Military | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 7, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Boeing Wonderland

Maj. John F. Ohmer, Jr., of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, an expert in camouflage, found that almost nothing had been done to conceal military installations in the US. (Corps of Engineers)

The art and science of camouflage had infatuated Ohmer for years. After joining the Army in 1938, he combined his love of magic and photography to find inventive ways to fool the eye and the lens.

When Ohmer went overseas to study Britain’s wartime concealment efforts, he marveled as German attackers wasted their bombs in open fields brilliantly attired to appear as vital targets. (Popular Mechanics)

During the Battle of Britain, which lasted from July until October 1940, the Luftwaffe rained thousands of bombs over England. One of Germany’s main goals for the constant bombing was to destroy the Royal Air Force.

The Luftwaffe had a long list of important targets that included aircraft factories and airfields. The British covered their factories, warplanes and tanks with camouflaging materials and paint, and put fake airplanes and tanks in fields far away from civilization. The Luftwaffe bombed hundreds of fake targets, leaving the real targets intact. (Mishpacha)

As commander of the Army’s 604th Engineer Camouflage Battalion, Ohmer campaigned to demonstrate his craft by obscuring Hawai‘i’s Wheeler Field in 1941. His superiors rejected his proposal because of the $56,210 price tag (nearly $900,000 today).

Then on December 7, 1941, Japanese attackers bombed and strafed Oahu’s exposed airfields, along with the naval base at Pearl Harbor. Wheeler alone lost 83 warplanes, each one nearly worth the cost of Ohmer’s proposed cover-up. (Popular Mechanics)

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Ohmer received an urgent call from the US Army. The threat of further attack led Ohmer’s superiors to reassess the value of his vision.

The most visible and vulnerable targets were a dozen or so distinctive, wooden aircraft assembly buildings. Military leaders were concerned that just a few air-dropped incendiary bombs would burn them to the ground. The loss of just one major airplane-producing facility could lengthen the war considerably. (Popular Mechanics)

Ohmer’s assignment … he had to make everything worth bombing, from San Diego to Seattle, disappear. The long list included airfields, oil depots, aircraft warning stations, military camps, and defensive gun batteries.

“He was a Hollywood art director and designer who worked on classic musicals of the late 1930s, ones with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald and Busby Berkeley choreographed extravaganzas, the kind of movies that lit up the theater.”

“He was an art director at Golden Age MGM, and was nominated for an Oscar in 1940. He married one of the screen’s biggest stars – Veronica Lake. John Stewart Detlie was right at the heart of Tinseltown glamour.” (Cascade PBS)

Ohmer created illusions for America’s five largest aircraft manufacturers situated in California and Washington. These manufacturing plants – from Douglas Aircraft Co., Consolidated Vultee (now Convair), North American Aviation, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing – were transformed to look like cities or towns from the air. (CoffeeOrDie)

Ohmer turned to Hollywood to find the most adept civilian workers, raiding movie studios to leverage the skills of set designers, art directors, painters, carpenters, and landscape artists for the urgent task, along with a handful of willing animators, lighting experts, and prop designers.

The crown jewel of Ohmer’s concealments took place near Seattle, where Boeing’s Plant 2 sprawled over 700,000 square feet of floor space. Inside, thousands of men and women churned out a new B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber roughly every 90 minutes.

Ohmer placed his top movie studio recruit on the Boeing project, architect John Detlie. He was pure Hollywood, married to movie star Veronica Lake. Before Detlie joined the war effort, he was an Oscar-nominated art director and set designer at MGM.

In Seattle, Detlie assembled 13 architects and draftsmen, eight commercial artists, seven landscape architects, five engineers, and a soil-management expert.

