80th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor

80th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor – Remembering Honolulu Fire Department

 

Early on the morning of Sunday 7th December 1941 Japanese aircraft launched a surprise attack on the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet at its base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu island, Hawaii, and on the nearby US Army Air Force base at Hickam Field.

 

Under mutual aid agreements with the US military, Honolulu Fire Department (HFD) made an attendance to the Hickam Field airbase. The first HFD appliances to arrive were caught in the second wave of the attack and three members of the HFD were killed and others wounded and HFD appliances were damaged.

 

Thereafter the HFD was fully deployed for the rest of the day fighting fires at the air base and in Honolulu itself where there were civilian casualties as the air raid started fires and destroyed buildings. Those HFD firefighters killed are the only American firefighters to die as a direct result of enemy action and the HFD claims to be the only American civilian fire department to have fought fires under enemy attack.