Hawaii's War Years
1950.
One of the things that is always interesting is how the West Coast whined about the Japanese immigrants and Japanese American citizens that were there and how dangerous they were, and how the white community in Hawaii took a much different view. The Japanese community formed over a third of the Hawaiian population. Hawaii was closer to Japan than the West Coast, and came under brutal attack by Japanese forces, yet the Hawaiian community never developed the same hatred of the persons of Japanese ancestry that the West Coast did and never (with some individual exceptions) went wild on their demands for shipping all the Japanese out when the war started.
One of the best examples of how things differed was when the government called for Nisei volunteers for the military forces. The people on the mainland, who were mostly behind barbed wire in the camps, did not flock to join, to put it mildly. On the other hand, the enlistment goal that had been set for Hawaii was met and significantly exceeded.
This book tells what happened in Hawaii from 1941 to 1945 and, of course, a good part of it deals with their Japanese American population.
The book opens with the attack on Pearl Harbor, noting that 57 civilians were killed on Oahu. Private property destroyed amounted to some $500,000 worth. Although much damage had been done by the Japanese bombs, some of the injuries and damage in civilian areas was done by American anti-aircraft guns.
There's an excellent selection of photographs in the chapter, one of the best I've seen anywhere.
Some of the information in this book is so important, and so concentrated, that I will have scans of those pages. In this case, a general wanted martial law declared right then, fearing a Japanese invasion the next day. The governor called FDR and FDR said he approved martial law being declared.
The original concept was that martial law would be quite temporary, but once someone gets power then tend to try to keep it and that was the way with the army. Martial law went on for nearly three years, even though, by that time, it was pretty obvious that the Japanese not only weren't going to attack Hawaii, but that they were going to lose the war.
It's also obvious that there had been a lot of pre-martial law work, so that the army knew just which persons of Japanese ancestry they wanted to pick up, and they did that task quickly.
This is also one of the few books to talk about the Japanese fishermen that were killed when their boats were attacked by U.S. planes. The fishermen did not know about the attack on Pearl Harbor, they couldn't communicate with the planes, and the pilots thought they were spying or attacking, so they attacked the boats.
The incident with the downed Japanese pilot, and how he was helped and ultimately killed is told. This seems to be the only incident in Hawaii where persons of Japanese ancestry helped a Japanese who was truly, at the time, an enemy of the U.S.
Then there's a very, very important chapter on the various rumors that came about in Hawaii. This is important in that those rumors were used by people on the West Coast to attack the Japanese living there, and thus played a good role in the evacuation of all PJAs (Persons of Japanese Ancestry) from the West Coast. The rumors were totally disproved, but even after that was done
All of these rumors are a good example of how technology has changed. Back there, radio and newspapers were the mass media methods. Newspapers were always somewhat behind the time of the actual event, and radio was more up-to-the-minute, but only if they had enough reporters in the field. Major news coverage wasn't as extensive then as it is now.
No television and no television networks with reports in the field with video cameras showing an event as it happened. No web news materials keeping people almost instantly up-to-date on what was going on. So it was easier for a rumor to get started and believed, and harder for it to be disproved. By the time the rumor would be disproved, so many people would have heard it and believed it that changing their minds would be difficult.
The first rumor cited here actually is one I haven't seen referred to elsewhere.
Neither of these have I seen referred to either.
The newspaper ad is supposedly a secret code to the Japanese. Whoever came up with that idea was obviously not working on all thrusters.
Both of the rumors on this page are ones that I have not seen repeated elsewhere.
The first rumor, about the arrow, is one of the best ones known. The second has been referred to in a couple books I've read.
Two more not oft-repeated rumors.
The McKinley ring rumor is one of the best known ones. The rest of the rumors on the page are not well known.
Radio sets being used to jam the air turned out to have a plausible explanation.
More not oft-repeated rumors.
The idea that the enemy would attack again was pretty logical at the time, but the more time went by, the less logical it was.
The main thing to remember about these rumors was that every single one of them was proven to be untrue, yet they still played a major part in the anti-Japanese propaganda of various organizations on the West Coast.
Later, the author writes that the Japanese didn't really have any actual plans, as such, for taking and holding Hawaii. Hawaii would have been at the extreme end of any sort of supply lines, and it would have been difficult for them to divert the needed resources to such an attack and keep up the attacks they were carrying on elsewhere. Opening up a two or three-front war is never a good idea, as Hitler learned.
Work went on throughout 1941 to develop a list of Japanese that were under suspicion and that could be picked up quickly if the need arose. This was why they FBI was able to pick up some Japanese within hours of the attack on the harbor. The Oahu Citizens Committee for Home Defense had Americans of Japanese ancestry in its ranks, and it was one of the main organizations that helped develop the list of people to be picked up.
There was a curfew in the Islands which ended on July 7, 1945.
In the chapter on Internal Security, the author starts off by saying the following:
“Despite the beliefs to which some people still cling, all the investigative agencies are agreed that espionage in Hawaii before the war was carried on only by the Japanese counselor staff and one other person, a German. They also agree that there was no espionage after the start of the war, no sabotage, no fifth column activity of any kind.”
And keep in mind that this was in a place where the persons of Japanese ancestry made up over a third of the total population.
He adds that, as far as the Japanese fishing fleet on the islands, there was no charge of espionage against any of them ever substantiated.
The number of Japanese taken into custody in Hawaii was 1,450, which made up about nine-tenths of one percent of all the Japanese on the island. Note; being taken into custody didn't mean they were actually guilty of anything; they were just under suspicion as being leaders of segments of the community, so they were picked up.
There were some people that wanted all the Japanese out of Hawaii, but that would have proven logistically incredibly difficult if not impossible. In this section, the author talks about plans to confine them to one of hte islands, plans to allow some to go to the mainland, etc.
The Navy was more into evacuation than was the Army. A document is referred to that I haven't found elsewhere, yet, but it sounds like the normal anti-Japanese documents that were floating around on the West Coast at the time.
The author talks about the few that were sent to the internment camps, and controls on the Japanese who remained.
One of the really, really, really smart things that was done on the islands was “The task of 'Winning the Japanese population to American ideals.” Instead of treating them in a nasty manner and trying to drive them out, as was done on the West Coast, the idea was to bring them tightly into the community, treat then decently, and get them to fully support the U.S.
Note the Dec. 8th general order. Makes a lot of sense.
Another really smart thing that was done on the islands was to establish a Morale section. The author describes the work in this part.
The “speak English” campaign was done in a positive manner rather than as some form of presumed punishment. All of this essentially again helped to bring the Japanese more into the American community.
Censorship is discussed in this section.
Carrier pigeons had to be registered and could not be used to carry messages, and the waterfront and certain other areas were closed to unauthorized personnel.
In a later chapter the author discusses how the judicial system was modified in Hawaii under martial law. Basically, a lot of the expected and normal rights and procedures were modified if not done away with.
He then talks about how Hawaii was used basically as a forward military base, and how the Nisei ended up in the military service. Hawaii, which treated their Nisei decently, had a much higher rate of volunteering for military service than did the Nisei in the internment camps, where they weren't treated decently. Sort of makes sense, really.
A listing of awards given to the Nisei during the war.
The author also takes about the islands shortly after the war ended.
Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page
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