Pearl Harbor | Page 12 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 27, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘Unknown Negro Mess Man’

Following the attack, the reports from all of Pearl Harbor’s ships and shore facilities of the events of December 7, 1941 were assembled and analyzed; then, the process of confirmation and then giving commendations to all personnel cited in the hundreds of reports began.

The Navy Board of Awards was established on February 12, 1942. A Navy spokesman recommended that the ‘unknown Negro mess man’ be considered for an award (the sole commendation to an African American.)

The unknown Negro mess man was named to the 1941 Honor Roll of Race Relations. On March 12, 1942, Dr Lawrence D Reddick announced, after corresponding with the Navy, that he found the name was ‘Doris Miller.’ (Aiken)

Let’s look back …

Doris Miller was born on October 12, 1919, the third of four sons to Connery and Henrietta Miller in Waco, Texas. He was named for the midwife present at his birth.

The family lived in a three room farmhouse near Speegleville, Texas where his father was a farmer. His life had begun in a time of controversy, turmoil and violence, although his immediate surroundings appeared to be peaceful and simple. Everyone in America struggled through the Great Depression. (Baltimore AfroAmerican)

Along with his siblings, Doris worked to support the family farm from an early age. In his youth, he became an excellent marksman as he hunted for small game with his brothers.

Doris also had a successful school career at AJ Moore High School. His tall stature gained the attention of the football coach at the school who recruited Doris as a fullback on the team.

However, as Doris became older, and as war loomed on the horizon, he longed to join the armed forces much to the chagrin of his parents. After several attempts to join different sectors of the military, Doris enlisted in the US Navy in Dallas, Texas, on September 16, 1939.

Unfortunately, at the time of his enlistment, discrimination limited the areas of service for African Americans in the military. After training, his assignment was as a mess attendant, third class. (Danner; Waco History)

“You have to understand that when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president in 1932, he opened up the Navy again to blacks, but in one area only; they were called mess attendants, stewards, and cooks,” says Clark Simmons, who was a mess attendant on the USS Utah during the Pearl Harbor attack.

“The Navy was so structured that if you were black, this was what they had you do in the Navy – you only could be a servant.” (National Geographic)

After training in Norfolk, Virginia, and serving a stint on the ammunition ship Pyro, Miller was assigned to the battleship West Virginia in 1940. He soon won renown as the best heavyweight boxer onboard.

With the exception of a training stay at Secondary Battery Gunnery School, Miller would remain on the West Virginia until December 7, 1941, when the ship was in port at Pearl Harbor, Hawai‘i.

The morning of the Japanese attack, Miller was doing laundry rounds when the call to battle stations went out. He rushed to his station, an antiaircraft-battery magazine. Seeing the magazine damaged by torpedo fire, he went above decks to help the wounded to safety.

Word came that “the captain and the executive officer, the ‘XO,’ were on the bridge and they both were injured,” says Simmons. “So Dorie Miller went up and physically picked up the captain and brought him down to the first aid station. And then he went back and manned a .50-caliber machine gun, which he had not been trained on.” (National Geographic)

He committed his efforts to the defense of the West Virginia until superiors ordered all to abandon ship.

“It wasn’t hard,” said Miller shortly after the battle. “I just pulled the trigger and she worked fine. I had watched the others with these guns. I guess I fired her for about 15 minutes. I think I got one of those Jap planes. They were diving pretty close to us.” (National Geographic)

Here’s a clip of Cuba Gooding, Jr portraying Miller in ‘Pearl Harbor.’

Of the 1,541 men on West Virginia during the attack, 130 were killed and 52 wounded. Then, word circulated about the ‘unknown Negro mess man’ and his actions that day.

On March 14, 1942, The Pittsburgh Courier released a story that named the black mess man as ‘Dorie’ Miller. This is the earliest found use of ‘Dorie,’ an apparent typographical error. (Some sources have further misspelled the name to ‘Dore’ and ‘Dorrie.’