Thwarting an enemy reconnaissance flier took more than simply covering the factory building. A sharp-eyed scout might zero in on the adjoining airfield, parking lots, or ramp areas. Making Boeing’s entire production facility disappear meant sowing confusion over several square miles of land. (Popular Mechanics)

Located at 7755 East Marginal Way S. in Tukwila on the banks of the Duwamish River, Boeing’s Plant 2 (also known as Air Force Plant 17) was a factory building built in 1936 by The Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington – the factory goal was to build early prototypes of the B-17 Flying Fortress and the Boeing 307 Stratoliners.

By the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the plant had been expanded to 1,776,000 square feet. In total, 6,981 B-17s were produced in Plant 2.

Boeing Plant 2 gave birth to some of the world’s most significant aircraft and a home to ‘Rosie the Riveter’ – women who built thousands of World War II planes.

Plant 2 was so critical that Boeing camouflaged its roof with faux streets and houses of fabric and plywood, making it nearly vanish into nearby neighborhoods. Beneath the plant, tunnels led to cafeterias, restrooms and classrooms, innovations to make life easier for workers and keep them close to their jobs. (Fox)

The idea was to blend the facility into the surrounding neighborhood across the river. This elaborate pretend town was nicknamed the “Boeing Wonderland” by the Seattle Daily Times on July 23, 1945. (RareHistoricalPhotos)

Workers obscured the heart of Boeing’s facility with 26 acres of camouflage netting stretched across the roof to create the appearance of a new faux ground level elevated roughly 50 feet above the surrounding landscape.

The building’s uneven bays and distinctive saw-tooth profile required the netting to be supported by wooden scaffolding or steel cables in low spots.

Reinforced catwalks, sometimes masquerading as sidewalks, included wood and wire handrails to keep a distracted maintenance man from straying off the supported path and plunging through the netting. (Popular Mechanics)

Disguising the active runways and taxiways as an innocuous urban scene called for a two-dimensional solution to not impede aircraft operations. Planners envisioned a pattern of visual noise composed of lawns, buildings, and roads crisscrossing the active airfield.

First, builders mixed finely crushed rock into bitumen, an asphalt-like substance, and applied it to areas heavily trafficked by aircraft. The mixture provided a dull texture to the airfield’s large, flat concrete surfaces. In non-traffic spaces, the men added wood chips and cement to absorb light. (Popular Mechanics)

Over the rough texture, workmen used paint to create an intricate top-down view of a typical neighborhood, devised by Detlie’s crew. Its pigment, developed by Warner Brothers, was reputed to “resist disclosure of the camouflage through infra-red photography.”

Oil mixed with the custom paint helped establish a convincing cross-hatch of artificial roads. On the airport’s infield, men constructed six-inch-high false buildings made from concrete blocks.

From overhead, the small structures cast realistic shadows and gave just a small amount of depth, giving more life to the scene. The finished deception looked amazingly impressive from the “attacker’s-eye-view” at five to ten thousand feet. Only as a pilot came in low for landing did the hidden runway lose its illusion. (Popular Mechanics)

The strange, house-filled neighborhood could be seen in the middle of an industrial area from the air. The “neighborhood” was completed in 1944 and removed a year after the war. (Seattle Times)

Fortunately, the enemy bombers never came. (AirMailNews)

May 2, 2026 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Oklahoma

The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders.

This generally involved the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chicasaw and Seminole; the Indians were to give up their lands east of the Mississippi (typically in the southeast) in exchange for lands to the west. (LOC)

After 11-million acres of Choctaw land was acquired, the Choctaw were to be removed from Mississippi. It was determined that the best method of handling the removal was to move about one-third of the Choctaws per year in each of the years 1831, 1832 and 1833.

The first one-third of the Choctaws started to be removed on November 1, 1831. Overall, nearly 15,000 Choctaws made the move to what would be called Indian Territory (later known as Oklahoma.) (Green)

When the first wagons reached Little Rock, in an interview with an Arkansas Gazette reporter, one of the Choctaw Chiefs (thought to be either Thomas Harkins or Nitikechi) was quoted as saying that the removal to that point had been a “trail of tears and death.”

