After months of planning, the purchase was finalized in October 2022. The business partners established a new company, Oka’s Collision Centers of Hawaii.
By WILLIAM COLE | The Honolulu Star-Advertiser | Published: January 2, 2021 (Tribune News Service) Following the surprise removal of a Naval Air Station Barbers Point memorial in 2018 and a couple of failed efforts to relocate it, AMVETS Hawaii is again trying to rebuild the pole-mounted scale model P-3 Orion aircraft surrounded by a moss rock wall. A backlash in the military community particularly among the thousands of Navy veterans who served at the base followed its removal. The now-shuttered Barbers Point at one time was the largest naval air station in the Pacific, with 6, 500 military, family members and civilians. The crossroads of the Pacific had about six P-3 Orion sub-hunter squadrons and around 50 of the propeller aircraft.