WWII | Page 2 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

February 8, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Currency Stamped with “HAWAII” during WWII

Like most people of his generation, my father saved stuff, especially “special” stamps, currency and coins – below is a $10 bill of his that he gave to me.

According to the Federal Reserve, with the start of World War II, the US started printing specialized military currency to provide economic stability for the US dollar in occupied countries.

In Hawaiʻi, the Treasury Department replaced all US currency with special issue notes as a precautionary measure in the event of a Japanese victory.

These notes were circulated only in Hawai‘i and their brown seals and serial numbers differentiated them from notes issued on the mainland.

Overprints of the word HAWAII were made; two small overprints to the sides of the obverse of the bill between the border and both the treasury seal and Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco seal, and huge outlined HAWAII lettering dominating the reverse.

The hope was that, should there have been a Japanese invasion, the US Government could immediately declare any Hawai‘i-stamped notes worthless, due to their easy identification.

$1, $5, $10 and $20 San Francisco Reserve notes featured the seal and serial numbers that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing called the “Hawaiʻi Overprint” (from July 1942 until October 1944.)

Hawai‘i wasn’t the only place where special currency was distributed. Similarly, special notes were issued for use by American troops during the invasion of North Africa in November 1942.

These notes were overprinted with distinctive yellow Treasury Seals to distinguish them from the regular Silver Certificates overprinted with blue seals.

Like the overprinted Hawai‘i notes, these distinctive certificates could be declared worthless if large amounts fell into enemy hands.

In addition to the Hawai‘i currency issued, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing produced or oversaw the private production of Allied military currency used in Italy, France, Austria, Germany and Japan during and after the war.

The Department of the Treasury redeems all genuine United States currency at face value only, and does not render opinions concerning the numismatic value of old or rare currencies.

However, numerous websites indicate premiums are being paid for these special bills. (I am keeping mine as a reminder of my father.)

February 19, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Unbreakable Code

When US military codes kept being broken by the Germans in WWI a Native American tribe came to the rescue. They just spoke their own language – which baffled the enemy.

In the autumn of 1918, US troops were involved in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive on the Western Front. It was one of the largest frontline commitments of American soldiers in WW1, but communications in the field were compromised.

The Germans had successfully tapped telephone lines, were deciphering codes and repeatedly capturing runners sent out to deliver messages directly.

The solution was stumbled upon by chance, an overheard conversation between two Choctaw soldiers in the 142nd Infantry Regiment. The pair were chatting in camp when a captain walked by and asked what language they were speaking.

Realizing the potential for communication, he then asked if there were other speakers among the troops. The men knew of Choctaw soldiers at company headquarters.

Using a field telephone the captain got the men to deliver a message in their native tongue which their colleagues quickly translated back into English. The Choctaw Telephone Squad was born and so was code talking. (BBC)

Every WWII combatant appreciated the need for an unbreakable code that would help them communicate while protecting their operational plans. The US Marines knew where to find one: the Navajo Nation. (US National Intelligence)

Philip Johnston was the initiator of the Marine Corps’ program to enlist and train the Navajos as messengers. Although Johnston was not a Navajo, he grew up on a Navajo reservation as the son of a missionary and became familiar with the people and their language.

Johnston was also a World War I veteran and knew about the military’s desire to send and receive messages in an unbreakable code. (National Archives)

Johnston assembled four Navajos and on February 28, 1942, they assisted Johnston in demonstrating his idea. Prior to the demonstration, General Vogel had installed a telephone connection between two offices and wrote out six messages that were typical of those sent during combat.

One of those messages read “Enemy expected to make tank and dive bomber attack at dawn.” The Navajo managed to transmit the message almost verbatim: “Enemy tank dive bomber expected to attack this morning.” (National Archives)

Marine Corps leadership selected 29 Navajo men, the Navajo Code Talkers, who created a code based on the complex, unwritten Navajo language. (US National Intelligence)

The code primarily used word association by assigning a Navajo word to key phrases and military tactics. This system enabled the Code Talkers to translate three lines of English in 20 seconds, not 30 minutes as was common with existing code-breaking machines.