Various writers have attributed ‘Dorie’ to other suggestions such as a “nickname to shipmates and friends”… or “the Navy thought he should go by the more masculine-sounding Dorie.” (Aiken)

On May 27, 1942 in a ceremony at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Chester W Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet, personally recognized Miller aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise.

Miller became the first African American recipient of the Navy Cross, the highest decoration the navy can offer besides the Congressional Medal of Honor. (Danner; Waco History)

The Navy’s commendation noted, “For distinguished devotion to duty, extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety during the attack on the Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawai‘i, by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941.”

“While at the side of his Captain on the bridge, Miller, despite enemy strafing and bombing and in the face of a serious fire, assisted in moving his Captain, who had been mortally wounded, to a place of greater safety, and later manned and operated a machine gun directed at enemy Japanese attacking aircraft until ordered to leave the bridge.” (Navy)

The Pittsburgh Courier called for Miller to be allowed to return home for a war bond tour like white heroes. In November 1942, Miller arrived at Maui, and was ordered on a war bond tour while still attached to the heavy cruiser Indianapolis.

In December 1942 and January 1943, he gave talks in Oakland, California, in his hometown of Waco, Texas, in Dallas and to the first graduating class of African-American sailors from Great Lakes Naval Training Station, Chicago.

Miller then reported to duty aboard the aircraft carrier Liscome Bay as Petty Officer, Ship’s Cook Third Class. After training in Hawai‘i for the Gilbert Islands operation, Liscome Bay participated in the Battle of Tarawa which began on November 20, 1943. (Philadelphia Tribune)

During the battle of the Gilbert Islands, on November 24, 1943, a single torpedo from a Japanese submarine struck the escort carrier near the stern. (Texas State Historical Assn)

The aircraft bomb magazine detonated a few moments later, sinking the warship within minutes. There were 272 survivors. The rest of the crew was listed as “presumed dead.”

On December 7, 1943 — exactly two years after Pearl Harbor —Miller’s parents were notified their son “was dead.” (Philadelphia Tribune)

In addition to conferring upon him the Navy Cross, the Navy honored Doris Miller by naming a dining hall, a barracks and a destroyer escort for him. The USS Miller (a Knox-class frigate) is the third naval ship to be named after a black navy man.

In Waco, a YMCA branch, a park and a cemetery bear his name. In Houston, Texas, and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, elementary schools have been named for him, as has a Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter in Los Angeles.

An auditorium on the campus of Huston-Tillotson College in Austin is dedicated to his memory. In Chicago, the Doris Miller Foundation honors persons who make significant contributions to racial understanding. (Doris Miller Memorial) In Honolulu, there is a Doris Miller Loop, just mauka of the airport. (There are many more memorials to Doris Miller.)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Admiral Chester Nimitz presenting the Navy Cross to Doris Miller

Doris_Miller

Doris-Dorie-Miller

Miller speaking during a visit to the Naval Training Station, Great Lakes, Illinois, on 7 January 1943-80-G-294808

Miller speaking with sailors and a civilian at Naval Station Great Lakes, January 7, 1943

Dorie Miller-cartoon

Above_and_beyond_poster-1943 U.S. Navy recruiting poster featuring Doris Miller

Dorie Miller Pin

May 17, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Salvaging Oklahoma

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was planned as the initial step of their Pacific campaign. Admiral Isoruku, then Commander-in-Chief, Combined Fleet, supposedly originated the plan in early-1941.

The force assembled 2 battleships, 6 carriers, 3 cruisers, approximately 20 destroyers and 5 submarines, including midgets which were carried by mother submarines.

The force departed at 6 am, November 26, Japan time, and set an indirect northern course for the next rendezvous, 200 miles north of Oahu. On December 6, when the force was still 800 miles north of O‘ahu; it received the long awaited code message to proceed with the attack.

When the Japanese attacked, 86 vessels, including 8 battleships, 7 cruisers, 28 destroyers and 5 submarines, plus the usual complement of small craft, were based in the harbor (there were no aircraft carriers moored at Pearl Harbor at the time.)

When the onslaught subsided, nearly every ship bore scars. One of the worst damaged, the Oklahoma, was salvaged by one of the most complex operations in history. (Morris) Salvage efforts concentrated on the least damaged ships first, the Oklahoma was one of the last ships to receive serious attention.

