Place Names | Page 34 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

June 12, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pālolo Hill

“And they gathered their friends together and journeyed up into the hill country, and when they did not return others followed, saying unto them – ‘Why, therefore, do ye choose to dwell in the hill country?’“

“And they answered, ‘For it is here we obtain the freedom of the air, with all its freshness and purity; it is here we get strength for the mind and body, and it is here we enjoy the breath of life.’“ (Evening Bulletin, October 21, 1911)

So went the marketing for the Pālolo Hill development – the Homeland of Health – above Kaimuki.

The announcement of the project a year before carried the same positive enthusiasm, “Pālolo Hill may not only be destined to blossom as the rose, but it will be dotted with a thousand homes, the place of residence of delighted sojourners who seek the many incomparable advantages offered by climatic conditions only to be found in the Paradise of the Pacific, but Honolulu in particular.”

“The Kaimuki Land Company has completed all arrangements for setting a large force of men at work in the grading of fifty foot streets and plotting some twelve hundred lots in this sightly tract of land located at the terminus of the Hotel street and Waiʻalae car-line.”

“Pālolo Hill, commanding a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean, the frowning slopes of Diamond Head, and the bald prominence of Koko Head, will be transformed into a place of much activity before the close of the old year.”

“The plans as outlined by the land company are elaborate in the extreme. The first of the week will find teams and graders at work on the roads. … (The central) avenue will serve as a feeder for the curved and winding highways that weave their way in and around the brow of this eminence.”

“It is claimed, that there is not a lot in the entire twelve hundred that is of lower elevation than three hundred feet. The highest elevation recorded in the tract is eleven hundred feet. A visit to the tract, where grading operations have already begun, would show that there is no portion of the district that has an unobstructed marine view. (Evening Bulletin, December 9, 1910)

Some background … William Lunalilo ended up with most of the area known as Kaimuki through the Great Māhele (1848.) Lunalilo was born on January 31, 1835 to High Chiefess Miriam ‘Auhea Kekauluohi (Kuhina Nui, or Premier of the Hawaiian Kingdom and niece of Kamehameha I) and High Chief Charles Kanaʻina.

When Kamehameha V died on December 11, 1872 he had not named a successor to the throne. The Islands’ first election to determine who would be King was held – Lunalilo defeated Prince David Kalākaua (the Legislature met, as required by law, in the Courthouse to cast their official ballots of election of the next King. Lunalilo received all thirty-seven votes.)

Lunalilo was the first of the large landholding aliʻi to create a charitable trust for the benefit of his people. He was to reign for one year and twenty-five days, succumbing to pulmonary tuberculosis on February 3, 1874.

His estate included large landholdings on the five major islands, consisting of 33-ahupuaʻa, nine ʻili and more than a dozen home lots. His will, written in 1871, established a perpetual trust under the administration of three trustees to be appointed by the justices of the Hawaiian Supreme Court.

His will instructed his trustees to build a home to accommodate the poor, destitute and infirm people of Hawaiian (aboriginal) blood or extraction, with preference given to older people. The will instructed the Trustees to sell all of the estate’s land to build and maintain the home. (Supreme Court Records)

In 1884, the Kaimuki land was auctioned off. The rocky terrain held little value to its new owner, Dr. Trousseau, who was a “physician to the court of King Kalākaua”. Trousseau ended up giving his land to Senator Paul Isenberg. Theodore Lansing and AV Gear later bought the Kaimuki land (in 1898.) (Lee)

Gear, Lansing & Co, one of Honolulu’s first real estate firms, envisioned Kaimuki becoming a high-class residential area, but was stymied by buyers’ lack of interest.

Later Charlie Stanton, FE Steere and Frank E Thompson formed the Kaimuki Land Company and took over the Kaimuki tracts. Eventually, they turned it over to Waterhouse Trust Company who sold the land for eight cents a square foot and nine cents for corner lots. (Takasaki)

(There appear to be some interchangeable names of the development entity: Kaimuki Land Company, Pālolo Land Company and Pālolo Land and Improvement Co.)