In the Choctaw language, okla means ‘people;’ homma or humma means ‘red.’ ‘Okla Homma’ translates to ‘Red People’ in Choctaw. On November 16, 1907, Oklahoma was admitted as the forty-sixth of the United States.

In 1911 Congress authorized the building of two battleships, the Nevada and the Oklahoma, to be a modern symbol of the power of the United States (These two battleships were to be the first to burn oil as fuel instead of coal.)

Oklahoma (BB-37) was laid down October 26, 1912 by New York Shipbuilding Corp, Camden, NJ. The ship was christened in March 23, 1914 by Lorena Jane Cruce, daughter of Oklahoma’s Governor, Lee Cruce. Ms. Cruce struck the ship with a bottle of champagne while stating, “In the name of the United States, I christen thee ‘Oklahoma.’”

The Navy had earlier convinced Governor Cruce that it was tradition to use champagne in christening ships. (The Governor had not liked the idea of using champagne to launch a ship named for his state)

The USS Oklahoma was commissioned at Philadelphia on May 2, 1916 with Captain Roger Welles commanding; the commissioning statement noted “that the Oklahoma might never become a mere instrument of destruction nor of strife, but a minister of peace and a guardian of rights and interests of mankind, protecting the weak against the strong.”

Attending the commissioning was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D Roosevelt. (As president, Roosevelt would later declare war on Japan in 1941 after the attack at Pearl Harbor.) (Oklahoma Genealogical Society Quarterly)

The Oklahoma, a 27,500-ton Nevada class battleship, needed 2,166 sailors and marines to function properly. She could travel 20,000 miles without refueling. She carried ten 14-inch guns.

The guns on battleships are so big, that they rate them on how large their ammunition is in diameter. A 14-inch gun has shells that are 14 inches in diameter and weigh about 1,400 pounds each. Each of the Oklahoma’s guns could fire almost twelve miles. That’s farther than anyone could see, even with binoculars or a telescope. (OKHistory)

Joining the Atlantic Fleet with Norfolk her home port, Oklahoma trained on the eastern seaboard until sailing 13 August 1918 with sister ship Nevada to join in the task of protecting Allied convoys in European waters.

She then joined the Pacific Fleet for six years highlighted by the cruise of the Battle Fleet to Australia and New Zealand in 1925. She joined the Scouting Fleet in early 1927, Oklahoma was modernized at Philadelphia between September 1927 and July 1929 and conducted exercises in the Caribbean.

In August 1940, the Oklahoma had been in drydock in Puget Sound, Washington after participating in Army/Navy exercises. She was backing down Puget Sound in the fog and hit a tow line of a barge carrying railroad cars which sent railroad cars into the water. A Navy ship had never before collided with a train. (Oklahoma Genealogical Society Quarterly)

She was based at Pearl Harbor December 6, 1940 for patrols and exercises, and was moored in Battleship Row on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked.

Outboard alongside Maryland, Oklahoma took 3 torpedo hits almost immediately after the first Japanese bombs fell. As she began to capsize, 2 more torpedoes struck home, and her men were strafed as they abandoned ship.

Within 20 minutes after the attack began, she had swung over until halted by her masts touching bottom, her starboard side above water, and a part of her keel clear.

The Oklahoma capsized in a position parallel to the shore. Righting and refloating started with the first pull March 8, 1943, the final pull was on May 20, 1943 – it took 74-days to turn the ship over. She was floated by pumping air into air-tight compartments and pumping water out of the hull.

Too old and badly damaged to be worth returning to service, Oklahoma was formally decommissioned in September 1944. She was later sold to the Moore Drydock Co of Oakland, California, for scrapping. On May 17, 1947, while under tow, the Oklahoma sank 540-miles out of Pearl Harbor with no one on board.