The Oklahoma was, at the time of the attack, located outboard of the battleship Maryland, which was moored alongside Ford Island. She was struck on the port side by four to nine torpedoes, which caused the ship to capsize quickly and come to rest on the bottom at an angle of over 150-degrees from upright.

The righting and refloating of the capsized battleship Oklahoma was the largest of the Pearl Harbor salvage jobs, and the most difficult. Because the Oklahoma was old and very badly damaged, future active service was not seriously contemplated. The salvage effort focused on clearing an important mooring berth for further use.

Refloating operations were commenced by installing four independent patches in breaches of the hull, the largest of which consisted of five sections and was 130 ft long by 57 ft high.

The external structure served to reinforce the patch, which consisted of 4-in. thick siding sealed with packing materials. The sections were secured to the sides by means of hook bolts installed in holes burned by divers through the damaged shell of the ship. The patches were sealed by means of concrete poured into forms along the bottom and up both ends.

Fuel oil, ammunition and some machinery were removed to lighten the ship. Coral fill was placed alongside her bow to ensure that the ship would roll, and not slide, when pulling began.

Oklahoma’s port side had been largely torn open by Japanese torpedoes, and a series of patches had to be installed. Divers worked in and around her to make the hull as airtight as possible; their work was critical to the salvage success.

They wore deep-sea diving dresses weighing 185-lbs, and worked for many hours several hundred feet from access openings. All of this was done in total darkness, underwater lamps being of no use because of the excessively murky water.

All in all, about 6000-individual dives were made, during salvage operations at Pearl Harbor, averaging approximately four hours per dive.

An extensive system of righting frames (or “bents”) and cable anchors was installed on the ship’s hull, twenty-one large winches (the winches were powered by motors from Honolulu street cars) were firmly mounted on nearby Ford Island, and cables were rigged between ship and shore. (Navy)

The Oklahoma capsized in a position parallel to the shore. Righting operations involved the use of 21 five hp DC motor-driven winches, each of which, through two 17-part tackles, applied an approximately horizontal force transverse to the ship.

To allow turning moments, pendants extending from the outer blocks were secured to the tips of 21 40-ft-high “A” frames mounted on the above-water portion of the starboard bilge.

The first pull began on March 8, 1943, the final pull was on May 20, 1943 – it took 74-days to turn the ship over. She was floated by pumping air into air-tight compartments and pumping water out of the hull.

The ship came afloat in early November 1943, and was drydocked in late December. Once in Ship Yard hands, Oklahoma’s most severe structural damage was repaired sufficiently to make her watertight.

Guns, some machinery, and the remaining ammunition and stores were taken off. After several months in Drydock Number Two, the ship was again refloated and moored elsewhere in Pearl Harbor

The Oklahoma was later sold to the Moore Drydock Co of Oakland, California, for scrapping. On May 17, 1947, while under tow, the Oklahoma sank 540-miles out of Pearl Harbor with no one on board.

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

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

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

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

USS_Oklahoma-_Salvage._Aerial_view_toward_shore_with_ship_in_90_degree_position-03-19-43

Capsizing of Oklahoma-illustration

Ship righted to about 30 degrees-29 March 1943

Backstay connections on the starboard hull. Cables attached here were connected to winches ashore

Ship righted to about 30 degrees, on 29 March 1943

Beginning of salvage operations, with righting bents and cables installed

View from off the port side, 24 December 1943, more than a month and a half after refloating and four days before the ship entered drydock

Installation of #1 and #2 righting bents on the capsized hull of the battleship

Oklahoma righted using Honolulu Street Car Motors-1943

Hauling blocks and tackles under preliminary tension, viewed from aft of the capsized battleship

Commencement of righting operations on the capsized battleship, at Pearl Harbor, 8 March 1943

Aerial view from off the port side, 6 November 1943, after the ship had been refloated

Refloated battleship enters drydock-12-28-1943

April 18, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Yokohama Specie Bank

In 1860, a special Japanese envoy stopped in Honolulu on the way to Washington, DC, thus beginning formal recognition between the Japanese and Hawaiians.