The Pālolo Land Company is an organization composed of several gentlemen who own upper Pālolo Valley and the scenic portion of Pālolo Hill it overlooks Kaimuki, and from Upper Pālolo Hill half of Oʻahu Island may be seen. Splendid roads have recently been constructed. (Mid-Pacific Magazine)

Not familiar with the Pālolo Hill subdivision name?

It’s not clear if any official name change took place, but we now typically refer to this area as “Wilhelmina Rise” and Maunalani Heights. (Some incorrectly say it was developed by Matson in the 1930s; the above notes it was built 20-years before and by local real estate developers.)

However, “The streets are … named after the steamers that make regular calls at the port of Honolulu. Wilhelmina Rise is a broad and absolutely straight thoroughfare extending for a mile and a half up the slope of Pālolo Hill.” (Evening Bulletin, December 9, 1910)

Up Pālolo Hill (Wilhelmina Rise,) you’ll find Lurline, Matsonia, Maunalani, Mana, Sierra, Wilhelmina, and Claudine, Matson liners and freighters.

June 9, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Nāwiliwili

A pua ka wiliwili,
A nanahu ka mano;
A pua ka wahine uʻi,
A nanahu ke kanawai.

When flowers the wiliwili,
Then bites the shark;
When flowers a young woman.
Then bites the law. (Emerson)

Most sources suggest Nāwiliwili, Kauai takes its name from the wiliwili tree (nā is the plural article, as in “the wiliwili trees” or “place of the wiliwili trees.”) A native tree, its flowers and pods are used for lei, and its light wood was once used for surfboards, outriggers and net floats …”

“… somewhat as Honolulu was originally called Ke Awa o Kou, or Kou Landing, from the groves of that seaside tree known there in primitive times, so not only this southeasterly bay of Kauai, together with the stream emptying into … took their name from the blossoms of the wiliwili trees which grew in great numbers on the rocky slopes above the bay.” (Damon)

One of the first things that William Hyde Rice saw on landing in this bay in 1854, as a boy of eight, was the orange-red flash of wiliwili blossoms on trees clinging to the cliff above the beach. And one of the last things he did for his beloved home-island was to plant young wiliwili trees above the bay that the significance of its name might be kept in fresh remembrance. (Damon)

Handy suggests a kaona (hidden meaning) for the name Nāwiliwili based on a reduplication of the word wili, which means “twisted,” as in the meandering Nāwiliwili Stream. (Cultural Surveys)

The ahupuaʻa of Nāwiliwili and the surrounding area was permanently inhabited and intensively used in pre-Contact times. The coastal areas were the focus of permanent house sites and temporary shelters, heiau, including koʻa and kūʻula (both types of relatively small shrines dedicated to fishing gods) and numerous trails.

There were fishponds and numerous house sites and intensive cultivation areas within the valley bottoms of Nāwiliwili Stream. The dryland areas (kula) contained native forests and were cultivated with crops of wauke (paper mulberry,) ‘ʻuala (sweet potatoes) and ipu (bottle gourd.)

The archaeological record of early Hawaiian occupation in the area indicates a date range of about 1100 to 1650 AD for pre-contact Hawaiian habitations. A land use pattern that may be unique to this part of the island, or to Kauai, in general, in which lo‘i (irrigated terraced gardens) and kula lands in same ʻāpana (portion of land,) with houselots in a separate portion. (Cultural Surveys)

Hiram Bingham, walking from Waimea toward Hanalei in 1824 noted, “a country of good land, mostly open, unoccupied and covered with grass, sprinkled with trees, and watered with lively streams that descend from the forest-covered mountains and wind their way along ravines to the sea, – a much finer country than the western part of the island”.

In the 1830s, Governor Kaikioʻewa founded a village at Nāwiliwili that eventually developed into Līhuʻe. The name Līhuʻe was not consistently used until the establishment of commercial sugar cane agriculture in the middle 19th century; and from the 1830s to the Māhele, the names Nāwiliwili and Līhuʻe were used interchangeably to refer to this area. (McMahon)

Līhuʻe (literally translated as ‘cold chill’) dates to when Kaikioʻewa moved his home from the traditional seat of government, Waimea, to the hilly lands overlooking Nāwiliwili Bay on the southeastern side of Kauai.