This code consisted of words, most of which were Navajo terms that had been imbued with new, distinctly military meanings in order to compensate for the lack of military terminology in the Navajo vocabulary.

The tribal languages didn’t have their own words for modern concepts such as “tanks”, “machine guns”, “battleships”, “radar”, and so on. It was at Camp Elliott that the initial recruits, along with communications personnel, designed the first Navajo code.

Instead of using the English terms, which would have rendered the “code” almost useless, the code-talkers invented their own terms for such things, for example using the Navaho words for “iron fish” for a submarine, “hummingbird” for a fighter plane, “eggs” for bombs, and so on. Apparently the Choctaw code-talkers had come up with a similar scheme during the WWI.

At first, the list of Navaho codewords had 274 entries, though this was later expanded to 508. For terms with no Navaho equivalent that weren’t covered in the list, a “phonetic alphabet” was devised, using the Navaho equivalents of English words whose first letters spelled out the phrase: “Ant” for “A”, “Bear” for “B”, “Cat” for “C”, and so on.

For example, “fighter plane” was called “da-ha-tih-hi,” which means “humming bird” in Navajo, and “dive bomber” was called “gini,” which means “chicken hawk.”

In addition, the code talkers also designed a system that signified the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet. For example, the letter A was “wol-la-chee,” which means “ant” in Navajo, and the letter E was “dzeh,” which means “elk.” Words that were not included in the 211 terms were spelled out using the alphabet. (National Archives) Some training occurred in Hawai‘i.

The first Navaho “code-talkers” went ashore with the Marines at Guadalcanal in August 1942.

The Navajo Code Talkers participated in all assaults the U.S. Marines led in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945, including Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu and Iwo Jima.

During the nearly month-long battle for Iwo Jima (February 19 – March 26, 1945), for example, six Navajo Code Talker Marines successfully transmitted more than 800 messages without error. Marine leadership noted after the battle that the Code Talkers were critical to the victory at Iwo Jima. (US National Intelligence)

No code-talker transmission was ever cracked, and in fact, during the evaluations Marine cryptologists said they couldn’t even transcribe the language, much less figure out what was being said.

It is estimated that between 375 to 420 Navajos served as code talkers. The Navajo code talker program was highly classified throughout the war and remained so until 1968.

Returning home on buses without parades or fanfare and sworn to secrecy about the existence of the code, the Navajo code talkers are only recently making their way into popular culture and mainstream American history.

The “Honoring the Code Talkers Act,” introduced by Senator Jeff Bingaman from New Mexico in April 2000, and signed into law December 21, 2000, called for the recognition of the Navajo code talkers.

During a ceremony at the US Capitol on July 26, 2001, the first 29 soldiers received the Congressional Gold Medal. The Congressional Silver Medal was presented to the remaining Navajos who later qualified to be code talkers. (National Archives)

December 8, 2021 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

R&R Facility to Prison

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the Hawai‘i landscape. Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system.

However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in number and size) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed ‘An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,’ a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

There were three big waves of workforce immigration: Chinese 1852; Japanese 1885; and Filipinos 1905. Several smaller, but substantial, migrations also occurred: Portuguese 1877; Norwegians 1880; Germans 1881; Puerto Ricans 1900; Koreans 1902 and Spanish 1907.

In March 1881, King Kalākaua visited Japan during which he discussed with Emperor Meiji Hawaiʻi’s desire to encourage Japanese nationals to settle in Hawaiʻi.

Kalākaua’s meeting with Emperor Meiji improved the relationship of the Hawaiian Kingdom with the Japanese government and an economic depression in Japan served as motivation for Japanese agricultural workers to move from their homeland. (Nordyke/Matsumoto)

The first 943-government-sponsored, Kanyaku Imin, Japanese immigrants to Hawaiʻi arrived in Honolulu on February 8, 1885. Subsequent government approval was given for a second set of 930-immigrants who arrived in Hawaii on June 17, 1885.

