The plumeria and palm tree shaded house on the corner of Sixth Street and Julian Avenue on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii stands not unlike other nearby homes built during the years leading up to World War II.
The two story stucco structure complete with maid quarters, walk-through butler’s pantry and an open air garage is built in the Island Craftsman-Bungalow style with signature terra cotta tiles and wide wooden eaves.
These garden style homes of early Hickam Field were the inspiration of Army Air Corps Capt. Howard Nurse, who saw a blank architectural canvass when assigned the task of designing an entire neighborhood. He envisioned military quarters that could not only be functional but aesthetically pleasing — not necessarily a consideration for government housing in an era of build them fast, build them cheap.
In one of the earliest photos of the home at 304 Sixth St. circa 1939, the elevated, multi-storied iron railroad trestle at the U.S. Navy’s coal yard can be seen in the distance. The natural harbor and the island’s singular geographic position in the Pacific made Hawaii ideal as a coaling station in the early 1900s. Later improvements to the harbor and port were followed by navy and army airfields at Ford Island and Hickam.
Today the weathered concrete walls no longer hold coal for ships, and the circular iron trestle has long been dismantled, but the home represents a one of a kind historical architecture and still services as a functioning museum and residence for military officers.
Panama City connection: The house at 304 Sixth St., Hickam Field, was completed in 1939 at cost of $12,000. Col. Howard Davidson, wife Mary along with daughters Julie, Frances and Mary were the first occupants. Julie, now Julie Davidson Cheshire, currently lives in the Cove area in Panama City. She is a Dec. 7,1941 survivor.
Like most architecturally-significant homes in Hawaii, they are made even more interesting by the colorful people who once lived in them. Like Doris Duke’s Shangri La in the shadow of Diamond Head and the Admiral Nimitz’s house on the Macalpa escarpment overlooking Pearl Harbor, this bungalow’s first occupants are no different. In 1939, Brigadier Gen. Howard C. Davidson with movie star good looks and his affluent wife Mary Perrine Patterson made 304 Sixth St. home. They were also the parents of long time Panama City resident Julie Davidson Cheshire.
Gen. Davidson began his career in 1913 after graduating from West Point Military Academy. In 1918, then-Lt Davidson was assigned to Aero Squadron One in Columbus, New Mexico. He participated in the U.S. punitive expedition into Mexico chasing the renowned bandit and revolutionary, Francisco “Pancho” Villa.
This coming out party of U.S. military aviation failed in many respects. The Curtis JN-3 “Jenny” aircraft used were prone to maintenance failures; these fickle machines were unable to withstand the rigors of the “Frontera” (Southwest U.S. and Northern Mexico). Many times U.S. pilots crashed landed and needed to hitch rides back to their military camps.
However the lessons learned on incorporating technical and mechanized aspects of military hardware such as aircraft and vehicles in an animal-centric army paid invaluable dividends through World War I and the years leading to World War II. Although the majority of Americans singularly identify the December 7th attack with the navy at Pearl Harbor, the death and destruction at nearby Hickam Field was also significant.
As interesting as Gen. Davidson, perhaps as colorful was his wife Mary, an heiress to the National Cash Register Corporation. In 1884 her father, Frank Patterson along with her uncle John bought the patent to the first mechanical cash register and although they did not invent the cash register, they made it commercially successful.
Because of the ease to have one’s “hand in the till,” store graft was a major concern for store owners as there was no safeguards in place for unscrupulous employees. The mechanical cash register, as did the airplane, significantly shaped the early 20th century American economy. By 1881, the National Cash Register Corporation was a multinational company and its name has survived until today. As of 2013, the company posted a revenue in excess of $6 billion dollars.
As a “Patterson,” Mary possessed significant resources unlike most military spouses, and used them to improve the home. She added an adjoining sunroom with pine paneling, floor to ceiling windows, and acid etched concrete floors. Besides enduring the typical sacrifices of a military spouse, such as the constant moving every few years, she also experienced a personal tragedy. In 1918 Mary lost her brother Frank Stuart Patterson to a military plane crash. He along with another crewmember were unable to recover from a dive while testing a new aircraft modification not far from the family business in Dayton, Ohio. The present day Wright-Patterson Air Force Base home to the Air Force’s Museum is named in honor of Julie’s uncle along with a pioneer of American aviation — Wilber Wright.
