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January 3, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Fort Armstrong

Fort Armstrong was located at Honolulu and was built on fill over Kaʻākaukukui reef in 1907 to protect Honolulu Harbor. It had one named Battery, and was spread over an area of 64.34 acres (6 acres being upland and the balance submerged lands.)

Kaʻākaukukui (the right (or north) light – and also called ‘Ākaukukui) was an original name for Kakaʻako.

Marshland, reef, salt pans and traditional fish ponds existed in this area. The entire shoreline was a coral wasteland bordered by mudflats. According to an 1885 survey map, the ‘ili of Kaʻākaukukui was awarded by land court to Victoria Kamāmalu; Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop inherited the land and it later became part of the Kamehameha Schools.

In 1898, the property was transferred to the United States by the Republic of Hawaiʻi under the joint resolution of annexation and, to protect the mouth of Honolulu Harbor, the US Army filled a submerged coral reef on the ‘Ewa side of Ka’ākaukukui for a gun emplacement.

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 at …

… Fort Armstrong, Fort Barrette, Fort DeRussy, Diamond Head, Fort Kamehameha, Kuwa‘aohe Military Reservation (Fort Hase – later known as Marine Corps Base Hawaiʻi) and Fort Weaver.

The District was renamed Headquarters Coast Defenses of Oʻahu sometime between 1911 and 1913. Following World War I and until the end of World War II, additional coastal batteries were constructed throughout the Island.

Fort Armstrong, built in 1907, was named for Brigadier General Samuel C Armstrong. His father, Reverend Richard Armstrong (1805-1860,) had arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1832 and later replaced Hiram Bingham as pastor at Kawaiahaʻo Church (1840-1843.) In 1848, Armstrong (the father) left the mission and became Hawaiʻi’s minister of public education.

Armstrong (the son – namesake of the Fort) was born January 30, 1839 in Maui, Hawaii, the sixth of ten children. He attended Punahou School and later volunteered to serve in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

At the end of the war, Armstrong established the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute – now known as Hampton University – in Hampton, Virginia in 1868. Perhaps the best student of Armstrong’s Hampton-style education was Booker T Washington. Samuel Chapman Armstrong died at the Hampton Institute on May 11, 1893, and is buried in the Hampton University Cemetery.

The original garrison at Fort Armstrong was the 1st Coast Artillery Company, followed by the 104th Mine Co. operating the harbor mines. Also stationed there was the 185th Coast Artillery Company.

They lived in tents for quite a long time; then temporary barracks were built – wooden structures that were continually occupied since January, 1914. Buildings are constructed of 1 x 12 rough boards, with tar-paper roofs.

The facility later had a barracks, 4 officers’ quarters, 3 noncommissioned officers’ quarters, administration building and post exchange, guardhouse, fire apparatus house, quartermaster storehouse, gymnasium and related infrastructure; the standard strength was 109 men.

Battery Tiernon at Fort Armstrong was armed with two pedestal mounted 3-inch Guns from 1911 to 1943.

The first service practice ever held at Battery Tiernon, using the 3-inch guns, was August 30, 1913. “Two 10-by-24 foot material targets were towed from right to left, facing the field of fire from a position at the B.C. station. … only one target was fired upon, viz: Four shots by the first manning detail and then four shots by the second manning detail. This was due to the fact that when the left target had almost reached the inner allowable limit of range at which practice may be held (1,500-yards) the right target was just beginning to be obscured by a dredge working in the outer channel.”

The Army mission in Hawaiʻi was defined in 1920 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.”

Fort Armstrong continued under the Coast Artillery program until September 15, 1922.

It was reserved for military purposes by a series of Executive Orders in 1930 and was described as the Fort Armstrong Military Reservation.

The present seawall was constructed 500-feet out from the original shoreline in 1948, and the area was backfilled. The Army Corps of Engineers took over the post in 1949. Kakaʻako Park was created over the landfill area.

On December 13, 1951, because the site was no longer needed by the military and was needed by the Territory of Hawaiʻi for harbor improvements, President Truman transferred the land to the Territory of Hawaiʻi.

Today, the site includes Piers 1 and 2 and has container and general cargo berths, warehouses, sheds, open paved storage areas for container back up and marshaling and Foreign Trade Zone No. 9. The area also contains the US Immigration Station, the Department of Health Building, and the Ala Moana Pumping Station (all historic buildings.)

