Museum to restore Pearl Harbor control tower
The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Dec 17, 2007 19:56:36 EST
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — The Pacific Aviation Museum plans to spend $1 million restoring the white-and-red-striped control tower where the first radio broadcast of the attack on Pearl Harbor was made.
The 158-foot-tall tower on Ford Island hasn’t been repainted since it received a fresh coat for the film “Tora, Tora, Tora.”
At 8:05 a.m. on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, a chief radioman broadcast repeatedly that Ford Island was under attack. It was the first broadcast of the assault.
The military used the tower to guide aircraft onto the Ford Island naval air station landing field.
The rusting water tower has turned brownish and beige over time, but remains a dramatic and eye-catching landmark.
Clint Churchill, the museum president, said the goal is to bring the control tower back to its full red-and-white glory.
USS Arizona Memorial historian Daniel Martinez said it’s a worthy effort.
“This is a key component of Pearl Harbor history,” Martinez said. “It’s a structure that witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor.”
Navy historical architect Jeffrey N. Dodge, who has researched Pearl Harbor for more than a decade, said construction of the control tower was started in early 1941, but the air traffic control room in the top part of the tower was built after the Dec. 7 attack.
The tower complex was completed in 1942.
At the time of the attack, the tower was standing and the platform on top had been started. It was a solid dark color then, but by 1943 had been painted the familiar red and white.
The naval air station at Ford Island was decommissioned in 1962 but the control tower was used for touch-and-go landings for civilian pilots.
These days, the Navy won’t allow visitors past the chain link fence that surrounds the facility. Floor tiles inside contain asbestos.
At some point, the Pacific Aviation Museum would like to restore the lower levels for tours.
“In the longer run, we’d all very much love to restore the elevator and restore the tower up above,” Churchill said. “But that’s a longer-term goal and if money were no limitation, but it is. We’re a nonprofit, and we do what we can.”
The museum continues to seek out information about the control tower. Despite its prominence, gaps remain.
“This could be like a ‘CSI: Ford Island,’ where we find people who have been sitting in the shadows not knowing that their stories and their memories are important to us understanding this iconic tower,” said KT Budde-Jones, the museum’s education and volunteer director
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