Major Wheeler had become well known for his daring reconnaissance and scouting flights in support of General Pershing's operations near the Mexican Border looking for Pancho Villa.
While Major Wheeler, former commander of Luke Field on Ford Island, was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, he and his sergeant died in a plane crash on July 13, 1921.
Wheeler Air Force Base, which is located on the island of Oahu, sharing the East fence of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Naval Base is named after Major Wheeler.... who was the commander of the Luke Field, on Ford Island, that was bombed during the attack by the Japanese on Dec 7, 1941.
Ford Island is the island in Pearl Harbor that the battleships were moored at. I was stationed at Pearl Harbor Subbase on the SSN 717, from 1991-1995, Sub Squadron 1.
Wheeler Air Force base was the site of several major historic aviation events, including the first nonstop Mainland-to-Hawaii flight by Army Air Corps Lieutenants Lester J. Maitland and Albert F. Hegenberger in 1927; the Great Dole Derby air race from California to Hawaii, also in 1927; the first trans-Pacific flight from the Untied States to Australia by Australian Squadron Leader Charles E. Kingsford-Smith in 1928; and the first Hawaii-to-Mainland solo flight in 1935 by Amerlia Earhart, who flew from Wheeler Field to Oakland, California.
https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/search/label/Amelia%20Earhart
and I didn't make a post about it, but I'm distantly related to the Schofield that Schofield Barracks is named for, he was the Sec Of War, late 1880s-ish, and Commander of the Army, and he prompted the president to lay claim to Pearl Harbor as a defensive forward operating base in the Pacific. Schofield Barracks had one of these trains https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-norgrove-railway-outside-of-arroyo.html
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