He named this area Līhuʻe, in memory of his earlier home on Oʻahu. The name, Līhuʻe, was unknown on Kauai before then; the ancient name for this area was Kalaʻiamea, “calm reddish brown place.” (Līhuʻe on Oʻahu is in the uplands on the Waianae side of Wahiawa; Kūkaniloko is situated in Līhuʻe.) (Fornander)

In early sailing ship history, Nāwiliwili Bay was deemed to be virtually the only natural harbor on Kauai. However, since the bay opened directly to the tradewinds, other protected anchorages at Kōloa and Waimea Bay, on the west side of the island, were used.

“It is doubtful that anywhere on earth, in a supposedly usable landing place, have ladies and children – and even men – been subjected to so much nerve-wrecking hardship and danger as they have met with here during and immediately following the holiday season. It has been necessary to toss passengers from gangways into small boats (hit or miss) as the waves surged; and to take them aboard in the same dangerous fashion.”

“Baggage and valuables have been overturned into the bay, and have been lost. It seems like a miracle that, not a few, but many, lives have not been sacrificed; and this can only be accounted for, perhaps, by the fact that the sailors of the ships are expert in manipulating their landing boats and handling passengers in turbulent waters.”

“In the winter months passenger traffic at Nāwiliwili is paralyzed and there is no such thing as freight business on account of the exposed condition of one of the most beautiful and serviceable harbor prospects of which we have knowledge. The great sugar industry has to draw away from its largest, most natural and most convenient port, and carry on its shipping in a “catch-as-catch-can” sort of fashion, in small bays.” (The Garden Island, January 9, 1917)

“Nāwiliwili Bay, situated on the south eastern coast of the island of Kauai, is divided naturally into an outer and inner harbor by a reef extending north and south. Inside of the reef is a basin of considerable area, which consists of several deep water channels with shoals between, but is not accessible to vessels under present conditions, as harbor improvements have never been undertaken.”

“The present anchorage, which has been used for many years, is in the outer harbor, about a mile from the landing, which is the passenger traffic terminal of the island, in former years this also was the shipping point of Lihue and Grove Farm plantations, also of the merchants and farmers of the surrounding country.”

“Owing to the difficulties and delays encountered through the necessity of vessels lying at such a great distance from the landing, Nāwiliwili was abandoned as a shipping point by the plantations.” (Forbes; The Garden Island, December 7, 1915)

Then, in the early 1920s, (largely financed and directed by GN Wilcox) a breakwater was built making for a safer passage. Later, a seawall was built and wooden landing jutted out into the Bay.

After agriculture became an important industry with the growing of sugar cane at Līhuʻe Plantation, the development of a modern harbor facility at Nāwiliwili began. Congress approved funds for a breakwater and dredging of a turning basin and on July 22, 1930, thousands celebrated the arrival of the “Hualālai” to the new facilities at Nāwiliwili.

Other improvements by the Territorial government were subsequently carried out. After Statehood, the State government continued to make additional improvements. (Okubo)

June 7, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Buried at Sea

“Directly in front of the Archives building in Palace square, Honolulu, is a circular, grassy mound hedged with hibiscus. At or near that mound was situated the royal tomb of the Kamehamehas from about 1825 to 1865.”

“… in that tomb were placed the remains of many famous persons. Here it was that Dr GP Judd concealed the national archives from Lord George Paulet in 1843. It is an historic spot and the visitor to our fair city should be helped in some way to recognize it and know its story.” (McClellan, Advertiser January 26, 1927)

Reportedly, in 1858, Kamehameha IV brought over the ancestral remains of other Aliʻi – coffins and even earlier grave material – out of their original burial caves, and they are buried in Pohukaina.

During the reign of Kamehameha IV, there was talk of building a new royal mausoleum (at the time, Hawaiʻi’s ruling chiefs were buried in the crypt enclosure on the ʻIolani Palace grounds, known as Pohukaina, sometimes called ‘the mound’.)

“When the new Royal Mausoleum at Nuʻuanu Valley was completed in 1865 the remains of all the Kings, Princes and Princesses were removed there ….” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 22, 1892)

In 1865, the remains of 21-Ali‘i were removed from Pohukaina and transferred in a torchlight procession at night to Mauna ‘Ala, a new Royal Mausoleum in Nuʻuanu Valley.