With the Japanese government satisfied with treatment of the immigrants, a formal immigration treaty was concluded between Hawaiʻi and Japan on January 28, 1886. The treaty stipulated that the Hawaiʻi government would be held responsible for employers’ treatment of Japanese immigrants.

The Issei (first generation) were born in Japan and emigrated to Hawai‘i from 1885 to 1924 (when Congress stopped all legal migration.) (The Immigration Act of 1924 (aka Johnson-Reed Act) limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the US through a national origins quota. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. (State Department))

The sugar industry came to maturity by the turn of the century; the industry peaked in the 1930s. Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar.

Like the other ethnic immigrant groups, the Issei worked on sugar and pineapple plantations. The children of the Issei were the Nisei, the second generation in Hawaiʻi. They are the first generation of Japanese descent to be born and receive their entire education in America, learning Western values and holding US citizenship.

Over time, many Issei and Nisei moved to Honolulu and other developing urban centers. The alien land laws encouraged urbanization since non-citizens could not own land. Many of the Issei became independent wage earners, merchants, shopkeepers, and tradesmen. They sought and began to achieve upward mobility. (Nordyke and Matsumoto)

On July 7, 1937, Japan invaded China to initiate the war in the Pacific; while the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, unleashed the European war.

If the US and Japan went to war, Japanese in Hawai‘i were seen as potentially dangerous. Both the Army and the FBI gathered data on Japanese residents in the late-1930s.

Fingerprinting and registering of aliens began in August of 1940 under provisions of the federal Alien Registration Act; some 6,000 aliens in Hilo alone were registered and fingerprinted beginning in September of 1940. (Farrell)

During the Fall of 1941 diplomatic relations between the US and Japan, which had been steadily deteriorating, took a sudden turn for the worse.

As to Hawaiʻi, War Department message of November 27, 1941 read as follows: “Negotiations have come to a standstill at this time. No diplomatic breaking of relations and we will let them make the first overt act. You will take such precautions as you deem necessary to carry out the Rainbow plan [a war plan]. Do not excite the civilian population.” (Proceedings of Army Pearl Harbor Board)

An FBI memo, dated December 4, 1941, referenced the “custodial detention list,” a listing of people who should be arrested in the event of outbreak of war. (Farrell)

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the US at Pearl Harbor. At that time, Hawaii’s Japanese population was about 158,000, more than one-third of the territory’s total population. (Cohen)

Less than 4 hours after the Pearl Harbor attack, territorial governor Joseph B Poindexter invoked the Hawaii Defense Act giving him absolute wartime power in Hawai‘i.

By mid-afternoon (3:30 pm) the decision to place the territory under martial law was made, suspending the writ of habeas corpus and placing control of Hawaiʻi under Lieutenant General Walter C. Short, who became Military Governor.

The War Department, working under the authority of martial law, ordered that everyone on the list be interned. (Moniz Nakamura)

Kilauea Military Camp (KMC) at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park (then known as Hawaii National Park) had been a quiet military recreation facility. By the end of the day on December 7th, it became a detainment camp.

For the island of Hawai‘i, the FBI’s detention list included a total of 82 individuals: 67 consular agents, 3 priests, and 12 “others” (business leaders and other important people in the Japanese American community). (Farrell)

The local police, with assistance from the FBI and Army Intelligence, immediately rounded up and detained the “suspicious aliens” – most of them prominent figures in the Japanese community. (Chapman)

Traveling under police custody in several cars, they passed the Hilo entrance of the park and proceeded to KMC where they were held under military guard in the small camp stockade and in nearby barracks. Within a few days, others had joined this group, which eventually expanded to approximately 130 men.