In 1868, members of the Japanese working class came as contract labor to the relatively unpopulated young city of Honolulu to fill job openings in the sugar plantations.

Although the arrangement was originally temporary, many stayed, such that by 1908 the Japanese constituted 40% of the population of the Territory of Hawaiʻi, and had expanded to some of the professional fields. (LOC-HABS)

The government-supported Yokohama Specie Bank, founded in Japan in 1880, was international in origin. It developed an extensive network of branches, facilitating trade through its participation in foreign exchange activities, trade financing and even long-term financing of the raw material needs of Japanese industry. (Jones)

The bank was named after the ‘specie,’ a silver coin (as distinguished from bullion or paper money) used as an international currency for settling payments among traders. The word is Latin for “in kind;” we similarly use the term ‘species’ as a class of individuals having some common characteristics or qualities (distinct sort or kind.)

The Yokohama Specie Bank set up its first representative office in Shanghai, associated with the growing triangular cotton trade among Japan, India and China. It did so at the request of Japanese businessmen, who – when India ended free coinage of silver that year – had major difficulties with foreign exchange transactions. (Jones)

Japanese banking came to Hawaiʻi on August 8, 1892, with the opening of the Honolulu branch of the Yokohama Shokin Giriko, the Yokohama Specie Bank, Ltd.

The bank first operated from offices in the Japanese consulate. By 1900, the bank had moved to the Republic Building on King Street between Bethel and Fort Streets. Most of the bank’s depositors were Japanese, although the Chinese and Hawaiians had accounts there in smaller numbers.

It did not come under the monarchy’s jurisdiction in a commercial sense, as it was established as an agency and acted as a part of the Japanese consulate. However, it incorporated in Hawaiʻi in 1895, its increasing business making certification necessary under the Government’s Foreign Corporation Law. (LOC-HABS)

Although the Yokohama Specie Bank conducted a merchant bank business in Hawaiʻi, its principal function remained that of transacting foreign exchange business.

In 1907, the Yokohama Specie Bank bought the property at the corner of Merchant and Bethel Streets. From the mid-nineteenth century, this site had been occupied by the Sailor’s Home, which was a three-story structure whose cornerstone was laid by King Kamehameha IV on July 31, 1855.

The new bank building was the design of architect Harry Livingston Kerr, responsible for more than 900 buildings erected in Honolulu (from 1897 to 1937.)

The cornerstone was laid on October 20, 1908. A group photograph of the staff of the bank was included in the items placed in the cornerstone. It opened on the April 18, 1910, with separate receptions for Caucasians, Japanese and Chinese, and general public.

The brick and steel building was considered the most fireproof building in town, having no exposed wood (it has copper and marble window casings, copper doors and sashes.) The architect Kerr modestly proclaimed it “the finest structure in Honolulu today.”

Visitors to the new building were particularly struck by the steel desks, including roll tops, which were made to look like wood. The vaults, too, received much attention, the one on the first floor being for the deposit of cash, and two in the basement, one for storage and one for the safe deposit, with a capacity for 3,000 boxes.

The bank followed the Japanese teller procedure, in which one main cashier controlled all cash from a central desk. The tellers acted as his agents, working from desktops instead of the customary tellers’ cages.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941,) the building was confiscated by the Alien Custodian Agency.

During the war, the first floor was used for storing confiscated possessions, while the basement was converted into a 250-man drunk tank for inebriated military personnel. Showers, toilets and cell bars were installed.

In February of 1941 the United States Treasury Department started liquidating the $12,000,000 in assets of the three Japanese banks in Hawaii at that time.

The Yokohama Specie Bank was the hardest hit of the three, because it was the only one solely owned by Japanese interests. Despite claims filed, $1.3 million belonging to Japanese depositors was still impounded in 1943. (Non-enemy aliens and U.S. citizens received their impounded money almost immediately.) The Justice Department authorized payment on March 2, 1948.