“Doubtless the memory is yet green of that never-to-be-forgotten night when the remains of the departed chiefs were removed to the Royal Mausoleum in the valley.”

“Perhaps the world had never witnessed a procession more weird and solemn than that which conveyed the bodies of the chiefs through our streets, accompanied on each side by thousands of people until the mausoleum was reached …”

“… the entire scene and procession being lighted by large kukui torches, while the midnight darkness brought in striking relief the coffins on their biers.” (Kapena, Pacific Commercial Advertiser, January 3, 1880)

“Earth has not seen a more solemn procession what when, in the darkness of the night, the bodies of these chieftains were carried through the streets, which were lined with thousands of people on either side along the whole march ….”

“Not a sound was heard. The flaming torches, made of kukui nuts and of gigantic size, on either side of the procession, made the darkness beyond impenetrable and centred all light upon the procession”. (Harris, Hawaiian Gazette, January 14, 1880)

“(T)he remains of all the kings, princes and princesses were removed there excepting that of Princess Kekāuluohi, mother of Lunalilo.”

“This act of disrespect of Kamehameha V to the remains of his mother made Lunalilo sorely indignant, and he swore that he would not have his remains buried at the Royal Mausoleum.”

“He kept his word. As there was no proper place for the burial of his mother (she died June 7, 1845, at the age of 50,) he ordered his native servants to take the bones of his mother and bury them in the bosom of the deep, where no mortal could disturb them.”

“At the dead of night, the canoe bearing the remains of Kekāuluohi, manned by a crew of native kahu (attendants) left Waikiki. They went to a point many miles off Diamond Head. When they reached the place, prayers (kanaenae) were offered according to the ancient rites of burial.”

“When the ceremony was over, the bones of Kekāuluohi, carefully wrapped up in white clothes, were consigned to the deep. One of the crew … testified that when they threw the royal remains into the ocean, phosphorescent light illuminated the spot, and they could distinctly see the remains descending slowly towards the bottom. …”

“The crew returned from their solemn mission, but they were in honor bound not to reveal the exact position where they buried Kekāuluohi.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 22, 1892)

“Before he died … (Lunalilo) willed … that he be buried in the Cemetery (Kawaiahaʻo) with the People who elected him … rather than in the Royal Mausoleum.” (Lunalilo died February 3, 1874 at the age of 39.)

“His Tomb in Kawaiahaʻo Church Yard, not being ready, his remains were temporarily deposited in the Royal Mausoleum … So, Lunalilo had two funerals.”

“The first when he was interred in the Royal Mausoleum (in 1874) and the second on November 23, 1875, when he was removed from there to where his earthly remains rest today.” (Webb; McClellan)

“When the casket of Lunalilo was being carried out of the Royal Mausoleum on November 23, 1875 … a glaring flash of lightning and an earsplitting peal of thunder welcomed it.”

“Volley after volley resounded through the Heavens, and continued until the Royal Burden was safely and reverently placed within the final tomb”.

“When the procession arrived at Kawaiahaʻo Church and just as the casket was entering the tomb, a most terrific clap of thunder burst from a heavy cloud. “

“According to the count of many Hawaiians this was the twenty-first of these thunder-peals and the last was the most thunderous. It sounded as if the whole city of Honolulu had been dashed to ruins and it startled the whole population.”

“We all believed that it was a heavenly recognition of the high rank of our Ali‘i – a discharge from the artillery-of-the-clouds, a royal salute sent from Heaven to honor our beloved sovereign.” (Webb; Galuteria)

Kawaiahao_Church-Lunalilo_Tomb-PP-15-12-023-00001

Kekauluohi-WC

The young Prince William Charles Lunalilo in his teens

Lunalilo Mausoleum-PP-50-11-004-00001

King_Lunalilo

Lunalilo’s_Tomb-(DMYoung)

Mauna Ala Entrance

The_chapel_at_Mauna_‘Ala,_the_Royal_Mausoleum

Mauna_Ala-(DMYoung)

Illustrated_London_News_on_the_Funeral_of_the_King_Lunalilo-1874

Chapel_at_Mauna_‘Ala-interior

June 6, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Operation Overlord – Operation Neptune – Operation Forager

June 6, 1944 was the beginning of the end of WWII in Europe; France at the time was occupied by the armies of Nazi Germany and the combined land, air, and sea forces of the allied armies led to the liberation of France and the later defeat of the Germans.