The detainees included prominent Japanese residents from Hilo and outlying planation areas, many of them familiar to both military and NPS personnel. Many were teachers; others were prominent business or community figures. (Chapman)

“At Kilauea, internees had to walk among soldiers armed with bayonets. While food was plentiful and nutritious, the dignity of the people was taken away. Internees were constantly accompanied by soldiers – even to the latrine”.

At mealtime, inmates lined up to go to the mess hall, which was across the open ground from their barracks, between ten guards with guns and fixed bayonets (Hoshida; Farrell)

In the mess hall, prisoners were initially surprised by the bounty of food that was available to them and as detainee Myoshu Sasai reported, “we could eat all that we wanted to. If they ran out of something, all we had to do was to raise our hand.”

A long serving counter separated the kitchen from the mess hall. Inmates picked up stainless serving trays and silverware and walked single file in front of the serving tables while waiting for kitchen personnel to serve them food, then sat six to wooden tables and benches. (Nakamura; Densho)

A sense of camaraderie developed among the inmates as noted by inmate Yoshio “George” Hoshida who observed that “here, sharing together the same fate in this time of emergency, they were brought together closer as humans on equal plane and closer comradeship.” (Nakamura; Densho)

For one hour every day, detainees were allowed outside for exercise. Inmates also occupied their days reading magazines and books, walking around, or writing letters. For many, letter writing was the only way of communicating with their families and maintaining personal ties.

Although letters were censored with officials cutting out any account of the camp, Hoshida recalled that “letter writing became the main consolation and receiving them was a source of great pleasure to be looked forward to each day.” (Nakamura; Densho)

Building 34, now the Crater Rim Café, Lava Lounge and post office, was used as the internee barracks. Building 35, now the recreation center, was built as an enlisted men’s mess hall and converted to a dormitory in 1919. It was used as the internee mess hall in 1943, but became the recreation hall in 1945. (Farrell)

Internee hearings were held in the Federal Building on Waianuenue Avenue in downtown Hilo. Because the hearings lasted several days, it is probable that internees were held overnight at the Old Police Station, on Kalākaua Street and directly across Kalākaua Park from the Federal Building. (Farrell)

By mid-February 1942, the military government determined that under the Geneva Convention interned aliens could not be held in a combat zone.

On February 15, authorities announced that immediate family members could visit. In anticipation of an imminent transfer to another facility, families were advised to bring warm clothes and that each internee could possess $50.

Noting that the internees were not prisoners of war, the authorities soon began the process of relocation to Sand Island or eventual transfer to the continental United States. The first group of 106 internees departed Kīlauea on March 6; the last group of 25 left on May 12. (Chapman)

In all, between 1,200 and 1,400 local Japanese in Hawai’i were interned, along with about 1,000 family members. By contrast, Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorized the mass exclusion and detention of all Japanese Americans living in the West Coast states, resulting in the eventual incarceration of 120,000 people.

The detainees were never formally charged and granted only token hearings. Many of the detainees’ sons served with distinction in the US armed forces, including the legendary 100th Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team and Military Intelligence Service.

Following the departure of Japanese inmates in 1942, in June 1944, an addition to KMC was built on the west side, in the area that is now the motor pool. These facilities would serve as a prisoner of war (POW) camp for Koreans and Okinawans who had been brought to the US from islands captured from the Japanese. (Moniz Nakamura)

Military authorities assigned the POWs to maintenance work around the camp. The prisoners generally worked without supervision, mostly on landscape projects and other maintenance work. (Chapman)

The current chain link fence around Tours & Transportation (Bldg 84), Housekeeping (Bldg 81) and Fire & Paramedic Services (Bldg 59) follows the same footprint as the outer wire of the POW camp enclosure. (KMC Walking Tour Narrative)

December 4, 2021 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Evacuation Camps and War-time Housing

In pre-war preparations, a May 23, 1941 article in the Honolulu Advertiser titled “Army Maps Areas to Be Evacuated in Event of Emergency” informed civilians that 86,000 persons living in Honolulu resided in danger zones, and that half would have to evacuate in the event of a war.