In the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were 2,402 US deaths from the attack. 1,177 of those deaths were from the USS Arizona, while 429 of the deaths were from the USS Oklahoma (14 Marines and 415 Sailors.)

Thirty-five crew members were positively identified and buried in the years immediately after the attack. By 1950, all unidentified remains were laid to rest as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

The Defense Department recovered for identification and return to families the last of 388 sailors and Marines killed on the battleship USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941, and later buried as “unknowns” in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. (Lots of information here is from Navy.)

April 30, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

US Marine Hospital

“Lāhainā (anciently called Lele, from the short stay of Chiefs there) is pleasantly located on the western shore of West Maui … It may be considered as the second port of the Hawaiian Islands, as, next to Honolulu, it is most generally frequented by the whaling fleet which touch at the islands in the spring and fall for recruits and refreshments.”

“This town was selected by Kamehameha III and his chiefs to lie the seat of government of the group … It has two churches, a hospital, a “palace,” which from the anchorage looms up and appears a stately building … There are three ship chandlery stores, some fifteen retail stores, and three practicing physicians.” (The Friend, April 30, 1857)

“As near as we can ascertain, the first whale ships that visited these islands and touched at this port were the “Bellina,’ Capt, Gardner, and (unknown) Capt. Worth, which was some where about 1819.”

The central location of the Hawaiian Islands between the continent and Japan whaling grounds brought many whaling ships to the Islands. Whalers needed food and the islands supplied this need from its fertile lands.

Several hundred whaling ships might call in season, each with 20 to 30 men aboard and each desiring to resupply with enough food for another tour ‘on Japan,’ ‘on the Northwest’ or into the Arctic. (Thrum)

Between the 1820s and the 1860s, the Lāhainā Roadstead was the principal anchorage of the American Pacific whaling fleet. During that time, up to 1,500 sailors at a time were on the streets of the small town.

One reason why so many whalers preferred Lāhainā to other ports was that by anchoring in a roadstead from half a mile to a mile from shore they could control their crews better than when in a harbor.

“To whale ships no port at the islands offers better facilities for all their business (with the exception of heavy repairs) than does Lāhainā. As it is on this island, and but a short distance that the extensive potato fields are located that have furnished an almost inexhaustible supply … and fine herds of cattle …” (The Friend, April 30, 1857)

About this same time (1831,) Joaquin Armas came to Islands from Mexico (California) to catch cattle for Kamehameha III. His later reward for years of service to the King was several parcels of land, including a site in Lāhainā. (Pyle)

It is suggested that in 1833 Kamehameha III commissioned the construction of a two-story stone building on a property left to Armas, about a mile from the central core of Lāhainā, to serve as a store and inn to cater to visiting sailors. (Lāhainā Restoration Foundation)

During Armas’ occupation, on January 24, 1841, the first Catholic mass on Maui was celebrated in the house. (Bergin) Armas left the Islands in 1844.

On February 4, 1844, Milo Calkin was appointed US Vice Commercial Agent for the port of Lāhainā by William Hooper, acting United States Commercial Agent. One of his duties was to arrange for medical care for sick sailors.

In the beginning, sick and destitute sailors were being boarded out at some private establishment and being given medical care by a physician hired by the Agent. Calkin soon requested the ability to contract for a hospital to attend to the growing numbers. (HABS)

By August 1844, the US Marine Hospital was opened on the Armas site. Back then, the hospital business was divided into three major sections. The Commercial Agent (Calkin was the first) was responsible for recommending seamen to the hospital, keeping necessary papers and books, and handling the financial transactions.

A physician of the hospital (the first in Lāhainā was Dr Charles Winslow) had a contract with the US States Government which guaranteed him exclusive treatment of American seamen at US expense.