While we focus on the coast of France, we sometimes overlook events on the other side of the world. That same day, June 6, 1944, a huge attack force cleared Pearl Harbor on its way to invade Japanese positions in the Mariana Islands. (NPR)

The WWII began when Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 15, 1939, following Germany’s invasion of Poland. Then in May 1940, Germany invaded France, Belgium, Holland, Norway and Denmark. A year later, Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, leading the US top declare war on Japan. Germany, in turn, declared war on the US, bringing America into the war in Europe. WWII was being fought in the Pacific and Atlantic.

For years, Allied leaders and military planners had debated about when, where, and how to land troops in northern Europe. Although plans for such an action had been in the works for years, it was not until December 1943, when General Dwight D Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, that preparations for the future operation, code named Overlord, intensified.

Although the invasion was delayed with no definite timeline, American troops began arriving in Great Britain in record numbers in 1943. By the end of May 1944, there were more than 1.5 million US Army personnel in the United Kingdom to either participate in or support the cross-Channel action.

For several months prior to the invasion, several thousand Allied bombers and fighters attacked targets from the Pas de Calais to the north to the French port of Cherbourg to the west and more than a hundred miles inland to isolate the Normandy area of operations and hamper the ability of German commanders to reinforce their forces in Normandy once the invasion began.

German High Command had bought into the deceptions of the operation, and fully expected a landing at the Pas de Calais. Planners instead had selected a 50-mile stretch of coastline in Normandy.

The Normandy beaches were chosen by planners because they lay within range of air cover and were less heavily defended than the obvious objective of the Pas de Calais, the shortest distance between Great Britain and the Continent.

The action was planned in two parts. Neptune, the naval component and assault phase, involved moving tens of thousands of Allied troops across the Channel and landing them on the beaches while providing gunfire support. Overlord was pivotal point of the plan – the invasion and the subsequent Battle of Normandy.

Approximately 160,000 Allied soldiers were to land across five beaches code named Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha, and Utah, while British and American paratroop and glider forces landed inland. Forces landing at each beach would eventually link up, establishing a beachhead from which to further push inland into France.

After numerous delays and major planning changes, D-Day was set for June 5. However, on June 4, as paratroopers prepared to board their aircraft to carry them behind enemy lines, weather conditions deteriorated.

The decision was made to delay 24 hours, requiring part of the naval force bound for Utah beach to return to port. With a small window of opportunity in the weather, Eisenhower made the decision to go – D-Day would be June 6, 1944.

In issuing the Order of the Day, Eisenhower stated, “Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark on the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months.”

“The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.”

“Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely. …”

“The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory! I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”

Total Allied troops who landed in Normandy: 156,115 (including 23,400 Allied airborne troops); Soldiers’ home nations: United States, Britain, Canada, Belgium, Norway, Poland, Luxembourg, Greece, Czechoslovakia, New Zealand and Australia (+177 French commandos).

Total Allied aircraft that supported landings: 11,590; Total naval vessels in Operation Neptune: 6,939 (including Naval combat ships: 1,213; Landing ships / craft: 4,126; Ancillary craft: 736; Merchant vessels: 864 – of the 6,939 ships involved in D-Day, 80 percent were British; 16.5 percent, U.S.; and the rest from France, Holland, Norway and Poland.)

By June 30, over 850,000 men, 148,000 vehicles, and 570,000 tons of supplies had landed on the Normandy shores. Fighting by the brave soldiers, sailors and airmen of the allied forces western front, and Russian forces on the eastern front, led to the defeat of German Nazi forces. On May 7, 1945, German General Alfred Jodl signed an unconditional surrender at Reims, France.

“Many explanations have been given for the meaning of D-Day, June 6, 1944, the day the Allies invaded Normandy from England during World War II. The Army has said that it is ‘simply an alliteration, as in H-Hour.’ Others say the first D in the word also stands for ‘day,’ the term a code designation.”