By late 1949 it had paid out $1.1 million to Yokohama Specie Bank depositors. However, the government refused to pay any interest on the impounded funds, until forced to do so by lawsuits which were not settled until April of 1967.

The US Justice Department had completed liquidation of Yokohama Specie Bank assets when it was sold to City Realty in 1954. The city of Honolulu then leased the building for the Honolulu Police Department Traffic Citation Bureau. It’s now the downtown site for Cole Academy. It is part of the Merchant Street Historic District. (LOC-HABS) (Lots of information here is from HABS.)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Yokohama_Specie_Bank-MidPacific Magazine

Yokohama_Specie_Bank

Yokohama Specie Bank-up Nuuanu-SB

Yokohama Specie Bank (NPS)

Yokohama Specie Bank-side door-(NPS)

Yokohama Specie Bank-LOC-225555pv

Yokohama Specie Bank-(NPS)

Yokohama Specie Bank-delcampe

Yokohama Specie Bank Building-facade over entrance, 1909

Yokohama Specie Bank

Yokohama Specie Bank-poster

Yokohama Specie Bank Building, 1909

Yokohama Specie Bank

March 23, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Oklahoma

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

USS_Oklahoma_BB-37

Oklahoma_BB37_launching-03-23-1914

USS_Oklahoma_(BB-37)_sea_trials_1916

Off the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania, on 21 August 1929, following modernization

Firing her 14 main battery guns during exercises in the early 1920s

USS_Oklahoma_(BB-37)_passing_Alcatraz_in_the_1930s

USS Oklahoma-Navy

Photographed circa 1917, while painted in an experimental camouflage pattern.

Oklahoma-Looking forward from near the ship’s stern, showinng her after 14guns, circa 1918-1919

USS_Oklahoma_on_fire-capsizes

USS_Wisconsin_and_USS_Oklahoma-11-11-1944

January 17, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Martial Law

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 lasted 110-minutes, from 7:55 am until 9:45 am. By 10:30 am, in co-operation with the Navy, the Army began to apply a tight censorship to prevent the transmission from Hawaiʻi of any unauthorized information about the attack or about the condition of Oʻahu’s defense forces after it was over.

Shortly after, Joseph Boyd Poindexter, Governor of the Territory of Hawaiʻi, by proclamation, invoked the powers granted him under the M-Day Act.

Titled ‘Hawaiian Defense Act 1941,’ the M-Day Act (M standing for mobilization) was first introduced in the legislature in April, 1941. It contemplated that in a maximum emergency, the Governor was authorized to declare a state of emergency in attempt to avoid the necessity of martial law. (Green)

At 11:30 am, December 7, 1941, Governor Poindexter exercised his powers and “declare(d) and proclaim(ed) a defense period to exist throughout the Territory of Hawaiʻi.”

However, at 3:30 pm of the same day, Poindexter issued a second proclamation where he placed the Territory of Hawaiʻi under martial law and authorized the “Commanding General, Hawaiian Department, during the present emergency and until the danger of invasion is removed, to exercise all the powers normally exercised by me as Governor”. He followed-up with a telegram to the President of the US.

“I have today declared martial law throughout the Territory of Hawaii and have suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. Your attention is called to section 67 of the Hawaiian Organic Act for your decision of my action.” (Governor Poindexter to President Roosevelt, December 7, 1941)

(Writ of habeas corpus (‘that you have the body’) is a process in the US system used to bring a party who has been criminally convicted in state court into federal court. Usually, writs of habeas corpus are used to review the legality of the party’s arrest, imprisonment or detention.) (Cornell Law School)

The President responded, “Your telegram of December 7th received and your action in suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus and placing the Territory of Hawaii under martial law in accordance with USC Title 48, Section 532 has my approval.” (President Roosevelt to Governor Poindexter, December 9, 1941)

The Army’s Commanding General of the Hawaiian Department (Lt General Short) became the Military Governor of Hawai’i, assuming comprehensive executive, legislative and judicial powers.

The martial law regime affected every resident of the Territory of Hawaiʻi, citizen and foreign alike. Never before or after in American history were US citizens kept under martial law in such numbers or for so long a time.

