Ford Island

Ford Island is an islet in the center of Pearl Harbor, Oahu,

in the US state of Hawaii. Its original area of 334 acres
(135 ha) was increased during the 1930s to 441 acres
(178 ha) with fill dirt after the US Navy dredged Pearl
Harbor to accommodate battleships. The island was the
site of an ancient Hawaiian fertility ritual, which was
stopped by Christian missionaries during the 1830s. It was
given byKamehameha I to Spanish deserter Francisco de
Paula Marn, and was later owned by Seth Porter Ford. In
1916 the US Army bought part of it for use by an aviation
division, and by 1939 it was taken over by the US Navy,
for whom it was a strategic center of operations in
the Pacific Ocean. Ford Island was at the center of
the attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and
was designated aNational Historic Landmark in 1964. By
the late 1990s hundreds of millions of dollars had been
invested in real-estate development and infrastructure.
Ford Island is home to the USS Arizonamemorial,
the USS Missouri museum, the Pacific Warfighting Center,
and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The island has
been featured in films such as Tora! Tora! Tora! and Pearl
Harbor.