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Filed Under: Military Tagged With: Fort Armstrong, Hawaii, Oahu, Army Coast Artillery Corps, Kawaiahao Church, Richard Armstrong, Samuel Armstrong, Kakaako, Kaakaukukui, Battery Tiernon

November 14, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Fort DeRussy

The Artillery District of Honolulu was established in 1909 and consisted of Forts Ruger, DeRussy, Kamehameha and Armstrong.  The District was renamed Headquarters Coast Defenses of Oahu sometime between 1911 – 1913.

Battery Randolph within Fort DeRussy was built between 1909 and 1911 and gained international, national, state and local significance at a time when British, French, Russian, German and even the Japanese had ships in the Pacific, and were expressing interest in Hawai‘i.

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.”

The Army fortified O‘ahu’s harbors with a system of gun emplacements employing mortars and long-range rifled guns.  Although its guns are gone, the old batteries are still there.

Batteries at Fort DeRussy, including Battery Randolph and Battery Dudley, were responsible for the defense of Honolulu Harbor.

In 1906, the US War Department acquired more than 70-acres in the Kālia portion of Waikīkī for the establishment of a military reservation to be called Fort DeRussy.

Back then, nearly 85% of present Waikīkī (most of the land west of the present Lewers Street or mauka of Kalākaua) were in wetland agriculture or aquaculture.

Fort DeRussy has evolved immensely when it was sold as a 72-acre parcel of “undesirable” land, to the building of Battery Randolph at the east end of Fort DeRussy in 1911, to the significant roles that Fort DeRussy played during WWII.

The Army started filling in the fishponds which covered most of the Fort – pumping fill from the ocean continuously for nearly a year in order to build up an area on which permanent structures could be built.  Thus, the Army began the transformation of Waikīkī from wetlands to solid ground.

Battery Randolph at Fort DeRussy demonstrates the shift in emphasis from fortification structures to the weapons contained therein. In contrast to the stark, vertical walls of older forts, the new works of reinforced concrete were designed to blend, so far as possible, into the surrounding landscape.

The low profile, massive emplacements all possess concrete frontal walls as much as twenty feet thick behind 30 or more additional feet of earth.  The batteries were (and still are) all but invisible and invulnerable from the seaward direction. The permanency of construction is also evident by their present condition.

In its heyday, Battery Randolph had two 14-inch guns and Battery Dudley had two six-inch guns mounted on disappearing carriages. When they were installed, they were the largest guns in the entire Pacific from California to the Philippines.

The disappearing carriages allowed the guns to remain hidden from sight of approaching battleships by solid concrete walls called parapets, capable of withstanding a direct hit from a 2,000-pound artillery shell.

To get the gun into the firing position, the artillery crew tripped a lever attached to a 50-ton weight. As the weight fell, it lifted the gun tube into battery (the firing position), and the gun was then ready to fire again.

A crew of roughly 14 artillerymen would load a shell in the breech, and then load 340-pounds of gun powder behind it.

After lobbing the 1,556-pound shells up to 14 miles out to sea, the recoil automatically pushed the gun carriage back down behind its concrete parapet; the gun was then reloaded.

A well-trained crew could fire a round downrange every 30-seconds.  As one round was impacting its mark, the second round was already half way in flight to hit the target again.

Protecting Soldiers inside the battery, the overhead concrete was up to 12-feet thick.  On the ocean side of the battery, concrete was the equivalent of 30-feet thick.

These 1890s-era weapons were very accurate.  Observation points on top of Diamond Head and Tantalus were used to triangulate the distance, direction and speed of potential adversaries via telephone to the plotting room at Battery Randolph.

The guns were capable of hitting a 20-foot target from six miles away – the equivalent of hitting a bus in Kāneʻohe (or a fly on a wall 60-feet away with a bullet the size of a pinhead, all without the aid of a computer.)

With the end of World War II came the realization that the fort was no longer capable of meeting the needs of the US military in Hawaiʻi. The giant guns were cut up and sold for scrap, having never fired a shot in anger or defense.

Battery Dudley was razed to the ground; Battery Randolph was eventually abandoned and briefly became a warehouse storage facility.  In 1976, the Army designated Battery Randolph home of the US Army Museum of Hawaiʻi.

Today, Fort DeRussy Armed Forces Recreation Center is the home of the Hale Koa Hotel (House of the Warrior,) an 817-room, world–class resort hotel and continued favorite R&R destination for our country’s military personnel and the US Army Museum of Hawaiʻi.

The museum houses a gift store that sells military memorabilia, books, clothing, military unit insignia and World War era music.

