Military | Page 3 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

July 10, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Edward LaVaun Clissold

Edward LaVaun Clissold was born in Salt Lake City April 11, 1898. He grew up in Salt Lake City and attended East High School. After high school he received at least some education from the University of Utah. World War I apparently cut short his education.

Clissold served in the Navy along with his brother Albert aboard the battleship USS Arkansas in the Atlantic. Returning from the Navy at age 22, he married Irene Picknell.

While still barely a newlywed, he made a monumental decision that would affect the rest of his life. At age 23, a war veteran, a husband and soon to be father, he chose to serve a Mormon mission in a time when only a few served missions.

As a brand new missionary, he sailed for Hawaii on the S.S. Manoa alone. When he arrived in Honolulu a week later on July 27, 1921, there was no one to meet him.

He sat alone with his trunk on the dock not knowing what he should do next. A baggage man approached him, asking if he were a Mormon Missionary. He replied yes and asked how he knew.

The man replied “Well, we have a forlorn-looking group come in here every once in awhile. I take their baggage up to the mission home.” And so the baggage man took Elder Clissold to the mission home.

Elder Clissold was assigned to the Oahu Conference (zone) and two months later to Laie where he would serve from August to November of 1921. The Temple in Laie, which was less than two years old.

He left on November 15, 1921 for Kona (Big Island) where he would spend the next 13 months. It was there that he learned to speak Hawaiian.

Elder Clissold spent the remainder of his mission in the Honolulu area, serving in leadership positions for the Sunday Schools, as was often the practice for missionaries in those days.

Clissold returned to Salt Lake City in 1924 following his mission. When he returned home to his wife, he met a two-and-a-half year old daughter he had never seen before.

Clissold started working for American Savings in Salt Lake City; they wanted to open a branch in Honolulu and Clissold was offered the job of running the Honolulu Branch.

Clissold arrived in Hawaii in January 1925, with Irene following a few months later. In August of 1926 he moved to State Savings and remained there until 1970.

During the 1920s and 30s, he was involved with the Lions Club; in addition to his other responsibilities, becoming the president at age 33 and District President at age 42.

Associated with his business activities at the time was his desire to learn to speak Japanese. He had observed that approximately half of Hawai‘i’s population at the time was first and second generation Japanese.

He thought it made good business sense to learn their language and hired a tutor to teach him the language from 1926-34. His Japanese apparently was not as good as his Hawaiian.

However, the fact that a haole businessman could speak both Hawaiian and Japanese was most unusual, and earned him respect from the speakers of these languages. Additionally, the Clissold children attended the Makiki Japanese School from 1934 to 1936.

Ten years after he moved to Honolulu, the Oahu Stake was created, and Clissold was called as 1st counselor to Stake President and served as such for 9-years. In 1936, Clissold became the Hawai‘i Temple President; he served as the president until 1938.

Clissold resumed his association with Navy in 1936 by joining the Navy reserve as a Lieutenant. He soon went on a shakedown cruise to the South Pacific on the destroyer USS Maori, DD-401. Then came war.

1942 found him serving as the Hawai‘i Temple President again due to the departure of the former president and the lack of replacements to serve because of the war.

At the same time, he became the acting president of the Japanese Mission. It was during this time that the mission name was changed to the Central Pacific Mission.

In 1943 the war finally carried him away from Hawai‘i as he was sent to the Mainland, first to Charlottesville, Virginia and then to the University of Chicago, to teach the US occupational forces who were preparing for post-war Japan.

His military service overseas saw him participating in the military government in Philippines, Okinawa and Japan. While in Japan, he surveyed the situation in anticipation for reopening missionary work there. He finally returned home to Hawai‘i in 1946.

He became the Oahu Stake President, from 1951 until 1963; his responsibilities included forming a school, the Church College of Hawai‘i (now known as Brigham Young University – Hawaii), which opened in 1955.

In addition, Clissold became the manager and then chairman of Zions Securities (now known as of Hawai‘i Reserves) during the years 1953 to 1970. He also served on the Hawaiian Homes Commission from 1954 to 1958.

Simultaneous with these activities, he was also laying out the foundation of what would become the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC). (It opened on October 12, 1963.) He served a third term as Hawai‘i Temple President from 1962 to 1965.

Clissold’s personality has been described by himself and numerous others as quiet, humble, private, self-effacing, with a tendency to detail. He held an unprecedented number of callings and responsibilities, simultaneously.