“The Hawaiian Department has worked out a comprehensive plan for moving and caring for those who would have to leave their home. Preparation of the plan was directed by Col. Albert B. K. Lyman department engineer.”

“Much of the responsibility for the actual mechanics of the process would devolve upon the civilian government unless it was necessary to invoke martial law …”

“… but it is hoped that the people of Honolulu would be sufficiently aware of the necessities of the evacuation process to act voluntarily and cooperate with the government and the army, both in caring for themselves and in helping to care for others.”

“Areas to be evacuated are those places surrounding and in the vicinity of legitimate targets for an enemy. They extend practically without a break along the waterfront from Middle street to Waialae golf course.”

“The mauka boundary is School street to Kapiolani street, then Kapiolani boulevard and the Ala Wai to the fair grounds, along Kapahulu to Waialae avenue, and along the ewa boundary of the golf course to Kahala avenue.”

“This portion of the city that would be evacuated contains several artillery posts, the docks, the oil tanks, railroad yards, Hawaiian Electric Company, Honolulu Gas Company, Mutual Telephone Company, the newspaper plants and the major traffic arteries – all legitimate targets.”

“Because any air raid on Honolulu that might ever occur would most probably be at night, consequently not of the precision variety, bombs might land at some distance from the actual targets. That is the reason so large an area would have to be evacuated.”

“There are two classes of evacuees: those who will voluntarily or with slight persuasion leave, and those who must be forced to leave … Persons who cannot be used in any manner in the defense and who are unwilling to leave Honolulu but who can be used directly and indirectly in the defense constitute the seconds class.’”

“In discussing the evacuation program General Short regretted, that Honolulu does not possess one of the most favorable facilities that could be utilized as a camp. That is a large recreation center away from the ocean. The beaches, he said, do not offer enough foliage for protection from observation.” (Honolulu Advertiser, May 23, 1941)

During the Fall of 1941 diplomatic relations between the United States and Japan, which had been steadily deteriorating, took a sudden turn for the worse. December 7, 1941 Japan attacked the US at Pearl Harbor.

Shelters for evacuees were built in the valleys of Palolo, Kalihi and Mānoa; however, they were “held in readiness for evacuees in connection with [another] attack.”

Neither Kalihi Valley Camp nor Palolo Valley Camp ever accommodated Islanders displaced after the initial attack on December 7th. A memorandum written in February 1942 confirmed that both Palolo and Kalihi Camps remained unoccupied.

With the coming of World War II Hawaii was confronted with a serious housing shortage, as Honolulu saw an influx of over 100,000 civilian defense workers, while a lack of building materials and laborers brought residential construction to a virtual halt.

Four evacuation camps, which the Office of Civilian Defense had erected in Palolo and Kalihi valleys in case of another Japanese attack, were turned over to the HHA and converted into wartime public housing for several hundred families.

The housing situation became more acute in 1943, as workers continued to come to the islands, and in 1944 the military further compounded the problem by permitting families to join war workers.

The HHA developed public housing areas in Palolo, Kapalama, and Lanikila during 1944 and 1945, and the Federal Public Housing Authority opened Kalihi War Homes with its 248 units in February 1945.

Members of a Congressional subcommittee, which came to investigate Honolulu’s housing situation (in Pālolo and elsewhere) in March 1945, learned of “hot bed apartments” where as many as eighteen men occupied one room in three shifts.

The subcommittee found that adequate housing had not been provided for approximately 60,000 of the 107,679 civilian newcomers who came to Hawaii during the war.

With the conclusion of World War II, the Pālolo School Camp was closed as they were deemed unsatisfactory for occupancy. The Pālolo Evacuation Camp adjacent to the 362-unit emergency housing project in Pālolo remained in operation.

