The Other Pearl Harbor Disaster

On a quiet Sunday afternoon in May of 1944, a vast armada of warships filled Pearl Harbor in preparation for the invasion of Saipan named Operation Forager.  With the seizure of bases in Marianas islands, American B-29s would be able to reach Japan only 1,500 miles away.

The invasion force included twenty-nine amphibious landing ships called LSTs.  These vessels landed troops and supplies on the beaches to directly engage the enemy.  On board LST 353, Army personnel of the 29^th Chemical Decontamination Company busily unloaded mortars. 

Suddenly from her deck, at approximately 1508, an explosion rocked the calm waters of the harbor, scattering hot shrapnel and other debris throughout the landing fleet.  A mix of panic and confusion ensued.  Urgent efforts to extinguish fires and to remove other LSTs out of harm’s way were initiated.  Two more increasingly violent explosions erupted at 1511 and 1522 respectively; the last one said to have been heard more than fifteen miles away.   Vessels all around the harbor rushed to the scene to help battle the fires and rescue crewmen from the water. 

 “I was on the docks playing craps with the guys…we heard the first two explosions but they were far away and so we didn’t think much of it.  With the third explosion, I knew something was going on,” said Roy Sannella of Port Charlotte, Fl., a young sailor assigned to the tugboat YT-129 in Pearl Harbor.   Roy and his shipmates boarded YT-129 and were ordered out to West Loch to help contain the fires that were by now threatening to rage out of control. “As we approached the site we saw bodies in the water.  I told the skipper but he said that we would have to keep going forward to help in the fight.  When we got there we were able to cut some of the LSTs loose, but eventually we had to back away because of the inferno.  When we went back in we rescued several survivors from the burning waters.”

By the next day, a total of 163 men lost their lives in the disaster and 396 men were wounded.   Of the 34 LSTs in the area 6 had been lost completely and several more suffered extensive damage.  Amazingly, replacements in men and material were quickly rounded up and the invasion of Saipan took place as planned on June 15, 1944.

Following the disaster, Admiral Nimitz wrote of the circumstances leading up to the mishap was a “calculated risk” made necessary by the high tempo of wartime operations and that “positive corrective action” was ensured so that it would not happen again.  The times have changed, and the valuable lessons learned from the incident in West Loch have been put to practical use. 

“In 1944, the Navy did not have a clear definition of how munitions should best be loaded,” comments Captain Debra A. Bodenstedt a former Commanding Officer of the Navy Munitions Command East Asia Division.  “Work on the piers and other Navy facilities was done by the men of the ordnance battalions who had received very little training in cargo handling, let alone work with high explosives.  Today’s ordnance workers are all trained and certified to handle ordnance and are required to re-certify each year.”  Furthermore she adds, “The open fields surrounding the Naval Magazine represent the Explosive Safety Quantity Distance or ESQD which safeguard personnel and the inhabitants of nearby communities from possible fires or explosions.”

It is noteworthy that the Navy has not had another explosion of the magnitude of West Loch since the conclusion of World War Two.   All that remains of the West Loch disaster is the rusted hulk of LST 480, jutting silently off the Waipio Peninsula.

            For men like Roy Sannella,  who passed away in 2011, memories of the West Loch disaster were bittersweet.  “I’ve been doing my best to talk to school kids and other organizations about what happened and the sacrifices made.”  Although he lamented, “Not enough people know.  That’s a shame.” 

LST 480 lies in the waters of West Loch to this day

Solemn Occasion Leads to Continued Partnership in Pacific



On the morning of September 2, 1945 U.S.S.Missouri lay at anchor in Tokyo Bay. The scene was the surrender of Imperial Japan to the allied forces and the end of World War Two. On the veranda deck bulkhead above the hatch that led to the Captain’s in-port cabin hung a framed 31-star American flag in a glass case.

General MacArthur summed up the sentiment of many around the world when he declared, “It is my earnest hope and indeed the hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and the carnage of the past—a world founded upon faith and understanding—a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish—for freedom, tolerance and justice.”

For nearly four years the United States and her allies had fought the Japanese Empire over the issue of the control of East Asia and the destiny of the millions of people who inhabited this increasingly important part of the world.