The third person involved in the hospital management was the purveyor (the first at Lāhainā was John Munn,) supplying food, clothing, shelter, maid service, laundry service and assorted other necessities. All of these services were charged to the US government. (Pyle)

The hospital (sometimes referred to as the ‘Seamen’s Hospital’) continued until 1862. A couple things caused it to close – (1) demand was dwindling (in 1859, an oil well was discovered and developed in Titusville, Pennsylvania; within a few years this new type of oil replaced whale oil for lamps and many other uses – spelling the end of the whaling industry) and (2) a festering scandal surfaced accusing misuse of government funds.

Part of the scandal started with some questions about the exorbitant amounts charged by Dr Winslow. Winslow evidently made his fortune in Lāhainā and left. In a November 19, 1847 letter (Rev Baldwin to EB Robinson, “…. tomorrow morning they (Winslow) embark … for the U. States. Dr. W. came out four years since from Nantucket—has had the Seamenʻs hospital here and other practices who have probably yielded him $20,000 or more, and now feels rich enough to go home.”

Calkin was not only Commercial Agent, he was a successful ship chandler; however, he abruptly dissolved his business in February, 1846 and departed from Hawaiʻi in November of that same year. “It seems unlikely that Calkin was actually involved in the fraud, but he must have known about it.” (Pyle)

After Charles Bunker of Massachusetts arrived as US consul to Lāhainā in 1850 (which had recently been elevated to a Consulate from an Agent) costs at the consulate skyrocketed. By 1852, officials at the Treasury Department had become suspicious. The costs to care for seamen at Lāhainā were nearly double per person than those in Honolulu. (US Archives)

The situation continued for a few more years, but when the total amount spent for the hospitals in Honolulu, Lāhainā and Hilo reached more than $150,000 per year, an investigation was demanded by the Treasury Department.

US Commissioner in Hawaii, James W Borden, investigated the workings of the United States hospital and consular system in Honolulu, Lāhainā and Hilo.

In part, Borden reported, “A careful examination of the evidence will, I believe, satisfy you that the Physician as well as the Purveyor, in this respect, and also in that of obtaining from the seamen blank receipts, have been engaged in defrauding the Government, and I have therefore no hesitation in recommending the removal of them both …” (Borden, April 27, 1860; US Archives)

“It is a notorious fact that … many of our citizens deprecated the system which has been so long pursued by the consuls in the expenditures of the fund so wisely appropriated by Congress for the relief of sick and disabled American seamen, and the exaction of illegal fees and unjust charges from the seamen…” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 28, 1861)

“The testimony disclosed the long mooted fact, that the consulates of Honolulu and Lāhainā have a large patronage and that therefore the temptation to illegal practices is consequently very great; that the offices of physician and purveyor, highly lucrative positions …”

“…they possessed power to embarrass the operations of the merchants and shipmasters … therefore, the corrupt and unwarranted practices of the consuls has been heretofore winked at by them…” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 28, 1861)

The US Marine Hospital (Seamen’s Hospital) in Lāhainā officially closed on September 10, 1862.

In 1865 the Anglican sisters founded St. Cross School for Girls at the Marine Hospital premises, at first leasing the property and finally purchasing it in 1872. The Sisterhood opened a similar school – St Andrew’s Priory – on May 30, 1867. The Lāhainā school continued to operate until 1877.

After the school closed, the building was used for many years as a vicarage for the Anglican ministers and was later exchanged with Bishop Estate for another piece of property in 1909. (HABS) It has also been used as a private home and a meeting room for civic groups. (Lāhainā Restoration Foundation) The structure was impacted by the Lahaina Fire.

April 2, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Flying the American Flag

“Twenty-eight members of the crew of the American armed steamer Aztec, 3,808 tons, which was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine are missing …” (Mercury, April 5, 1917)

Before we expand on this, let’s look back – both in Hawaiʻi and elsewhere.

Captain John Dominis was an Italian-American ship captain and merchant from New York who had been trading in the Pacific since the 1820s. In the 1840s, he purchased property on Beretania Street; he built a home for his family, Mary Lambert Dominis (his wife) and John Owen Dominis (his son.)