The Federal Public Housing Authority started to build another 1,000 dwelling units in Manoa, but these were not completed until 1946, after the war was over.

With the conclusion of World War II, three of the evacuation camps, Kalihi Evacuation Camp, Kalihi School Camp, and Palolo School Camp, were closed as they were deemed unsatisfactory for occupancy.

The Palolo Evacuation Camp adjacent to the 362 unit emergency housing project in Palolo remained in operation. (HHF)

July 10, 2019 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Japanese Internment

During World War II, Japanese Americans were incarcerated in at least eight locations in 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 Kauai.

The forced removal of these individuals began a nearly four-year odyssey to a series of camps in Hawaiʻi and on the continental United States.

They were put in these camps, not because they had been tried and found guilty of something, but because either they or their parents or ancestors were from Japan and, as such, they were deemed a “threat” to national security.

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%.

By contrast, Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorized the mass exclusion and detention of all Japanese Americans living in the West Coast states, resulting in the eventual incarceration of 120,000 people.

During the war, there was a Hawaii Defense Act, Order No. 5 that stated “all aliens were forbidden from possessing weapons, firearms, explosives short-wave radio receiving sets, transmitting sets, cameras, or maps of any United States military or naval installation.”

They could not travel by air, change residence or occupation or move without written permission from the provost marshal.

On December 8, 1941, the first detention camp was set up on Sand Island. Several factors made Sand Island a logical place for establishment of the first detention camp. Geographically, it was an island immediately adjacent to the city of Honolulu in the Honolulu Harbor.

The Territorial Quarantine Hospital had been located on Sand Island and it had housing, food prep and administrative facilities.

Within one week of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI detained 370 Japanese, 98 German and 14 Italians. Almost all of the Japanese detainees were men; of the European detainees, many were women. The European and Japanese internees were segregated.

The first POW of the war (Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, of the captured Japanese submarine that beached at Waimanalo) was also interned at Sand Island.

Each compound operated its own mess and maintained its own sanitary and internal administrations. The detainees supplied their own recreational activities, such as softball and volleyball games. Each compound had its own spokesman.

While most of the internees were residents of Oʻahu, there were Japanese detained on the Neighbor Islands.

On Kauai internees were crowded into the county jail. According to Gwen Allen (Hawaii War Years), the December 12, 1941 issue of the Kauai newspaper reported that “the men are building double decker bunks.” On the Big Island, detainees were interned at Kilauea Military Camp at Volcano.

Restrictions at each were different. On Kau‘i, after two days of war, a newspaper announcement invited families to call on detainees any day between 1 pm and 3 pm and they were allowed to take clean laundry and simple Japanese food.

On Maui, each detainee was given a questionnaire asking if they had any animals that needed feeding and other care, and if so, where can they be found. On the Big Island, there was no public visiting until February 14, 1942.

For some O‘ahu internees, they began their detention at the Immigration Station at Fort Armstrong and were then moved to Sand Island. Internees at Sand Island lived in tents until wooden barracks were built.

“Until books and other materials were allowed, the internees passed the time by smoothing sea shells for necklaces by rolling them on the concrete floors.”

In March 1942, Sand Island closed. Some detainees were sent to Honouliuli Internment camp.

Because arrests and detentions continued through the war, the community remained on edge, fearful as to who might be next. Japanese culture became equated with Japanese political affiliation, and Japanese language clothing and customs suddenly disappeared.

Though some detainees were released after a short imprisonment, the majority were detained for the duration of the war, with most eventually transferred to camps on the continental United States, for a period approaching four years.

Most eventually returned to Hawai‘i after the war.

In 2006, President Bush signed the Camp Preservation Bill (HR 1492), which authorized $38 million in funding for the preservation of former World War II confinement sites.

In part, the intent is that the Honouliuli site become a public historical park where the Hawai‘i internees story can be shared with future generations.

The fact that the internment did happen here in the Hawaiʻi are something to never forget.

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