“The French maintain the D means ‘disembarkation,’ still others say ‘debarkation,’ and the more poetic insist D-Day is short for ‘day of decision.’”

“When someone wrote to General Eisenhower in 1964 asking for an explanation, his executive assistant Brigadier General Robert Schultz answered: ‘General Eisenhower asked me to respond to your letter. Be advised that any amphibious operation has a ‘departed date’; therefore the shortened term ‘D-Day’ is used.”

That response reminds us that the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 was not the only D-Day of World War II. Every amphibious assault – including those in the Pacific, in North Africa, and in Sicily and Italy – had its own D-Day.

While the focus of D-Day is on the coast of France, we sometimes overlook events on the other side of the world. That same day, June 6, 1944, a huge attack force cleared Pearl Harbor on its way to invade Japanese positions in the Mariana Islands. (NPR)

Since the fall of the Marshall Islands to the Americans a few months earlier, both sides began to prepare for an American onslaught against the Marianas and Saipan in particular. The Americans decided that the best course of action was to invade Saipan first, then Tinian and Guam. The Battle of Saipan was under the code name Operation Forager.

The force that headed west across the Pacific may have been smaller in numbers than the armada that gathered off the coast of Normandy, but the US 5th Fleet boasted no fewer than 16 aircraft carriers and more than 900 combat aircraft. The attack group carried two divisions of Marines and one of Army infantry and the stakes of both invasions were similar. (NPR)

In June 1944, Admiral Raymond A Spruance’s 500-ship fleet, carrying about 125,000 Marines and Sailors steamed 1,000 miles from the Western Marshall Islands to the South Mariana Islands. This fleet included most of the Navy’s carriers and battleships, along with many of its transports of the Pacific Fleet.

The Mariana Islands were the last bastion of Japan’s Central Pacific perimeter. Their capture by American Forces severed the Japanese supply lines with the Caroline Islands territories further south and pushed the defense west to the Philippines while opening the Japanese homelands for aerial assaults.

Spruance’s Task Force 58 launched the first of many pre-invasion air sorties on June 11 on Japanese positions, airplanes, and ships. Both fast and escort carriers participated in these attacks that lasted until the capture of Guam on August 10. (Navy)

They set D-day for June 15, when Navy Sailors would deliver Marines and Soldiers to Saipan’s rugged, heavily fortified shores. The Navy’s involvement bookended the operation: naval vessels and personnel ferried Marines and Soldiers to the beaches and then, after ground combat was over, took leading positions in the administration of the occupation.

Japanese resistance proved far greater than anticipated, not least of all because the latest intelligence reports had underestimated troop levels.

In reality, troop levels, in excess of 31,000 men, were as much as double the estimates. For at least a month, Japanese forces had been fortifying the island and bolstering its forces. Although US submarines had managed to sink most of the transports to Saipan from Manchuria, the majority of these troops survived to supplement a full 13,000 men to the 15,000 or so already on site.

“The [Japanese] are coming after us,” Spruance said, and they were bringing with them 28 destroyers, 5 battleships, 11 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 9 carriers (5 fleet, 4 light) with somewhere near 500 aircraft total.

The resulting engagement – the Battle of the Philippine Sea of June 19-20 – resulted in a decisive US victory that nearly eliminated Japan’s ability to wage war in the air.

By June 30, the 27th Infantry Division had swept through the hills and then down the valley where it finally destroyed the enemy. Following fighting on the island, the Americans suffered 26,000 casualties (5,000 of which were deaths). Yet the American victory was decisive.

Japan’s National Defense Zone, demarcated by a line that the Japanese had deemed essential to hold in the effort to stave off US invasion, had been blown open. Japan’s access to scarce resources in Southeast Asia was now compromised.

The cost of this campaign was great: over 16,500 casualties, including almost 3,500 killed. The Marine units suffered close to 13,000 casualties.

Although the price for victory was high, the seizure of Saipan was a highly significant step forward in the advance on the Japanese home islands. The island became the first B-29 base in the Pacific. The war had reached a new turning point.

Some highly-placed Japanese felt that their defeat on Saipan signified the beginning of the end of the Empire. (Marine Corps University) (Lots of information here is from US Army, Navy and Marines, Department of Defense, Eisenhower Library and British Imperial War Museums.)