In 1847, on a voyage to China, Captain Dominis was lost at sea. To make ends meet, the widowed Mary then rented spare bedrooms; one of her tenants was American Commissioner Anthony Ten Eyck. Impressed with the white manor and grand columns out front, Ten Eyck said it reminded him of Mount Vernon (George Washington’s mansion) and that it should be named “Washington Place.”

King Kamehameha III, who concurred, Proclaimed as ‘Official Notice,’ “It has pleased His Majesty the King to approve of the name of Washington Place given this day by the Commissioner of the United States, to the House and Premises of Mrs. Dominis and to command that they retain that name in all time coming.” (February 22, 1848)

In 1862, John Owen Dominis married Lydia Kamakaʻeha (also known as Lydia Kamakaʻeha Pākī.) Lydia Dominis described Washington Place “as comfortable in its appointments as it is inviting in its aspect.” Reportedly, the American flag flew at the residence until Mary Dominis’s death, when Liliuokalani had it removed. (Mary Dominis died on April 25, 1889, and the premises went to her son, John Owen Dominis, Governor of Oʻahu.)

Lydia was eventually titled Princess, and later became Queen Liliʻuokalani, in 1891. John Owen Dominis died shortly after becoming Prince consort (making Liliʻuokalani the second widow of the mansion;) title to the home then passed to Queen Liliʻuokalani.

On the continent, former Princeton University president and governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson was elected President in 1912; under him, the US proclaimed its neutrality from the beginning of World War I (in the summer of 1914.)

After the German sinking of the British passenger ship Lusitania in May 1915 (which killed 1,201 people, including 128 Americans,) Wilson sent a strongly worded warning to Germany. After attempts to broker peace, then sinking of the American cargo ship Housatonic, Wilson broke off diplomatic relations with Germany.

With German submarine warfare continuing unabated, the final straw came on April 1, 1917, when the armed merchant ship Aztec was sunk off the northwest coast of France by U-boat 46 under the command of Leo Hillebrand. The Aztec was on its way from New York to Le Havre, France with a cargo of timber, copper, steel, chemicals and machinery.

All twenty eight members of the crew were killed, including Boatswain’s Mate First Class John I Eopolucci, a Naval Armed Guard – the first US Navy sailor killed in action in World War I. The attack on the Aztec was the final straw and led to America’s intervention into World War I.

On April 2, 1917, President Wilson appeared before Congress to deliver his historic war message and asked for a declaration of war against Germany. (history-com) Then as Congress convened, two more ships were sunk, the large freighter Missourian and the schooner Marguerite, with no casualties aboard either ship. On April 6, 1917, after twenty-nine months of official neutrality, the US declared war on Germany, formally entering World War I.

The passage of the war resolution by Congress, April 5, 1917, and the issuance of the President’s proclamation the next day declaring that “a state of war exists between the United States and the Imperial German Government,” was the signal for Hawaiʻi once more to declare its loyalty and pledge its unfaltering support of the nation’s cause. Appropriate resolutions were adopted by the legislature and by numerous clubs and organizations. (Kuykendall)

On the very day on which President Wilson delivered his memorable war message to Congress, the ground for his indictment of the German government was brought home to the people of this territory by news that five youths from Hawaiʻi had lost their lives in the sinking of the Aztec. (Kuykendall)

When the American steamer Aztec was sunk a few days ago by a German submarine, five Hawaiians … lost their lives …. Two of these Hawaiians were residents of Honolulu, the other three of Hawaiʻi. (Hawaiian Gazette, April 3, 1917).

The five Hawaiian merchant marines that were part of the Aztec crew were: John Davis, Charles Kanai, Eleka Kaohi, Julian R Macomber and Henry Rice (they were all civilians.)