The significance of the 31-star flag lies in its connection to America’s first treaty with Japan and the events that would bring the two nations together as competitors, enemies and friends.

When does America’s Story in the Pacific Begin?

The story of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific has its beginnings as early as the War of 1812 when the famed frigate Essex, under Captain David Porter, rounded Cape Horn and decimated the unprotected British commerce along the West Coast of South America. Her crew ventured as far out as the Marquesas Islands before being captured in Valparaiso in March of 1814.

America’s own seaborne commerce was the key to U.S. naval presence in the Pacific in the greater part of the 19th Century. Initially, trade with the lucrative Chinese market consisted of animal skins from the Northwest and sandalwood, largely from Hawaii in exchange for prized Chinese tea, silk and spices, but the commercial focus would soon shift to the whaling industry.

New England whalers plowed the Pacific hunting grounds in record numbers between 1820 and 1860, precipitating the need to call on the U.S. Navy for protection.

In essence, until the geographical shifts in American foreign policy that were wrought by the Spanish-American War, Mahanian Theory and the ascendancy of the Japanese Empire, America’s fixed military presence in the Pacific consisted of small assemblies of ships formed into intermittent “squadrons” or “stations” operating along the Western Coasts of North and South America and in the East Indies.

In the absence of more permanent bases and diplomatic presence in the region, naval captains were called upon to sail the vast Pacific Ocean, ensuring respect for the American flag and acting in a sense as “armed diplomats”. The manner in which a naval captain carried on his responsibilities could either damage American credibility or establish a foundation that could be cultivated for the future.

One example is Commodore Matthew Perry who sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853 with a set of demands seeking diplomatic and trade relations between the United States and Japan. The issues were largely commercial in nature, such as: better treatment for shipwrecked sailors, harbors of refuge and access to fuel and provisions, but the overall effect was to open Japan to the world for the first time in hundreds of years.

It was the flag from Matthew Perry’s ship that was transported from Washington D.C. to Tokyo Bay in September of 1945 to be put on display aboard the Missouri during the surrender.

Within forty years of the opening of Japan and the closing of the American West, the United States began to develop an increasing interest in the Pacific and the need for a more permanent U.S. naval presence. The Spanish-American War of 1898 brought the Philippines and Guam under America’s aegis as territories. Hawaii was shortly thereafter annexed, and Pearl Harbor developed as America’s intermediary point between the West Coast and the Orient.

The Clash that Became World War Two

In many ways the United States and Japan would grow up together at the beginning of the 20th Century as relatively new players in the search for commercial markets and raw materials in the Pacific region. Ironically, it was Japan on the West and the United States on the East that formed the boundaries of the region and therefore had the most to gain or to lose in discussions of the region’s security. The clash that became the Pacific Theater of World War Two was largely a result of, to quote General MacArthur, the “divergent ideals, and ideologies” that divided the two nations.

Though divided by six-thousand miles of ocean, unique cultural values and sometimes "divergent" national policy, the goal for peace established seventy years ago has stood the test. Japan and America's relationship proves that, differences aside, regional stability is attainable when our "most cherished wishes" lead to partnership and a commitment to understanding, no matter which flag we fly.

America's Turning Point in the Pacific

Six months following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the forces of Imperial Japan seemed all but invincible and poised to continue the conquest of Southeast Asia and the former colonial empires of France, Britain and the Dutch East Indies.

Indeed, the destruction of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl was only an attempt to prevent the United States from standing in the way of the Japanese empire’s seizure of the rich resources the former colonies would bring.  Adm. Yamamoto, the mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attack, gambled that by destroying the bulk of America’s naval power in the Pacific, Japan could buy itself six months to a year for the conquest of these valuable possessions.

America was still reeling from the blow that launched us into the war and was scrambling to prepare industrially and militarily to not only prevent Nazi Germany from conquering Europe, but also to strike back at Japan and bring what was largely viewed as a criminal regime to justice. 

The American people were growing tired of defeat after defeat and wanted to see our armed forces on the offensive.  The table would soon be turned at a point roughly midway between the west coast of the United States and the home islands of Japan.