Because of his multiple responsibilities, he has been referred to as ‘Mr. Everything,’ or in the words of one Hawaiian man, ‘the second most powerful man in the Church’ (Church President David O. McKay being the single most powerful). (All here is from a summary by Brian O’Brien)

June 19, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hickam

The first successful air flight was in a hot air balloon in 1783; since heated air is lighter than cool air, the balloon would rise into the sky. The pilot would ride in a basket attached to the balloon and control the height by adding and subtracting more heat.

The problem with hot air balloons is that you cannot go the way you want. If the wind is blowing west, that means you would have to go west, too.

Flight took a new turn with the invention of the airplane in 1903; the military quickly became aware of its use in combat. “It can go faster and higher than horses,” said one Army aviator. The US War Department bought its first plane in 1909 and it was assigned to the new Army Air Corps.

It wasn’t until the National Security Act of 1947 became law on July 26, 1947 that a separate, independent Department of the Air Force was created, headed by a Secretary of the Air Force.

In Hawaiʻi, the US Army built Luke Field on Ford Island (constructed in 1917;) by 1928, they recognized the benefit of an expanded air presence, including in Hawaiʻi, and they began looking for a new site for modernizing the national defenses here.

Site selection narrowed to about 2,200-acres of land bordered by Pearl Harbor channel on the west, Pearl Harbor Naval Reservation on the north, John Rodgers airport on the east and Fort Kamehameha on the south.

The land was acquired from Bishop, Damon and Queen Emma Estates and on May 31, 1935 Hickam Air Field was dedicated (it was named in honor of Lt. Col. Horace Meek Hickam, a distinguished aviation pioneer who was killed in an aircraft accident on November 5, 1934, at Fort Crockett in Galveston, Texas).

In naming boulevards and avenues on Hickam Field, the War Department deemed it appropriate to remember those early aviation pioneers who were killed in the Hawaiian Islands as a result of airplane accidents: Fox Blvd. -1st Lt. Robert E. Fox, killed 1920; Cornet Ave. -Pvt. Harman J. Cornet, 1920; Boquet Blvd. -1st Lt. Ulric L Boquet, 1921; Manzelman Circle -1st Lt. Earle R Manzelman, 1921; Vickers Ave. -SSgt. Vernon Vickers, 1921; Owens St. -Sgt. Ross Owens, 1922; Julian Ave. -1st Lt. Rupert Julian, 1923; Monthan St. -1st Lt. Oscar Monthan, 1924; Moore St. -1st Lt. William G. Moore, 1924; Catlett St. -2nd Lt Carter Catlett, 1925; Porter Ave. -TSgt. Aaron A. Porter, 1925; Worthington Ave. -1st Lt. Robert S. Worthington, 1927; Signer Blvd. -Capt. John A Signer, 1927; Kuntz Ave. -1st Lt Clyde A. Kuntz, 1929; Atterbury Circle -2nd Lt. Ivan M. Atterbury, 1930; Mills Blvd. -SSgt. Ralph O. Mills, 1930; Scott Circle -2nd Lt William J. Scott, 1931; Baker St. -2nd Lt. George C. Baker, 1931; Wilson St. -Pfc Hicks G. Wilson, 1935 and Beard Ave. -1st Lt. William G. Beard, 1936.

Hickam Field, as it was then known, was completed and officially activated on September 15, 1938. It was the principal Army airfield in Hawaiʻi.

By the end of 1939, the Air Corps organization located at Hickam Field were, Headquarters, 18th Wing; 5th Bombardment Group; Headquarters Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group; 23rd Bombardment Squadron; 31st Bombardment Squadron; 72nd Bombardment Squadron; 4th Reconnaissance Squadron and 17th Air Base Commando (shortly after, the 11th Bombardment Group was included.

In connection with defense plans for the Pacific, aircraft were brought to Hawaii throughout 1941 to prepare for potential hostilities. The only airfield large enough to accommodate the B-17 bomber (the Flying Fortress, at the time, the Air Corps’ most-modern airplane,) in May 1941, Hickam received the first mass flight of bombers (21 B-17s) from Hamilton Field, California.

When the Japanese attacked Oahu’s military installations on December 7, 1941, Hickam Field was an important objective; because the success of the Japanese attack was dependent on eliminating air opposition and precluding US planes from following their aircraft back to their carriers and bombing the task force. Hickam suffered extensive damage, about half of its planes had been destroyed or severely damaged, and personnel casualties totaling 139 killed and 303 wounded.