Support grew for an event to mourn the loss of Hawaiʻi’s first war dead. In a memorial service for the five, held April 22, 1917, “The dead were eulogized as heroes who lost their lives while maintaining the right of the principle that the seas are free to all. About a pavilion platform that was decorated with the Star Spangled Banner and the flag of Hawaiʻi … more than 2000 gathered …”

“That the Hawaiians died in the service of their country in upholding American right of legitimate commerce at sea was emphasized by the presence on the platform of the heads of the military and naval service in Hawaiʻi, and there was a solemn martial atmosphere to the gathering to remind even casual spectators that this was a memorial service in war time.” (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 23, 1917)

“Senator HL Desha speaking in Hawaiian delivered an oration appropriate to the occasion. He spoke of the five brave men who died doing their duty and declared that for all we know on this earth, these men might have sacrificed their lives for the peace of the whole world.” (Hawaiian Gazette, April 24, 1917)

Lorrin Andrews delivered an oration on what the American flag represents, “There is a Flag floating over this building which symbolizes to all of us that which we hold most dear. It was conceived in a struggle for liberty against oppression. It presided over the birth of the greatest republic that the world has ever seen, and it has always represented honor, freedom and justice.” (Hawaiian Gazette, April 24, 1917)

Not long before her death in 1917, Queen Liliuokalani nobly expressed support of the United States in World War I by ordering that the American flag be flown over Washington Place. (hawaii-gov)

“For the first time in its long and picturesque history, Washington Place, home of Queen Liliʻuokalani, was decorated today with an American flag.”

“It was the occasion of the visit of the legislators to pay their respects to the aged queen and in view of the extraordinary crisis in international affairs and the prospect of patriotic war action by congress …”

“… the queen allowed the flag to be flown in honor of the government which years ago was responsible for her loss of a monarchy.” (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 3, 1917) (Reportedly, the American flag continued to fly over Washington Place.)

Liliʻuokalani continued to occupy Washington Place until her death later that year (November 11, 1917.)

March 9, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Battery French

On February 6, 1901, the US Army artillery corps divided into separate field and coast artillery components by General Order 9, War Department, implementing the Army Reorganization Act.

Artillery districts, each consisting of one or more forts and accompanying mine fields and land defenses, were established to protect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States and the coasts of Hawai‘i and Puerto Rico. (US Archives)

In January 1905, President Teddy Roosevelt instructed Secretary of War William H Taft to convene the National Coast Defense Board (Taft Board) “to consider and report upon the coast defenses of the United States and the insular possessions (including Hawai‘i.)”

In 1906 the Taft Board recommended a system of Coast Artillery batteries to protect Pearl Harbor and Honolulu. Between 1909-1921, the Hawaiian Coast Artillery Command had its headquarters at Fort Ruger and defenses included artillery regiments stationed around the Island.

The Army mission in Hawai‘i was defined as “the defense of Pearl Harbor Naval Base against damage from naval or aerial bombardment or by enemy sympathizers and attack by enemy expeditionary force or forces, supported or unsupported by an enemy fleet or fleets.”

In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson designated 322 acres in the central portion of Kāne‘ohe’s Mōkapu Peninsula as the Army’s Kuwa‘ahohe Military Reservation. Deactivated at the end of World War I, the reservation was leased for ranching until 1939, when it was reactivated as Fort Kuwa‘aohe.

In December 1940, Fort Kuwa‘aohe was renamed Fort Hase, in honor of Major General William F Hase, who served as Chief of Staff of the Army’s Hawaiian Department from April 1934 to January 1935. It served as headquarters of the Harbor Defenses of Kāne‘ohe Bay.

On the western side of the peninsula, Naval Air Station Kāne‘ohe was established in 1939; a base for squadrons of seaplanes to support the Pearl Harbor fleet was developed.

The work included dredge and fill operations that added 280 acres to the Kāne‘ohe Bay side of the peninsula, as well as filled low-lying areas for runway and hangar construction.