Considering the large disparity in the forces available to the United States compared to those of the Japanese Empire, the chances were long that America would be able to make much of a dent  in that island nation’s newly acquired fortress.  In May of 1942, the U.S. had lost its forward presence in the Philippines and Guam, leaving only the aircraft carriers Enterprise, Yorktown, Lexington, Hornet and Saratoga as valid platforms from which to launch strikes at the Japanese.  To make matters worse, Lexington would be lost at the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 8 and Saratoga, which was torpedoed in early January, was laid up on the west coast for repairs, leaving three of her air groups on Oahu.

But what America lacked in military assets, she made up for in crack communications intelligence and level-headed leadership.  As early as May 15, Adm. Nimitz received solid intelligence from Station Hypo based out of building one at Pearl Harbor that the Japanese intended to occupy Midway atoll, located 1,300 miles northwest of Oahu.

From there, the Japanese would to be able to threaten Oahu and bring out the American carriers for what they hoped to be a final death blow to the Pacific Fleet.  Little did the Japan know that not only did Nimitz have the knowledge that they were coming with four carriers, but when and from what direction.   In essence, he intended to ambush their ambush.

The admiral knew that our carriers were the most valuable military asset available to the United States, and he would not waste them on a guess.  But he trusted his intelligence staff and the commanders, pilots and crews of the two task forces he sent to wait for the unsuspecting invaders. He knew that by concentrating his forces at the right place at the right time he could strike a counter blow to the Japanese that would even the score in the Pacific.

Hiryu burns on June 5

On June 4, 1942, the hammer fell on the Japanese Navy.  Dive bombers from the carriers Yorktown and Enterprise destroyed Japan’s frontline carriers Hiryu, Soryu, Akagi and Kaga.  All four had participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor just six months before, and all four now lay at the bottom of the Pacific.

America had won a decisive battle against a seemingly invincible foe but not without scars, as surviving Japanese aircraft from Hiryu, the last Japanese carrier to be sunk that day, found Yorktown and inflicted damage that would eventually lead to her destruction.

Nonetheless, the Battle of Midway would be remembered as a turning point, if not the turning point in the Pacific Theater of World War Two.  As a result of the battle, the United States had crippled Japan’s ability to launch further large-scale mobile strikes against Allied forces, and American forces would soon take the offensive.  The American people now had the decisive victory they had been longing for since December of 1941.

The Yorktown's Last Stand

At 1352 on May 27, 1942 the USS Yorktown limped battered and bruised into Pearl Harbor's berth 16.  She had just arrived on her long journey from the Battle of the Coral Sea where she had taken a critical bomb hit on May 8 that had exploded deep witnin her interior.  She was lucky to be arriving in Pearl Harbor at all, but luck was a commodity that would touch America again early in 1942.  Probably no one would have believed that Yorktown would be seeing action anytime soon, most expected some minimum repair work at Pearl and then several months of more extensive repair on the West Coast.  This was not to be the case.

Admiral Nimitz and the Pacific Fleet needed Yorktown , as well as the carriers Enterprise and Hornet right away to counter what his own intelligence office was telling him would be a Japanese attempt to invade and occupy the Midway Atoll within a matter of days.  Yorktown had suffered considerable structural damage which limited her speed a great deal.  Without speed a carrier would be seriously hampered in its ability to launch aircraft and just as importantly to evade attack.  The next day Yorktown was moved to dry dock one where she was flooded with electricians, welders, machinists and every other Pearl Harbor Shipyard worker that could be mustered in oreder to get her "up to speed" immediatley.  They worked through all hours of the day and through out the night and with the first of many miracles that the shpyard would complete in the war, Yorktown pulled out of Pearl Harbor on May 30 on her way to "Point Luck", a spot in the ocean about 300 miles northeast of Midway, from which Admiral Nimitz hoped to spring our own trap on the Imperial Japanese forces coming to do destroy the Pacific Fleet's air forces.