The museum is funded by the Department of Defense and admission is free of charge and open to the public, Tuesday through Saturday, 9 am-5 pm, and closed on some federal holidays, but open on military holidays.

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Battery_Randolph-Fort_DeRussy-(army-mil)
Target Practice by the 10th Company, CAC, with the 14-inch guns of Battery Randolph in July 1915-(CoastDefenseJournal)
Target Practice at Battery Dudley-(CoastDefenseJournal)-1938
'South Gun' at Ft. DeRussy -originally from USS New Hampshire(CharlesBugajsky)
Saratoga and Lexington off Diamond Head
One of Battery Randolph’s 14-inch M1907M1 guns on its disappearing carriage-(CoastDefenseJournal)
Loading practice at Battery Randolph, ca. 1920-(CoastDefenseJournal)
Ft DeRussy Tents ca. 1913
From 1908 until 1917 most of the troops at Fort DeRussy lived under canvas-(CoastDefenseJournal)
DeRussy Beach Waikiki-(vic&becky)-1953
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Battery A, 16th CA, conducts a target practice with a mobile 155 mm GPF gun at DeRussy Beach-(CoastDefenseJournal)-late-1930s
Fort DeRussy is nearly complete - area north (right) is still generally undeveloped-Battery Dudley in lower center-CoastDefenseJourna)-1919
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'North Gun' at Ft. DeRussy-originally from USS New Hampshire (CharlesBugajsky)
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DCF 1.0
Fort_DeRussy-Layout

Filed Under: Military Tagged With: Hawaii, Waikiki, Army Coast Artillery Corps, Fort DeRussy, Hale Koa, Battery Randolph, Battery Dudley

April 3, 2019 by Peter T Young 5 Comments

Fort Kamehameha

From 1890 to 1905, the United States undertook a massive program to modernize its coastal defenses. Known as the Endicott era; the huge construction program resulted in all the major harbors being fortified with newly designed steel guns ranging in size from 3 to 12 inches in diameter of bore and 12-inch, breech-loading mortars.

The gun emplacements were constructed with reinforced concrete and had huge earthen or sand parapets in front. Bombproof magazines were placed far underground.

In 1908 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was in the midst of constructing O‘ahu armored fortifications in accordance with the recommendations of the joint board.

These weapons were to be emplaced within new military reservations that were eventually named Forts Armstrong, Kamehameha, DeRussy and Ruger.

Established in 1909, Fort Kamehameha played an important role within a system of coastal defenses of the Army Coast Artillery Corps that served as a key component of the national defense of the United States in the early 20th century.

In a public address on June 11, 1911, Brig. Gen. M. M. Macomb (Commander, District of Hawai‘i) stated that Oʻahu would be encircled with a ring of steel, with mortar batteries at Diamond Head, big guns at Waikīkī and Pearl Harbor, and a series of emplacements from Koko Head around the island to Waianae.

Between 1911 and 1914 the Army Corps of Engineers built four batteries at Fort Kamehameha (Selfridge, Hasbrouck, Hawkins, and Jackson), adding a fifth one (Battery Closson) in 1920.

These batteries were key sections of Oahu’s “ring of steel,” which included Forts Armstrong, DeRussy and Ruger, along with Ford Island Military Reservation.

The Army fortified O‘ahu’s harbors with a system of gun emplacements employing mortars and long-range rifled guns. Although its guns are gone, the old batteries are still there.

Battery Selfridge was 500′ x 90′, the largest of the batteries. With an earth berm concealing the makai side, the massive two-story concrete structure was built to support eight 12-inch mortars (four to a pit). The 12-inch guns could send a 1,046-lb. projectile approximately 17,000 yards.

Battery Hasbrouck was a one-story concrete structure with a total area of 470′ x 100′. Battery Hasbrouck supported eight 12-inch mortars placed in quads of four per pit; each could send a projectile approximately 15,200 yards.

Battery Hawkins was located along the water at the south-eastern edge of the Fort Kamehameha. It supported two 3-inch rapid-fire rifled cannon-mounted pedestals. Each gun had a range of 11,100 yards when firing a 15-pound projectile. These guns were meant to cover the entrance to Pearl Harbor, where submarine mines would be activated in time of war.

Battery Jackson is the smallest of these coastal batteries. This single-story concrete structure includes three magazine sections, with a total area of 73′ x 86′. It supported two 6-inch rifles mounted on disappearing carriages. These breech-loaded cannon could send a 106-lb. projectile a maximum of 14,600 yards.

Battery Closson supported two 12-inch rifles mounted on barbette carriages with a 360-degree field of fire. These guns could cover all but the northern-most Oahu beaches. These guns could be fired at elevation angles up to 35 degrees, and the range of the 12-inch guns was increased to 30,100 yards (17.1 miles) firing a 975-lb. projectile.

OK, that’s the armament part of the story, but there’s more to this than early-1900s military defenses.

The land, once the site of Queen Emma’s home, contained three shallow fishponds, groves of trees and a marsh when the Army purchased it in 1907 and built the first gun battery.

Today, the area has been recognized as an historic area. In addition to the armaments, Fort Kamehameha historic area encompasses a flagpole, chapel and 33 homes built in 1916.

The bungalow style homes are in two styles, four in a large H-shaped plan and 29 in a smaller U-shaped footprint.

When you land at Honolulu International Airport, you almost always fly over Fort Kamehameha and these homes. They are an intact residential complex with a neighborhood feel of mature trees, large expanses of grass and open space, access to the waterfront, and a children’s playground.

A proposal to dispose of Fort Kamehameha is the result of a regulation that limits the uses that can occur along the flight path of runways at nearby Honolulu International Airport, which shares the runways with the Air Force and Hawai‘i Air National Guard.

While at DLNR, I had the opportunity to visit Fort Kamehameha, both the military armament sections, as well as the residential area. (At the time, I was serving as the State Historic Preservation Officer.)

I believed then, as I believe now, that this assemblage of homes needs to be preserved – they tell an important story about Hawai‘i. I think relocation and assemblage in a different area is probably the most practical. (Destruction is not.)

In 2008, Historic Hawai‘i Foundation put Fort Kamehameha on its Most Endangered Historic Sites in Hawai‘i list. I concur with their assessment. The homes were there first, before any airfield in the area.

We need to remember, the homes were built in 1916; Luke Field on Ford Island started in 1919; Honolulu International Airport (HNL) opened in March 1927 as John Rodgers Airport and Hickam Field started in 1934.

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Fort Kamehameha 12-inch railroad mortars, 1930s
Fort Kamehameha 12-inch railroad mortars, 1930s
Fort Kamehameha Railways Guns, 1930s
Fort Kamehameha Railways Guns, 1930s
Fort Kamehameha, 1930s
Fort Kamehameha, 1930s
Fort Kamehameha mortars, 1930s
Fort Kamehameha mortars, 1930s
Fort Kamehameha 8-inch railway guns, 1930s
Fort Kamehameha 8-inch railway guns, 1930s
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Fort Kamehameha_1930s
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Fort Kamehameha 12-inch railway mortars, 1930s
Fort Kamehameha 12-inch railway mortars, 1930s
Fort Kamehameha, November 2, 1932
Fort Kamehameha, November 2, 1932
Fort Kamehameha Landing Strip, Oahu, September 14, 1936
Fort Kamehameha Landing Strip, Oahu, September 14, 1936
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Fort Kamehameha Landing Strip, Oahu, March 9, 1938
Fort Kamehameha Landing Strip, Oahu, March 9, 1938
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Fort Kamehameha-Map
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Filed Under: Military Tagged With: Hawaii, Honolulu, Army Coast Artillery Corps, Historic Hawaii Foundation, Army, Fort Kamehameha, Honolulu International Airport

March 12, 2015 by Peter T Young 6 Comments

“Take it all except the Cannon Club”

When the Vice-President of Kapiʻolani Community College visited the Army headquarters at Schofield Barracks in 1965 to ask for the former Fort Ruger lands, the general was said to have replied “Take it all except the Cannon Club.” (Cultural Surveys)

Whoa … we’ve already gotten waaay too ahead of ourselves. Let’s look back.

In 1884, Diamond Head went from private royal ownership to government property. Under King Kalākaua, the Diamond Head crater and part of the surrounding lands were transferred from the estate of King Lunalilo to the Hawaiian government. In 1904, the US government acquired 729-acres of Diamond Head as public domain.

From 1904 until 1950, Diamond Head was closed to the public at large. During this period of exclusive occupation, significant construction occurred within the crater. Bunkers, communication rooms, storage tunnels and coastal artillery fortifications were built. (LRB)

Between 1909-1921, the Hawaiian Coast Artillery Command had its headquarters at Fort Ruger and defenses included artillery regiments stationed at Fort Armstrong, Fort Barrette, Fort DeRussy, Diamond Head, Fort Kamehameha, Kuwa‘aohe Military Reservation (Fort Hase – later known as Marine Corps Base Hawaiʻi) and Fort Weaver.

The forts and battery emplacements batteries were dispersed for concealment and to insure that a projectile striking one would not thereby endanger a neighbor.

Fort Ruger Military Reservation was established at Diamond Head (Lēʻahi) in 1906. The Reservation was named in honor of Major General Thomas H Ruger, a Civil War hero and, later, superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
The fort included Battery Harlow (1910-1943); Battery Birkhimer (1916-1943); Battery Granger Adams (1935-1946); Battery Dodge (1915-1925); Battery Mills (1916-1925); Battery 407 (1944); Battery Hulings (1915-1925); and Battery Ruger (1937-1943).

Also at Fort Ruger was the Cannon Club, a social club with a restaurant built in 1945 for the officers and their families at Fort Ruger and other military installations.

“It wasn’t the fanciest place on the island, but it was the sort of old-style officers’ club that crisply preserved the illusion that each guest there, for the evening at least, was important and deserved some extra attention.”

“It was a place where people said “Sir” and “Ma’am” a lot; where you got fruit cocktail and thick juicy slabs of Porterhouse or prime rib, along with buttery rolls and piping hot baked potatoes heaped with real bacon bits … or watch the grown-ups glide across a dance floor that was open to the balmy breezes and the lambent sky, keeping time to the strains of a live band.” (Cultural Surveys)

The conclusion of World War II and the advent of nuclear and missile warfare made the coastal batteries obsolete. Thus in December 1955 the majority of the Fort Ruger land was turned over to the State of Hawai‘i.

The club, however, could not keep up with the times. Under a 1987 federal law, military clubs had to be self-sustaining to remain open, and the Army had to close the Cannon Club in 1997 as a result. For a few years, there was hope that the restaurant could reopen under private contractors, but the funding for the project fell through. (Cultural Surveys)

In 2001, the State acquired the 7.8-acre property across from the Kapiʻolani Community College campus )which is situated on former Fort Ruger land.)

A few years later, the Board of Land and Natural Resources approved a direct lease of the Cannon Club site to the University of Hawaiʻi for the Culinary Institute of the Pacific (under KCC) that was executed in August 2004. (I was Chair of DLNR at the time.)

Kapiʻolani Technical School was established near the Ala Wai in 1946; their first program was food service. In 1965, programs were realigned to fit the UH community college system (it was then renamed Kapiʻolani Community College – and eventually relocated to its present campus on the mauka slopes of Diamond Head.)

The Culinary Institute of the Pacific was formed in 2000 as a UH Community College System-wide consortium. Its mission is to provide career, technical and cultural culinary education.

The 65-year lease will enable “the university to develop new instructional and restaurant facilities for KCC’s Culinary Institute of the Pacific at Diamond Head.”

“The Culinary Institute will expand opportunities for current students, past graduates and industry professionals seeking advance degrees in the culinary arts and managerial positions.” (Governor Lingle; UH)

The UH, through KCC, will develop new certificate and degree programs in culinary arts to serve State needs for advanced culinary instruction and training. Currently, the Community Colleges offer two-year Associate of Science degrees or non-credit culinary arts programs.

Based at the former Cannon Club, the new programs will serve the needs of students completing the two year degree, industry professionals requiring advanced culinary education, and students from outside Hawai‘i seeking training in Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine. (UH)

The Culinary Institute of the Pacific at Diamond Head will be a state-of-the art, environmentally sustainable culinary campus that will include a signature restaurant open to the public, competition kitchen, demonstration theater, advanced Asian culinary lab, a patisserie classroom, imu pit and theme garden plots. (Restaurant Week)

A couple years ago (2012,) UH received state, federal and private funds for Phase I items including a new one-story classroom building, instructional culinary laboratory buildings, support spaces and outdoor cooking area. (hawaii-gov)

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Cannon Club-(vic&becky)
Cannon Club-(vic&becky)
Cannon Club-(vic&becky)
Cannon Club-(vic&becky)
Cannon Club-(vic&becky)
Cannon Club-(vic&becky)
Cannon Club-(vic&becky)
Cannon Club-(vic&becky)
Cannon Club-(vic&becky)
Cannon Club-(vic&becky)
Cannon Club-(vic&becky)
Cannon Club-(vic&becky)
Fort_Ruger_Pool-(vic&becky)
Fort_Ruger_Pool-(vic&becky)
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Fort Ruger Tunnel-BWS
Fort Ruger Tunnel-BWS

Filed Under: Buildings, Military Tagged With: Diamond Head, Fort Ruger, Army, Cannon Club, Hawaii, Oahu, Army Coast Artillery Corps

February 9, 2015 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Camp Very

“The Hawaiian Islands are to be created into a military department headquarters as soon as the new plans of the war department are carried into effect for the concentration of troops in the city of Honolulu.”

“(T)he District of Hawaiʻi is to have twelve thousand men stationed on the Island of Oʻahu and with a third of that number of troops here Hawaiʻi would have a right to the designation of a department headquarters.”  (Hawaiian Gazette, May 23, 1911)

After Hawaiʻi became a territory of the United States, the first Naval Station in the islands was established in 1899 at Honolulu Harbor, as there were no facilities and no navigable channel at Pearl Harbor.

The property was transferred to the US by the Republic of Hawaiʻi under the joint resolution of annexation and, to protect the mouth of Honolulu Harbor, the US Army filled a submerged coral reef on the ‘Ewa side of Kaʻākaukukui for a gun emplacement.

The first permanent Marines arrived at Honolulu on board the Army transport Sheridan on February 9, 1904. For four years, the Marines lived in an empty coal shed at the Honolulu Naval Station. (PACNAVFACENGCOM)

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 at Fort Armstrong, Fort Barrette, Fort DeRussy, Diamond Head, Fort Kamehameha, Kuwa‘aohe Military Reservation (Fort Hase – later known as Marine Corps Base Hawaiʻi) and Fort Weaver.

Fort Armstrong, built in 1907, was named for Brigadier General Samuel C Armstrong.  His father, Reverend Richard Armstrong (1805-1860,) had arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1832 and later replaced Hiram Bingham as pastor at Kawaiahaʻo Church (1840-1843.) In 1848, Armstrong (the father) left the mission and became Hawaiʻi’s minister of public education.

From 1908 until about 1913, the Marines lived in tents at nearby Camp Very (named in honor of Captain Samuel W Very, Commandant of the Naval Station) “a site which was later known as Fort Armstrong”.  (PACNAVFACENGCOM)

The complement of Marines in Hawaiʻi comprised some 2,000-men who are distributed between Honolulu and Pearl Harbor.

Training facilities at Camp Very included a small-arms practice range consisting of 6 targets with the ranges from 200 to 500-yards, and at the Army ranges.  (Navy Department, 1913)

“The sea-soldiers are well taken care of, they have their own rending and billiard rooms and at the post exchange, formerly called the canteen, they can buy almost anything the heart of man could wish.”  (Evening Bulletin, May 6, 1911)

The original garrison at Fort Armstrong was the 1st Coast Artillery Company, followed by the 104th Mine Co. operating the harbor mines. Also stationed there was the 185th Coast Artillery Company.

In 1914, temporary barracks were built – wooden structures that were continually occupied since January, 1914.  Buildings are constructed of 1 x 12 rough boards, with tar-paper roofs.

The facility later had a barracks, 4 officers’ quarters, 3 noncommissioned officers’ quarters, administration building and post exchange, guardhouse, fire apparatus house, quartermaster storehouse, gymnasium and related infrastructure; the standard strength was 109 men.

Battery Tiernon at Fort Armstrong was armed with two pedestal mounted 3-inch Guns from 1911 to 1943.

The Army mission in Hawaiʻi was defined in 1920 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.”

Fort Armstrong continued under the Coast Artillery program until September 15, 1922.  It was reserved for military purposes by a series of Executive Orders in 1930 and was described as the Fort Armstrong Military Reservation.

The present seawall was constructed 500-feet out from the original shoreline in 1948, and the area was backfilled. The Army Corps of Engineers took over the post in 1949. Kakaʻako Park was created over the landfill area.

On December 13, 1951, because the site was no longer needed by the military and was needed by the Territory of Hawaiʻi for harbor improvements, President Truman transferred the land to the Territory of Hawaiʻi.

The image shows the tents the Marines were housed in at Camp Very in 1910.  In addition, I have added other images and maps of this area in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook page.

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Camp_Very-EveningBulletin-May_6,_1911
Camp_Very-Fort_Armstrong-(Hammatt)-1911-1920
Camp-Very-EveningBulletin-May_6,_1911
Camp_Very-1909
Fort Armstrong-1910
Camp Very-Post Card

Filed Under: Military Tagged With: Kakaako, Kaakaukukui, Honolulu Harbor, Marines, Fort Armstrong, Camp Very, Hawaii, Oahu, Army Coast Artillery Corps

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Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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