House survives attack: The house survived the December 7th Japanese attack. Perhaps helped in part by being in close proximately to a unique, ornate water tower complete with its own gargoyles — in this case eight one-ton concrete eagles jutting outwards along the parapet. Some think this baroque tower led the Japanese to mistake it as a shrine or temple. In Japanese military photos of the bombing, the tower is easily recognizable through the smoke and destruction. In the early 20th century, public water works were prominently featured as indoor plumbing was still considered to some in America as a novel invention and thus its form and function was highlighted architecturally.
During the attack, a Sixth Street water main was hit and the ensuing rapid exodus of water from the tower ruptured the metal holding tank. The Moorish inspired water tower still figures prominently in the neighborhood (and can be seen in movies such as Michael Bay’s movie “Pearl Harbor”), but since the attack, the tower no longer served as a water source.
The military barracks just a few blocks up Sixth Street that now house the Pacific Air Forces Headquarters were heavily damaged during the attack. The building still proudly shows the bullet scars and shrapnel wounds from attacking Japanese fighters and bombers. Also across the street on Sixth, the new military hospital was flooded with hundreds of casualties, some who died outside in a makeshift triage within view of the garden style neighborhood.
Gen. Davidson and his family were not present at the house during the attack. He had recently been reassigned to nearby Wheeler Field as the commanding officer of all fighter aircraft on the island where his duties included integrating a nascent technology called Radio Detection and Ranging, (known today as the acronym “RADAR”) to better alert his fighter forces.
Located on the north shore of Oahu near the present-day Turtle Bay resort, a truck-mounted radar operated by two privates did in fact detect and plot the incoming Japanese aircraft on December 7th, but due to inexperience, lack of training and the fog of war, the formations were mistaken as friendly B-17s arriving from the states and the U.S. forces on island never received a warning. The first Gen. Davidson knew of the Japanese attack was during his Sunday morning breakfast.
Daughter Julie, then age 10, recalls he complained of what he thought were unprofessional U.S. Navy aircraft, but when recognized the insignia on the planes and realized they were Japanese, “he was out the door.” She vividly remembers hiding with the rest of the family in a windowless hallway during the attack as bullets pinged off their metal trash cans.
Even though he lost half of the fighters under his command, he escaped the sackings that felled other pre-attack Army generals and Navy admirals. As the airman in charge of all fighter aircraft, he was later summoned with Lt. Gen. Short (who was in charge of all Army defenses including the fighters, bombers and radar — and was removed from command) to testify during the joint congressional investigation on the Pearl Harbor attack. During the in-depth and accusatory investigations, even the drinking habits of the senior officers were brought into question by Congress, and Gen. Short testified that “General Davidson was not known to take a cocktail.”
Gen. Davidson eventually went on to become the first commander of the 7th Air Force (still activated today as the USAF’s combat Air Force in South Korea), retired in 1946 as a two-star general and became the Air Force Aid Society president serving alongside such notables as Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold and World War I ace and racecar driver Eddie Rickenbacker. During World War I in France, Gen. Davidson had taught the former celebrity how to fly and “Captain Eddie” later became America’s leading ace with 26 aerial victories.
The house now: The house first occupied by the Davidsons no longer houses the Hickam base commander. The World War II airfield has been shortened and the remaining tarmac is used to park visiting aircraft such as Air Force One when President Obama visits his home state. Hickam-assigned C-17s and stealth F-22 fighters taxi to the shared runway at Honolulu International and await their turn amid commercial airliners filled with Japanese tourists.
A few blocks away larger, renovated homes flanking the Hickam parade ground are now the general officers’ residences. A new “colonels row” with modern homes was built across Julian Avenue along the Pearl Harbor channel complete with million dollar views, parks and a scenic running trail.
In between these bastions of Air Force leadership still sits a solid 1939 home where the royal palm and monkey pod tree saplings planted by Capt. Nurse now majestically soar. Multicolored hibiscus hedges and other tropical flora frame the house, attaining Nurse’s successful vision of a garden neighborhood. And although my rank and name currently adorns the front entrance (along with a historical brass placard), this home should always be known as the “Davidson House.”
Col. Eddie Boxx, the current resident, was commissioned in 1991 by World War Two ace Franklin A. Nichols and has served two assignments as an Air Battle Manager at Tyndall Air Force Base. During the attack on Hawaii, then-Lt. Nichols was under the command of Gen. Davidson at Wheeler Field. Jesse Higa, Joint Base Hickam Pearl Harbor historian, contributed to this article and heads the Hickam World War II Survivors Association. She continues provides historical tours of Joint Base Hickam and Pearl Harbor.