During the war years, the base played a major role in pilot training and aircraft assembly work, in addition to serving as a supply center for both air and ground troops. Hickam served as the hub of the Pacific aerial network, supporting transient aircraft ferrying troops and supplies to, and evacuating wounded from, the forward areas.

On March 26, 1948, Hickam Field was renamed Hickam Air Force base. After World War II, Hickam was the US primary mobility hub in the Pacific comprised of the Air Transport Command and its successor, the Military Air Transport Service, until July 1957 when Headquarters Far East Air Forces completed its move from Japan to Hawaiʻi and was redesignated the Pacific Air Forces.

Hickam Air Force Base supported the Apollo astronauts in the 1960s and 1970s; Operation Homecoming (return of prisoners of war from Vietnam) in 1973; Operation Babylift/New Life (movement of nearly 94,000 orphans, refugees and evacuees from Southeast Asia) in 1975; and NASA’s space shuttle flights during the 1980s and into the 1990s.

The 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) Report to the President combined the once-independent Pearl Harbor Naval Station (Navy) and Hickam Air Force Base (Air Force) management functions with the establishment of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (effective October 1, 2010.)

Hickam now consists of 2,850 acres of land and facilities sharing its runways with the adjacent Honolulu International Airport as a single airport complex, operated under a joint-use agreement.

In October 1980, the Secretary of the Interior designated Hickam AFB as a National Historic Landmark, recognizing it as one of the nation’s most significant historic resources associated with World War II in the Pacific. A bronze plaque reflecting Hickam’s “national significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America” took its place among other memorials surrounding the base flagpole. (Lots of information here is from NPS and ‘Hickam’)

June 4, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Codebreakers – Secret to Success at Battle of Midway

Around 7:20 Sunday morning, a single-engine Japanese reconnaissance plane entered the cloud-streaked airspace over Pearl Harbor. Launched earlier that morning from the heavy cruiser Chikuma, the plane circled as the pilot studied the ground below.

Having seen all he needed to see, at precisely 7:35 the recon pilot radioed his report to the striking force, which quickly relayed the information to the Japanese planes now approaching Oahu from the north: “Enemy formation at anchor; nine battleships, one heavy cruiser, six light cruisers are in the harbor.”

The attack on Pearl Harbor set in motion a series of battles in the Pacific between the Japanese and the United States.

With the fall of Wake Island to the Japanese in late-December 1941, Midway became the westernmost US outpost in the central Pacific.

Midway occupied an important place in Japanese military planning. According to plans made before Pearl Harbor, the Japanese fleet would attack and occupy Midway and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska as soon as their position in South Asia was stabilized.

Defenses on the atoll were strengthened between December and April. Land-based bombers and fighters were stationed on Eastern Island. US Marines provided defensive artillery and infantry.

Operating from the atoll’s lagoon, seaplanes patrolled toward the Japanese-held Marshall Islands and Wake, checking on enemy activities and guarding against further attacks on Hawaiʻi.

The turning point in the Pacific came in June 1942, when the US surprised and overpowered the Japanese fleet in the Battle of Midway.

That victory was possible, in large part, because of the work of a little-known naval codebreaker named Joe Rochefort. (Rochefort, responsible for the Pacific Fleet’s radio intelligence unit at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, felt immense guilt at the failure to predict the Pearl Harbor attack.)

The Japanese Combined Fleet depended on a complex system of codes to communicate by radio. The codes were regularly modified to avoid detection, but in the confusion of the rapid Japanese expansion in the South Pacific the change scheduled for early-1942 was delayed.

The course to Midway started not on a map in a top secret chart room with top strategists and tacticians contemplating Japan’s next move, but was set by the deciphering of messages from the Japanese Fleet.

This was done by a handful of US Navy intelligence officers stationed at Pearl Harbor.

In the spring of 1942, it took cryptanalysts in Australia, Washington, DC and Hawai‘i to achieve the breakthrough that made an American victory at Midway possible.

The Japanese naval code, known as JN 25, consisted of approximately 45,000 five-digit numbers, each number representing a word or a phrase.

Breaking this code, which was modified regularly, meant finding the meanings of enough of these numbers that a whole message could be decrypted by extrapolating the missing parts.

According to one of the leading codebreakers involved, it was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with most of its pieces always missing.

Leading the codebreaking effort was Station Hypo, the code name for the combat intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor under Commander Joseph Rochefort.

Rochefort included members of the band from the battleship ‘California,’ damaged at Pearl Harbor. He thought their musical skills might make them adept codebreakers in much the same way that Marine bandsmen used to serve as fire control technicians on ship — the ability to quickly read and play music made them excellent mathematical problem solvers.

