The United States Army Pacific (USARPAC) is an Army Service Component Command which serves as the Army service component for United States Indo-Pacific Command.[2] It may also serve as a Joint Task Force headquarters. The command has forces in Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, and South Korea. It also performs missions in Southeast Asia, in the countries stretching from the Philippines all the way to Bangladesh and India. United States Forces Korea (USFK) has had operational command and control of US Forces in Korea since January 2012, and USARPAC headquarters oversees the manning, training, and equipping of US Army forces assigned to USFK.[3]
Subordinate units of this command have performed humanitarian missions in places as widely separated as Haiti, Cuba, and the Middle East.
History
The first U.S. Army formation established in Hawaii was the District of Hawaii, on 25 Oct 1910.[4] It was succeeded on 1 Oct 1911 by the Department of Hawaii, and on 15 Feb 1913 by the Hawaiian Department. Brigadier General Montgomery M. Macomb was the first commander of the Hawaiian Department. Headquartered in the Alexander Young Hotel, it moved to Fort Shafter in 1921.[5] The department also started wearing the red octagon insignia bearing the yellow letter "H." The colors symbolized Hawaiian royalty and the eight sides represented the main islands of Hawaii.
Lieutenant General Walter Short was commanding the Hawaiian Department in early December 1941, when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor took place.[6] He was quickly recalled to the mainland. To replace him, Lieutenant General Delos Emmons was returned by General Henry "Hap" Arnold to Hawaii as commanding general of the Department on December 17, 1941, ten days after the attacks. He encouraged the creation of the Hawaii Defense Volunteers.[7] He organized the replacement of the island's U.S. banknotes with new dollars overprinted with the word HAWAII; if the area were occupied, U.S. authorities could declare all marked dollars void and thereby render worthless all money which fell into enemy hands (by their capture of banks, businesses, etc.). He also requested Army Air Forces Headquarters to send additional planes and received them as rapidly as possible. Emmons built up the forces in Hawaii, anticipating the Battle of Midway. After Admiral Chester Nimitz became Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas in May 1942, the Hawaiian Department came under his command.
On 26 May 1943 General Robert C. Richardson Jr. arrived in Hawaii as the new commander of the Hawaiian Department.[8] In July he radically reorganized his command, placing the major air and ground forces in the area under seven major commands, all under his direct control. In recognition of the importance of shipping in an oceanic theater, he abolished the old Service Forces and created instead an Army Port and Service Command. A Hawaiian Artillery Command was also established, and a Department Reserve designated. All the combat divisions in the area, as well as those expected, were placed under separate command and a task force headquarters was formed in anticipation of future needs. Finally Richardson appointed a deputy chief of staff for operations, who became in effect a War Plans officer.
On 14 August, Richardson assumed the title Commanding General, U.S. Army Forces, Central Pacific Area "by direction of the President."
The geographical extent of General Richardson's authority under this directive, as distinguished from his command of the Hawaiian Department, corresponded to the area delineated as the Central Pacific in Nimitz' original directive. It encompassed therefore all the land and sea areas of the Pacific between the equator (but including Canton Island) and the 42d parallel to the north, except for that portion of MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area that lay north of the equator and a small strip off the coast of South America. Within this vast region, only a small portion of which was as yet in American hands, Richardson was responsible for the administration and training of all U.S. Army troops, whether ground or air. This responsibility included also supply, but the precise nature of these duties was left undefined pending his recommendations. General Richardson had no responsibility for operations other than to assist "in the preparation and execution of plans" involving Army forces in the area, "subject to the direction of the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Ocean Area."
In designating Richardson Commanding General, U.S. Army Forces, Central Pacific Area, the War Department had said nothing about his duties as Hawaiian Department commander. Actually his responsibilities for both were about the same, but the older command, which carried certain additional legal responsibilities, had been established by Congress and could be altered only by that body. Did Richardson still retain those functions unique to the Hawaiian Department or had the new directive superseded the old? This confusion was settled quickly when the War Department on 18 September affirmed the continued existence of the Hawaiian Department under Richardson and stated explicitly what had been left implicit before - that its instructions to Richardson were not intended to affect the status of the Hawaiian Department.
Fort Shafter became a busy headquarters and the barracks on Palm Circle were converted to offices. The major headquarters was named successively U.S. Army Forces, Central Pacific Area (1943–44); U.S. Army Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas (1944–45); and U.S. Army Forces, Middle Pacific (1945–47). In 1944, the Army Corps of Engineers erected the "Pineapple Pentagon" (buildings T-100, T-101, and T-102) in just 49 days.
In 1947 U.S. Army Forces Middle Pacific became U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC). During the Korean War, USARPAC provided combat forces, training, and logistics.
During the Vietnam War, the command provided the same support to United States Army Vietnam. After the war the Army cut its presence in the region as there was no longer a need for such a large number of combat forces in the Pacific. Subsequently, USARPAC was eliminated as a component command and Army forces in Korea and Japan became separate major commands. In Hawaii, USARPAC headquarters was superseded by US Army Support Command Hawaii (USASCH) and a Department of the Army field operating agency, US Army CINCPAC Support Group.
In 1979 the Army established US Army Western Command (WESTCOM) as a major command and the Army component of US Pacific Command. WESTCOM took command of Army forces in Hawaii. In 1989 it added United States Army Alaska and in 1990 United States Army, Japan.[9] In 1990 WESTCOM was renamed USARPAC. USARPAC has sent forces on multiple humanitarian missions, disaster relief, and defense support of civil authorities.
In October 2000 the headquarters reorganized as a multi-component Army service component command.
Dye, Bob, ed. (2010). Hawai'i chronicles III: World War Two in Hawai'i, from the pages of Paradise of the Pacific. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN978-0-8248-6276-3.
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GEN Ronald P. Clark 
MG Scott Winter 