June 3, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Fairy

Victoria (named after Queen Victoria) Kaʻiulani Kawekiu I Lunalilo Kalaninuiahilapalapa Cleghorn was the only child of Princess Miriam Likelike (the sister to King Kalākaua and Queen Liliʻuokalani) and Archibald Scott Cleghorn, a Scottish businessman.

At the age of 15, Kaʻiulani was proclaimed Crown Princess of Hawaiʻi by Queen Liliʻuokalani and was a future ruler of Hawaiʻi. (KSBE)

One of her godmothers, Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani, gave her the famed 10-acre Waikīkī estate, ‘Āinahau, as a birthday. Originally called Auaukai, Princess Likelike (Kaʻiulani’s mother) named it ʻĀinahau; Princess Kaʻiulani spent most of her life there.

The family built a two-story home on the estate. At first the home was used only as a country estate, but Princess Kaʻiulani’s family loved it so much, it soon became their full-time residence. They built a stable for their horses.

“Princess Kaiulani was a thoughtful young lady, but always frank and candid. She was intensely devoted to the out of doors. It was the same from the time she was a little girl up to a few days before her death.”

“She was a skillful horsewoman. She liked both riding and driving. For driving she had a double rig and a single rig and generally handled the lines herself.”

“As a little girl she was a splendid swimmer and the old natives along the Waikiki beach will willingly tell you how the young alii would always go further out into the breakers than any one else. …”

“The Princess had at Ainahau a tribe of peafowls and everyone of the birds would eat from her hands. She admired them very much, made a study of them.” (PCA, March 13, 1899)

“But if Ka’iulani truly loved anything nonhuman at ‘Ainahau, it was her snow-white riding pony, Fairy. By age seven she was an accomplished equestrian.”

“She was often seen riding, accompanied by a groom, to visit Diamond Head Charlie at the lookout (from which he alerted O’ahu of arriving ships), or into town, where she would visit ‘Uncle John’ Cummins, one of Honolulu’s leading citizens, who she was certain had the best cows on the island.” (Sharon Linnea)

First Miss Barnes, then Miss Gertrude Gardinier, and later Miss de Alcald served as governesses to Kaʻiulani. Kaʻiulani’s governess, Miss Barnes, of whom the family was very fond, died unexpectedly in 1883.

Replacements were tired, but the arrival of Gertrude Gardinier from New York changed that. Kaʻiulani’s mother, Likelike, approved immediately and the young Kaʻiulani and Miss Gardinier took to each other immediately.

The earliest hand written letter written by the hand of Princess Ka‘iulani was a May 13, 1885 letter to her new governess’s mother. In part, Ka‘iulani wrote, “Miss Gardinier and I are going to ride horseback some day when she learns to.”

“I have a pretty little pony of my own and I am not afraid to ride it. My pony is only four years old, and I am nine years old. Goodbye, from Ka’iulani Cleghorn.”

At the age of 13, Princess Kaʻiulani sailed to Europe to begin her education abroad; she spent the next eight years studying and traveling in Europe.

“When Kaiulani left for England her saddle pony ‘Fairy’ was turned out to pasture. It remained resting till she returned and she mounted its back the first day she was in the Islands again. ‘Fairy’ she called the beast to the last.” (PCA, March 13, 1899)

Later, Ka‘iulani had gone to the Waimea on the Big Island to visit Helen and Eva Parker, daughters of Samuel “Kamuela” Parker (1853–1920,) grandson of John Parker (founder of the Parker Ranch.)

While attending a wedding at the ranch, she and the girls had gone out riding horseback on Parker Ranch; they encountered a rainstorm. She became ill; she and her family returned to O‘ahu.

Tragically, after a two-month illness, Princess Kaʻiulani died on March 6, 1899 at her home, ʻĀinahau, at age 23. It is said that the night she died, her peacocks screamed so loud that people could hear them miles away and knew that she had died.

“The birds have been acting as if they were wondering why she was neglecting them and so have the horses. Old, faithful ‘Fairy’ deserted for the second and last time by his mistress simply mopes around.” (PCA, March 13, 1899)