By May 8, Rochefort knew that a major enemy operation, whose objective was sometimes called AF, was in the offing and that it would take place somewhere in the Central Pacific.

When they checked this against their partially solved map grid, the found that “A” represented on coordinate of Midway’s potion and “F” represented the other.

His superiors in Washington weren’t convinced; they devised a test that would flush out the location of AF.

The radio station on Midway dispatched an uncoded message falsely reporting that the water distillation plant on the island had broken, causing a severe water shortage. Within 48 hours, a decrypted Japanese radio transmission was alerting commanders that AF was short of water.

Several days later, he was sure the target was Midway. As a result, the Americans entered the battle with a very good picture of where, when and in what strength the Japanese would appear.

On June 4, 1942, armed with information from Rochefort and his team, American planes caught the Japanese by surprise and won the decisive battle – it marked the turning point in the war in the Pacific.

In the four-day sea and air battle, 292 aircraft, four Japanese aircraft carriers – Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, all part of the six carrier force in the attack on Pearl Harbor six months earlier – and a heavy cruiser were sunk. There were 2,500 Japanese casualties.

The US lost the carrier Yorktown, the destroyer USS Hammann, 145 aircraft and suffered 307 casualties. (The inspiration and information in this summary comes from NPS, NPR and Naval History)

June 2, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Volcano Golf Course

The records of the Māhele ‘Āina note, Victoria Kamāmalu, a granddaughter of Kamehameha I, claimed and received the ‘ili of Keauhou during the Māhele. Victoria Kamāmalu died on May 29th, 1866, at the age of 28 years.

Her lands were inherited by her father, Mataio Kekūanāoʻa. Kekūanāoʻa died two years later, on November 24th, 1868. His lands – including those he’d inherited from his own children and relatives – were inherited by his daughter, Luta ‘Ruth’ Keʻelikōlani (Princess Ruth, half sister of V. Kamāmalu).

Keʻelikōlani died on May 24, 1883. Her lands – including those she inherited from her own father, siblings, husband, and relatives – were inherited by her cousin, Bernice Pauahi Bishop.

Bernice Pauahi Bishop (Pauahi), daughter of Laura Konia and Abner Paki, inherited the lands of her parents – Abner Paki, who died on June 13, 1855, leaving Pauahi his six (6) Māhele lands and numerous parcels; and Laura Konia, who died on July 2, 1857, leaving Pauahi her ten (10) Māhele lands.

Pauahi also inherited the six (6) Māhele lands of her aunt, ‘Akahi, who died on October 8,1877; and the lands of her cousin, Keʻelikōlani on May 24, 1883 – these lands included the ‘ili of Keauhou, which embrace Kīlauea.

Bernice Pauahi Bishop died on October 15, 1884, her combined lands were dedicated to the establishment of the trust forming the Bishop Estate and the subsequent forming of Kamehameha Schools.

On June 4, 1920, Bishop Estate agreed to a trade with the Territory of Hawaii, exchanging approximately 12,035 acres of Keauhou for Government land at Mohokea, Ka‘ū.

The agreement excluded unrecorded leases between the Estate and the Volcano House Company; OT Shipman (for Keauhou Ranch); the Kilauea Military Camp and Territorial Guard; the County of Hawai‘i; and eleven individuals, holding leasehold residential lots.

The agreement of 1920 provided the Territory of Hawaii, with the lands necessary to form the Kilauea section of Hawaii National Park. The Territory subsequently transferred the Keauhou-Kilauea parcel to the United States Government in 1922. (Maly)

In 1863, the first formal lease of Keauhou was granted by Chiefess Kamāmalu and her father, M. Kekūanaoʻa, to F.B. Swain. By 1865 the lease had transferred to C.E. Richardson, who with partners, Wm. Reed, Geo. Jones, and L. Kaina, who in addition to further developing ranching and a pulu harvesting business at Keauhou, also developed a new a Volcano House.

The facility served visitors to the Volcano, and those traveling between Kaʻū and Hilo or Puna. The growing facilities were made in a mixture of Hawaiian and western architecture. The first, all-wooden Volcano House, was built in 1877, and remains not far from where it was originally built, to the present-day.