The great bulk of all reef material dredged in Kāne‘ohe Bay was removed in connection with the construction at Mōkapu of the Kāne‘ohe Naval Air Station (now Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i) between 1939 and 1945.

Dredging for the base began on September 27, 1939, and continued throughout World War II. A bulkhead was constructed on the west side of Mōkapu Peninsula, and initial dredged material from the adjacent reef flat was used as fill behind it.

In November 1939, the patch reefs in the seaplane take-off area in the main Bay basin were dredged to 10-feet (later most were taken down to 30-feet.)

It appears that a fairly reliable total of dredged material is 15,193,000 cubic yards. (Do the Math … Let’s say the common dump truck load is 10 cubic yards … that’s a million and a half truckloads of dredge material.)

The Air Station’s runway was about half complete at the time of the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. Construction was begun on a modern-design gun battery located on a bluff above North Beach.

Battery Construction Number 301 was a single bombproof reinforced-concrete structure that housed projectile and powder rooms with an earth/sand cover. The plotting room, generator, and storage rooms were also contained within the structure.

This structure of steel reinforced concrete was covered with several feet of earth and was partially dug into the crest of the bluff. It was set atop the bluffs overlooking the beach. Located below the bluff to the front of the battery were the dormitory, mess-hall, recreation rooms, and latrine.

Battery 301’s guns covered the seaward approaches to Kāne‘ohe Bay from this location, 100 yards inland from the Mōkapu shoreline. It was one of the three initial batteries authorized for the Permanent Harbor Defense Project approved for Kāne‘ohe Bay.

Armament consisted of two 6-inch shield barbette carriage long-range guns. The guns were spaced some 210 feet apart and camouflaged with a steel-lattice rooftop appearing structure that rotated with the guns. The range was about 15 miles or 27,000 yards.

The battery’s exterior walls were 6 feet thick, interior wall was 18 inches. The Battery Commander’s structure was built directly on the roof of the main structure between both gun emplacements. The roof was built with two slabs totaling nine feet in thickness, and has a downward stairway leading into the battery and an upward stairway leading to the Commander’s station.

The radar room was located in the Commander’s station with the antenna mounted on the roof of the station. This antenna was disguised as a water tank for concealment. The radar was used to provide range and elevation for targets.

The fire control system for Battery 301 consisted of three stations: Podmore Fire Control Center on Kaiwa Ridge; Station “J” on the west rim of Ulupau Crater; and Heeia Fire Control Center on Puu Maelieli.

The final target practice of Battery 301 was conducted on November 22, 1944, when a regular day target practice was fired expending sixteen rounds. Battery 301 was then placed in a reduced manning status through the end of the war.

In 1946, the battery was designated in General Order Number 96 of the War Department as Battery French in honor of Colonel Forrest J French, who died on March 8, 1944. When Fort Hase was inactivated following the war and placed in caretaking status, Battery French’s guns were placed in experimental ‘mothballs.’

Following the disarming of the battery and its abandonment in the late 1940s, the magazine service structure was taken over by the US Navy for use as a laboratory. (Gaines)

The facility now serves WETS (Wave Energy Test Site). The Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center manages WETS. Established in 2004, WETS is located off the coast of Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i. WETS provides developers a critical real world environment for testing and advancing marine energy systems.

Key features at WETS include the 30-meter test site, deepwater wave energy test sites (comprised of 60 meter and 80 meter berths), Heeia Kea Small Boat Harbor, Dedicated Vessel Approved Mooring Area, Pyramid Rock, Battery French and the MCBH Fuel Pier. (Sea Engineering)

In 2024, marine hydrokinetics pioneer, Ocean Energy USA LLC (part of Ocean Energy Group Ireland), announced that it had successfully deployed its 826-ton wave energy convertor buoy, the OE-35, at the Wave Energy Test Site of the Marine Base (it was touted as “the world’s first electricity grid-scale wave energy device”). (Lots here is from John Bennett, William Gaines, Tomonari-Tuggle & Arakaki)