entrances invisible from the air. To keep out bomb fragments, passageways to the storage chambers would be dog-legged or provided with baffles.”
“The only drawbacks to these sites were lava formations and cinder pockets which would necessitate timbering or concreting considerable portions of the chambers.” (DOD; army-mil)
Waikakalaua consisted of 52 tunnels built into the hillside and used for ammunition storage. The mission of Waikakalaua was to provide ammunition storage for the Army during and after World War II. Ordnance storage tunnels and underground fuel storage tanks are reported to have been constructed between 1942 and 1945, and the installation was active until the 1950s.
This system of tunnels was the location of the primary storage for ordinance for B-17s and other bombers stationed just above at the Kipapa Army Airfield. The site was also used to store anti-tank and rifle fragmentation grenades. (army-mil)
Kipapa Ammunition Storage Site, located in Kipapa Gulch, was comprised of three sections. The lower unit is accessed from the south side of the Kamehameha Highway Bridge and extends south to the Kipapa Navy Ammunition Storage Area. The other two units are in the gulch to the east of Mililani Town.
By WW-II's end, the Army had built 37 miles of runways, 32 miles of taxiways, 2.7 million square yards of aircraft parking, and 470 aircraft bunkers.
Fort Ruger – Fort Shafter Tunnels
Other tunnel complexes were built, including Schofield Barracks, Wheeler Field, Fort Shafter and Fort Ruger. The tunnels at Wheeler Field and Fort Ruger were for ammunition storage. The tunnels at Fort Shafter included a bombproof radio station, an underground cold storage facility, an anti-aircraft command radio transmitter tunnel, and the Air Defense Command Post. (army-mil)
In connection with Richardson Hall there are three underground, bombproof tunnels in its vicinity. Tunnel 103 is presently a command center, while the current uses of tunnels 113 and 114 are unknown. National Register of Historic Places Inventory Fort Shafter.
Kunia Tunnels
Army construction during this period also included “The Hole” (now the Kunia Field Station,) a facility originally intended for airplane assembly (with a runway connection to Wheeler Field to the east.)
“The entrance appeared to lead only to a small dugout in a rolling hill, but at the end of a quarter-mile tunnel two elevators – one big enough for 20 passengers and the other able to carry four ½-ton trucks – gave access to a three-floor structure, self-sufficient even to a cafeteria that could serve 6,000 meals a day.”
“’The Hole’ was intended for plane assembly, but since it was not needed for such use, it proved ideal for the reproduction of maps and charts. Its huge air conditioning and ventilating systems provided easy control of temperature and humidity, and its fluorescent lighting furnished a flood of shadowless illumination.” (Allen; army-mil)
Kunia Regional SIGINT Operations Center
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunia_Regional_SIGINT_Operations_Center
http://totakeresponsibility.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-hole.html
In a first, NSA allows news cameras into Kunia facility. And vets aren’t happy
Aliamanu Crater Tunnels
http://www.rcarchive.com/hhg/alia.html
In October 1941, work was started to convert the storage facility in the rim of Aliamanu Crater into a joint Army-Navy command post; although not completed at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the post was shortly after put into service by the island command.
To alleviate continued housing shortages in the early-1970s, the Army, Navy, and Marines developed a joint project at Āliamanu Military Reservation, once a World War II era Navy-Army command post and important ammunition storage facility.
The ammunition was moved to the Lualualei storage depot and the crater was transformed into a 2,600-unit housing development.
You can get an idea how HUGE these Waikakalaua Ammo Storage tunnels are by looking about halfway into this hike video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=RClHh4gO6Q0
Apparently some ordinance cleanup was or will be done by 2015-20??
https://aec.army.mil/application/files/4715/0007/9167/HI-WAIK.pdf
http://imagesofoldhawaii.com/ammo-tunnels/
There are far more batteries and bunkers out there than meet the eye. Many who have had access to them discover inside them more than an echo and moldy interior.
"We're surprised every day. We find more and more," said John Bennett, a retired city prosecutor's investigator and member of the Coast Defense Study Group.
The military controlled one-third of O'ahu during the war years, and one Army official said there are probably 300 tunnels.
Sandii Kamaunu, owner of Military HQ on Sand Island Access Road, several years ago bought up a Civil Defense field hospital stored and long forgotten since the early to mid-1950s in a World War II gun battery in Kailua. She was flabbergasted by what she found.
The cache included hundreds of sealed crates. There were 200 cots and 200 wool blankets, splints, blood transfusion kits, porcelain bed pans and urinals, and vials of dried-up potassium penicillin crystalline for shots that Kamaunu says were given with "horse needles that hurt like hell." Some of the items bore 1940s dates.
All were like new, in the box, directions included.
Wayne Jones, the acting director of the O'ahu Civil Defense Agency, remembers inspecting the supplies.
"There was an old dentist's chair up there if I remember correctly, an old operating table — all stainless steel — but of no use to us," Jones said.
For decades, Ron Deisseroth and his mushroom business co-existed with the field hospital in twin 155-foot-deep bunkers, a spot that suited both. Sheltered beneath at least 200 feet of earth at the deepest point, Battery 405 — with kitchen, infirmary and bunks — originally supported two MK VI 8-inch Navy guns. Five similar batteries were built around the island. A facade meant to look like a two-story home — intended to throw off would-be invaders — once camouflaged the tunnel's entrance.
Deisseroth, who grew mushrooms from 1950 to about 1992, remembers schoolchildren trooping up the hill for a disaster preparedness drill.
"I guess they wanted them to know where to go in case of an attack," said the O'ahu man, who leased the property from Kane'ohe Ranch.
There are also many large tunnel systems on Oahu for
Artillery Gun Batteries to support 8 and 14 inch guns