In the years leading up to establishment of the National Park, the National Guard of Hawaiʻi and the United States Army established a military reserve (Kīlauea Military Camp) in Keauhou, for purposes of training, recreation and health. The Volcano House Hotel also secured a lease from the Trustees of the Bishop Estate to develop the Volcano Golf Course. (Maly)

The oldest on Hawaii island, Volcano golf course began in 1921 as three holes marked by stakes. (VGCC) “[T]he [initial] golf course was pasture. At that time [Arthur Brown had Keauhou Ranch and they] ran the milk cows, horses and cattle and all that. In the golf course they ran what they called their working horses and the milk cows.”

“And the golf course … the putting area was all fenced off so the cattle wouldn’t bother that. Then of course the biggest part of the ranch ran up Mauna Loa side.” (Morgan Arthur Brown Oral History Interview)

Then, in 1922, they constructed a 9-hole course, “a real golf course.” “It all came to pass when the management of the Volcano House, an up-to-date hostelry, maintained for the convenience of the … tourists, suddenly realized that it was not living up to the prescribed reputation of being up-to-date inasmuch as it had failed to provide, like other first-class tourists’ hotels, a golf course.”

“True its chief reason for existence is the Volcano, but the Englishman and his sense of honor, the hotel management felt that it could not conscientiously permit the establishment to be broadcasted as a hotel of the first-class unless it sported all the emendations credited to other first-class hotels.”

“And so, in taking stock of the Volcano House’s short comings, with was disclosed that the only thing of note which appeared to be lacking was a golf course.”

“[O]n a recent Sunday a nine-hole links was formally thrown open to those who cared to risk a few golf balls. Risk is hardly the word. Sacrifice would be better, as the course is dotted here and there with pukas (lava holes) and, although they have been wired over, the balls have an exasperating habit of slipping under the wire.”

“Then, again, if the golfer happens to be a particularly strong-armed individual, he is apt to send one skidding into the nineteenth hole – in this instance the crater itself.”

“On the other hand, the flow of lava from the crater has provided natural hazards such as bunkers and traps and the chap engaged to lay pit the course really didn’t have such a hard job of it. In fact, the course is the only one of its kind today and is certainly a unique one.”

“As everybody knows, golf requires keen nerves and concentration of mind and muscle and the ordinary golfer who attempts the volcano course after the first time usually encounters opposition from an unexpected quarter. As the volcano is in a state of constant activity, gas and steam occasionally and suddenly issue from the pukas.” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 11, 1922)

“The new golf links in the section adjacent to the tree-molds are already proving popular and offer a sporting nine holes that will arouse the keenest skill of the most inveterate player.”

“The golf links, which have been laid out at the expense of the Kilauea Volcano House so will not be run for profit. A small green fee is being charged and it is hoped that in due course.”

“As the links become better known, this will be sufficient to pay the cost of a permanent attendant and to erect something in the nature of a shelter-house for the players in the event of showers.” (Star Bulletin, June 10, 1922)

From this humble beginning, the course finally grew to an 18-hole layout two and half decades later (1946). C Brewer acquired the course in 1968 and their renovations included a redesign by legendary golf course architect Jack Snyder. C Brewer also oversaw the construction of a $200,000 clubhouse, which was damaged by fire in 2019. (VGCC)

Kamehameha Schools found someone to take over the lease for the Volcano Golf Course and Country Club. In 2020, the previous lessee of the 156-acre golf course unexpectedly abandoned the property four years before the termination of the lease. (Hawaii Tribune Herald)

May 29, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Memorial Day

On May 5, 1866, the village of Waterloo, New York was decorated with flags at half mast, draped with evergreens and mourning black, and flowers were placed on the graves of those killed in the Civil War. In the following years, the ceremonies were repeated.

Later, Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, declared that “Decoration Day” should be observed on May 30. It is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

“The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.” (General Order 11)

The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC.

By the end of the 19th century, Decoration Day ceremonies were being held on May 30 throughout the nation. State legislatures passed proclamations designating the day, and the Army and Navy adopted regulations for proper observance at their facilities.

In May 1966, Congress unanimously passed a resolution and President Lyndon B Johnson signed a Presidential Proclamation recognizing Waterloo as the Birthplace of Decoration Day / Memorial Day.

It was not until after World War I, however, that the day was expanded to honor those who have died in all American wars.

In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress, though it is still often called Decoration Day. It was then also placed on the last Monday in May.

The story of America’s quest for freedom is inscribed on her history in the blood of her patriots. (Randy Vader)

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. (John F. Kennedy)

On thy grave the rain shall fall from the eyes of a mighty nation! (Thomas William Parsons)

Let us not forget.