On the first day, December 7th, an advisory board was appointed consisting of informed local citizens. At 6:04 pm, the police radio broadcast: “From now on nobody allowed out of their homes.”

All saloons were closed, and a Provost Court and Military Commission were appointed for the enforcement of the orders of the Military Governor. (Green)

In his first proclamation as Military Governor on December 7, 1941, Lt General Short stated that: “I shall therefore shortly publish ordinances governing the conduct of the people of the Territory with respect to the showing of lights, circulation, meetings, censorship, possession of arms, ammunition, and explosives, the sale of intoxicating liquors and other subjects.”

“In order to assist in repelling the threatened invasion of our island home, good citizens will cheerfully obey this proclamation and the ordinances to be published; others will be required to do so. Offenders will be severely punished by military tribunals or will be held in custody until such time that the civil courts are able to function.”

Martial law suspended constitutional rights, turned the civilian courts over to the military, imposed blackout and curfew, rationing of food and gasoline, censorship of mail and news media, temporary prohibition, realigned business hours, froze wages, and regulated currency.

All civilians over six years of age were required to be fingerprinted. Except for taxes, General Orders, issued by the Military Governor, regulated every facet of civilian life, from traffic control to garbage collection. Violations were punished summarily by provost courts or military tribunals; there was no right of appeal. (Hawaiʻi Army Museum)

Under martial law, military officers assumed all legislative, executive and judicial powers.

The two houses of the Hawaiʻi legislature, as well as judges of all courts, Territorial and federal, were not on the organizational chart as part of the martial law government. Under the martial law regime, there was no room for legislation, other than decrees by the military.

While members of the legislature and many emergency committees met daily in the halls of the legislature in ʻIolani Palace, the military governor did not recognize the legislature as a source of legislative power. Likewise, since law enforcement was concentrated in the military commissions and provost courts, the local courts held no position. (Anthony)

The courts of the Territory were closed as of December 8, 1941 by order of the military. On January 27, 1942, the Military Governor stated that the courts were restored to their full jurisdiction “as agents of the Military Governor.”

On the criminal side, however, the courts could not under the order summons a grand jury; on the criminal or civil side they could not grant a jury trial, or at any time grant a writ of habeas corpus. (US District Court, 1944)

Japanese Americans were incarcerated in at least eight locations on Hawaiʻi. These sites that include Honouliuli Gulch, Sand Island, and the U.S. Immigration Station on Oahu, the Kilauea Military Camp on the Big Island, Haiku Camp and Wailuku County Jail on Maui, and the Kalaheo Stockade and Waialua County Jail on Kauaʻi.

In all, between 1,200 and 1,400 local Japanese were interned, along with about 1,000 family members. The number of Japanese in Hawai‘i who were detained was small relative to the total Japanese population here, less than 1%.

Beginning in July 1942 the powers of government were gradually restored to civilian authority, but some degree of martial law continued.

On February 8, 1943, power was restored to the Governor, the courts and the legislature. The commanding general proclaimed, “Full jurisdiction and authority are hereby relinquished by the Commanding General to the Governor and other officers of the Territory of Hawaiʻi”. (Anthony)

This did not extinguish all of the military control; the title and office of the Military Governor’ were retained. In July, 1944, the office was renamed Office of Internal Security. On October 24, 1944, President Roosevelt terminated martial law and restored the writ of habeas corpus. (Anthony)

Military Generals having control of the Islands and their terms included: Walter C Short (December 7, 1941 – December 17, 1941,) Delos C Emmons (December 17, 1941 – June 1, 1943) and Robert C Richardson, Jr (June 1, 1943 – October 24, 1944.)

This was not the first proclamation of martial law in the Islands. On January 17, 1893, martial law was declared by the Provisional Government of the Hawaiian Islands.

Then, on January 7, 1895, Republic of Hawaiʻi President Sanford B Dole declared martial law following Kaua Kūloko (Civil War 1895) when forces attempted to return Queen Liliʻuokalani to the throne following the overthrow of constitutional monarchy. Martial law, then, lasted until March 18, 1895.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger