Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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Kānemilohaʻi

 July 12, 2003 was an extraordinary day in my life; the experiences that day helped me as Chair of Board of the Land and Natural Resources make the recommendation to the rest of the BLNR (and we then voted unanimously) to impose the most stringent measures to assure protection of the place.
That action created Refuge rules “To establish a marine refuge in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands for the long-term conservation and protection of the unique coral reef ecosystems and the related marine resources and species, to ensure their conservation and natural character for present and future generations.“  Fishing and other extraction is prohibited.
Let’s step back.
Kānemilohaʻi is the first atoll to the northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands; it’s also the midpoint of the Hawaiian Islands archipelago and the largest coral reef area in Hawai‘i.
This low, flat area is where Pele is said to have left one of her older brothers, Kānemilohaʻi, as a guardian during her first journey to Hawai‘i from Kahiki (Tahiti.) Pele continued down the archipelago until finally settling in Kīlauea, Hawai‘i Island, where she is said to reside today.  (Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument)
It is located 550-miles northwest of Honolulu.  The day I went there, it took 3 ½ hours to fly there, we were on the ground for 3 ½ hours, with the same 3 ½ hour return flight (we left at dark and arrived back at dark.)
We were unexpectedly greeted by Jean-Michel Cousteau; he was on the island during his filming of “Voyage to Kure.”  (I brought snorkel gear, but passed on that to take advantage of having extra time to speak with Jean-Michel.)
The crescent-shaped atoll of small islands is 18-miles in diameter.  The lagoon is unusual in that it contains two exposed volcanic pinnacles representing the last remainders of the high island from which the atoll was derived.
The largest pinnacle, La Perouse Pinnacle (rising vertically about 120-feet above sea level, 7-miles south of Tern Island and is named after Jean Francois de Galaup, Compte de La Pérouse who sailed there in 1786) is a rock outcrop in the center of the atoll.  It is reportedly the oldest and most remote volcanic rock in the Hawaiian chain.
Making up the rest of the atoll are nine low, sandy islets.  The sand islets are small, shift position, and disappear and reappear.  The “main” island is referred to today as Tern Island.  Terns are birds … there are a lot of terns on Tern Island.
The islands first played a part in World War II when they were included in Japanese plans for refueling seaplanes from submarines in the sheltered waters of the atoll.
Such a refueling was successfully carried out in 1942 by two Imperial Japanese Navy flying boats that were refueled by a submarine. The seaplanes then mounted a bombing raid on Pearl Harbor, although they were thwarted from hitting their targets by inclement weather.
Then, in 1942, the 5th Seabee Battalion arrived on Tern Island to begin construction of a US airfield. The island was only a few hundred feet long, yet was expanded by dredged coral to create a 3,100-foot by 275-foot runway and a ramp area sufficient for 24-single engine aircraft (expanding the Island’s area to 27-acres, of which 20 were taken up by the airfield.)  (Tern Island resembles an aircraft carrier.)
A station was commissioned in 1943 as an auxiliary of Pearl Harbor and also served as an emergency landing strip and refueling stop for fighter squadrons transiting between Honolulu and Midway.  Quonset Huts were erected to serve as housing; the typical complement was 118-men, who rotated from Pearl Harbor on a three month tour.
In February 1949, the Navy abandoned the airstrip and facilities to the Territory of Hawaiʻi.  In January 1952, the Coast Guard to build a LORAN navigation beacon tower on Tern Island, along with a 20-man support facility.  (LORAN (LOng RAnge Navigation) is a radio navigation system enabling ships and aircraft to determine their position and speed.)  The Coast Guard installation continued until 1979.
Tern Island also played an interesting role during the early days of space flight. The Pacific Missile Range had a portable tracking station located at one end of the island that helped track the US Discoverer spacecraft, as well as the Soviet Union’s space efforts, including their first manned mission (April 12. 1961.)
When the tracking installation obtained data from a particularly important track, the data tapes would be put in a fiberglass canister, attached by a nylon rope to a grappling hook at the top of a pole erected on the runway. This would be snagged by a passing C-130 in mid-air above the runway.
In recent years, Tern Island became part of the Hawaiian & Pacific Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex.  A ranger station occupies the former Coast Guard buildings and is occupied by small groups of researchers.  The runway continues to be used for occasional personnel transfer & supply flights.
These islets provide important habitat for the world’s largest breeding colony of the endangered Hawaiian monk seal and also provide nesting sites for 90-percent of the threatened green turtle population breeding in the Hawaiian Archipelago.
On a tour around Tern Island we saw monk seals and turtles resting on the sandy shore, as well markings in the sand of a turtle who laid her eggs the night before.
When asked what I thought after my visit there, I simply say, “This place is different.”
Puzzled, many expect to hear “fantastic,” “pristine” and the range of other expressions that note the abundance and diversity of resources there.  Compared to what we see in the main Hawaiian Islands, Tern and the other islands, reefs and atolls to the northwest are “different.”
In helping people understand what I mean, I have referred to my recommendation to impose stringent protective measures and prohibit extraction as the responsibility we share to provide future generations a chance to see what it looks like in a place in the world where you don’t take something.
The BLNR’s action started a process where several others followed with similar stringent protective measures.
Kānemilohaʻi is now part of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, a State and Federal (State of Hawaiʻi, Department of the Interior’s US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) co-managed marine conservation area.  The monument encompasses nearly 140,000-square miles of the Pacific Ocean – an area larger than all the country’s national parks combined.
On July 30, 2010, Papahānaumokuākea was inscribed as a mixed (natural and cultural) World Heritage Site by the delegates to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO.) It is the first mixed UNESCO World Heritage Site in the United States and the second World Heritage Site in Hawaiʻi (Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park was inscribed in 1987.)
Oh, the modern name for Kānemilohaʻi?
On November 6, 1786, French explorer La Pérouse, aboard his frigate, the Broussole, accompanied by the Astrolabe, was sailing westward from Monterey to Macao.  In the wee morning hours, men on both ships sighted breakers directly ahead; both boats were immediately brought about and avoided the breakers.
At daybreak, they sighted the pinnacle and later explored the southeastern half of the atoll.  Before leaving, he named his new discovery Basse des Fregates Frangaises, or Shoal of the French Frigates.  In July 1954, the US Board of Geographic Names adopted the name, French Frigate Shoals. (Amerson)  (Lots of information from Management Plan, hawaii-gov and Abandoned Airfields)
The image shows some of the reefs and islands of Kānemilohaʻi (French Frigate Shoals.)  In addition, I have added others similar images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Battle of Midway

Kuaiheilani, suggested as a mythical place, is the traditional name for what we refer to as Midway Atoll.  Described in the legend of Aukelenuiaiku, the origin of this name can be traced to an ancient homeland of the Hawaiian people, located somewhere in central Polynesia.  (Kikiloi)

According to historical sources, this island was used by Native Hawaiians even in the late-1800s as a sailing point for seasonal trips to this area of the archipelago.

Theodore Kelsey writes, “Back in 1879 and 1880 these old men used navigation gourds for trips to Kuaihelani, which they told me included Nihoa, Necker, and the islets beyond…the old men might be gone on their trips for six months at a time through May to August was the special sailing season.”  (Papahānaumokuākea MP, Cultural Impact Assessment)

Look at a map and you understand the reasoning for the “Midway” reference (actually, it’s a little closer to Asia than it is to the North American continent.)

The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and in particular Midway Atoll, became a potential commodity in the mid-19th century. The United States took formal possession of Midway Atoll in August of 1867 by Captain William Reynolds of the USS Lackawanna.

Shortly afterwards, the USS Saginaw, a Civil War-era side wheel gunboat, was assigned to support improvement efforts at Midway where a coal depot in support of transpacific commerce was to be built.

For six months, she served as a support vessel for divers as they labored to clear a channel into the lagoon. In October 1870, the unsuccessful operation was terminated. Saginaw set course for nearby Kure Atoll to check for castaways before returning to San Francisco. The ship would meet a tragic end on the reef at Kure Atoll where she wrecked in the middle of the night.

Midway’s importance grew for commercial and military planners. The first transpacific cable and station were in operation by 1903. In the 1930s, Midway became a stopover for the Pan American Airways’ flying “clippers” (seaplanes) crossing the ocean on their five-day transpacific passage.

The United States was inspired to invest in the improvement of Midway in the mid-1930s with the rise of imperial Japan. In 1938 the Army Corps of Engineers dredged the lagoon during this period and, in 1938, Midway was declared second to Pearl Harbor in terms of naval base development in the Pacific.

The construction of the naval air facility at Midway began in 1940. At that time, French Frigate Shoals was also a US naval air facility. Midway also became an important submarine advance base.

The reef was dredged to form a channel and harbor to accommodate submarine refit and repair. Patrol vessels of the Hawaiian Sea Frontier forces stationed patrol vessels at most of the islands and atolls

The Japanese planned to assault and occupy the atoll in order to threaten an invasion of Hawaiʻi and draw the American naval forces that had survived the attack on Pearl Harbor out into an ambush against the brunt of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Midway was of vital importance to both Japanese and American war strategies in World War II, and the raid on the atoll was one of the most significant battles of the war, marking a major shift in the balance of power between the United States and Japan.

As dawn approached at around 0430, June 4, 1942, the American carriers (Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown) were about 300 miles north north-east of Midway. Their Japanese counterparts (Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū) were 250 miles northwest of the atoll.

In their attack, the Imperial Japanese Navy lost two thirds of its fleet aircraft carriers (four Japanese aircraft carriers and their accompanying aircraft and crews.) The loss of USS Yorktown was a major blow to the US, but the American wartime production of men and materiel would soon make up the difference and outpace that of the Japanese.

While the primary carrier fleet engagement occurred well to the north of Midway Atoll, much of the “secondary” action occurred within or originated from the atoll.

The Battle of Midway (June 4-7, 1942) is considered the most decisive US victory and is referred to as the “turning point” of World War II in the Pacific.  The victory allowed the United States and its allies to move into an offensive position.

In 2000, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt designated Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge as the Battle of Midway National Memorial, making it the first National Memorial designated on a National Wildlife Refuge.

Of all the Islands and atolls in the Hawaiian archipelago, while Midway is part of the US, it the only one that is not part of the State of Hawaiʻi.

Today, Midway is administered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge within Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, a marine protected area encompassing all of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The image shows Sand Island and eastern Islands at Midway, November 1941, before the battle.  In addition, I have added other related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Shipwrecks at Holoikauaua (the Pearl and the Hermes)

Holoikauaua (literally, Hawaiian monk seal that swims in the rough) is an atoll now known as Pearl and Hermes.  Its modern name reflects the twin wrecks of British whalers, the ‘Pearl’ and the ‘Hermes,’ lost in 1822.

Holoikauaua is a large oval coral reef with several internal reefs and seven sandbar/islets above sea level along the southern half of the atoll. The land area is just under 100-acres (surrounded by more that 300,000-acres of coral reef) and is 20-miles across and 12-miles wide.

The highest point above sea level is about 10-feet. The islets are periodically washed over when winter storms pass through.  Its estimated age is 26.8-million years.

As American and British whalers first made passage from Hawai‘i to the seas near Japan, they encountered the low and uncharted atolls of the NWHI. There are 52 known shipwreck sites throughout the NWHI, the earliest dating back to 1822 – the Pearl and the Hermes.

During the night of April 26, 1822, these British whaling ships ran aground almost simultaneously.  The 327-ton Pearl (with Capt. E. Clark) grounded into a sandy coral groove, pressing its wooden keel into the sediment, while the smaller 258-ton Hermes (with Capt. J. Taylor) hit the hard sea bed.

The British whaler ‘Pearl’ was originally built as an American ship in Philadelphia at least as early as 1805. At some time after that, the ship may have been captured by the French during the aftermath of the Quasi-war and renamed La Perla.

She was subsequently taken by the British privateer Mayflower and from there put into service in the British South Seas whaling industry out of London.

The two ships had been making a passage from Honolulu to the newly discovered Japan Grounds, a track which took them through the uncharted Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The Pearl and the Hermes (wrecked to the west of the Pearl) are the only known British South Sea whaling wreck sites in the world.

The Hermes was not cradled by the reef, but disintegrated as she pounded across the sharp reef. The Pearl, sailing close by and striking the reef only a few minutes later, was more fortunate. She seems to have lodged firmly in place in a deeper groove with her stern seaward, and then she broke up more gradually over time.

Ship’s carpenter James Robinson commented in a letter to his mother, “When the vessel (Hermes) struck she was thrown on her beam end and being endangered by the masts falling – but God ordained it otherwise.”

The combined crews (totaling 57) made it safely to one of the small islands and were castaway for months with what meager provisions they could salvage.

Using salvaged timbers and other parts of the lost ships, one of the carpenters on board the Hermes, James Robinson, supervised the building of a small 30-ton schooner named ‘Deliverance’ on the beach.

Before launching the beach-built rescue vessel, the castaways were rescued by a passing ship.

Though most of the crew elected to board the rescue ship, Robinson and 11 others were able to recoup some of the financial losses from the wrecks by sailing the nearly finished Deliverance back to Honolulu, and eventually selling her there for $2,000.

From there, Robinson went on to found the highly successful James Robinson and Company shipyard in 1827 (the first shipyard at Honolulu) and became an influential member of the island community (his descendants became a well-known island family and his fortune founded the Robinson Estate.)  (This family is different than the Robinson’s associated with Niʻihau.)

In 2004, NOAA divers in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands came across the two whaling vessel wreck sites at Pearl and Hermes Atoll.

The wreck of the Pearl lies seaward of the reef crest, but in the proximity of the surf zone, the Hermes site was to the west of the Pearl.

Artifacts were found at the sites, however they are quite deteriorated.  Large iron try pots (for rendering the whale blubber into oil,) blubber hooks, anchors, brick and iron ballast pieces and fasteners were found around each site.

Cannons (four from the Hermes and two from the Pearl) and numerous cannon balls indicate the nature of hazards faced during early 19th century whaling voyages to the Pacific.

The image shows a diver investigating an anchor at the Hermes shipwreck site (NOAA-Casserley.)  (Lots of good info here from NOAA.)  In addition, I have included other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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