Sadly, this would be Yorktown's last battle, but one in which her aircraft would play a significant role in balancing the odds in the Pacific by joining with aircraft from the Enterprise  on June 4 to sink all four of the Japanese carriers that had been sent to inflict the same decisive blow on the U.S. Navy.  Those four carriers had made up two-thirds of the First Air-Fleet that had attacked Pearl Harbor on arguably America's darkest day.  Unfortunatley, though the Battle of Midway was an overwhelming success for the United States, Yorktown would never return.

It seems all the more fitting that the day that Yorktown pulled out of Pearl Harbor for her last stand an in America's defense was Memorial Day 1942.

Luke Field

 

No one could question the combat skill of 2nd Lt Frank Luke, earned in the skies of Europe in 1918.  His 18 kills were second only to Eddie Rickenbacker who said of Luke, “He was the most daring aviator and greatest fighter pilot of the entire war.”  But he had a reputation as a renegade, who preferred to fight alone and who was known to frequently disobey orders. 

On the evening of September 29, 1918 Luke left the airfield at Verdun and proceeded to the front to attack three balloons behind the German lines.  He was subsequently wounded and forced to land in a field west of Murvaux.  Luke fell shortly after removing himself from the aircraft and according to eyewitness he crawled almost 250 feet to a nearby creek in an attempt to hide in the underbrush.  The German soldiers who helped bring Luke down pursued him in hopes of capturing the American pilot before he could escape.  Luke, knowing that his wound was fatal raised himself to face his captors and fired his pistol in their direction before collapsing to the ground dead.  He died with the same defiant moxy with which he had lived. 

   

The Germans buried Luke’s body in the Murvaux cemetery but his remains were later recovered by U.S. forces and reburied in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial, located east of the village of Romagne-sous-Montfaucon.

As a result of his actions 2nd Lt Frank Luke was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor which was presented to his father, Frank Luke, Sr in Phoenix, Arizona in May 1919.  The citation reads,

After having previously destroyed a number of enemy aircraft within 17 days he voluntarily started on a patrol after German observation balloons. Though pursued by 8 German planes which were protecting the enemy balloon line, he unhesitatingly attacked and shot down in flames 3 German balloons, being himself under heavy fire from ground batteries and the hostile planes. Severely wounded, he descended to within 50 meters of the ground, and flying at this low altitude near the town of Murvaux opened fire upon enemy troops, killing 6 and wounding as many more. Forced to make a landing and surrounded on all sides by the enemy, who called upon him to surrender, he drew his automatic pistol and defended himself gallantly until he fell dead from a wound in the chest

Ford Island in 1925.  Luke Field is in the center of the island with Army air operations to the left and the Naval Air Station to the right.



On April 30, 1919 shortly before the presentation of Luke’s award, he received recognition of another kind when the new airstrip on Ford Island in the territory of Hawaii was named after him.  The War Department purchased the land in 1917 and moved the 6^th Aero Squadron there in October of that same year.

Luke Field in the 1930s

Luke Field would remain under Army control through the earliest days of aviation and was home to a good portion of the Army’s air operations until the establishment of Hickam Field in 1939.  At that time all of the Army Air Corps activities formerly at Luke would be moved to Hickam with the exception of the Hawaiian Air Depot which remained on Ford Island until late 1940.

With this transfer the airfield and facilities on Ford Island came under the control the U.S. Navy and Naval Air Station Pearl Harbor, which had already been established on the opposite side of Ford Island in 1923.  With the onset of World War Two the island saw a massive buildup and the airstrip, formerly known as Luke Field became a central hub for the Navy’s Pacific air operations.

I had the distinct pleasure of escorting Captain Gerald Coffee, USN (Ret) on a tour of USS Abraham Lincoln while she was in port this last weekend.  Captain Coffee was a pilot whose aircraft was shot down while flying a mission in Vietnam.  He spent the next seven years as a POW until his release in 1973.

Captain Coffee was given a VIP tour of the Lincoln by Lieutenant Commander Juston Kuch, an F-18 pilot with VFA-34 the “Blue Blasters”.

The experience had a twofold effect on me.  I was grateful to be able to spend time with Captain Coffee and express my appreciation for his sacrifice in person and I was proud to see the hard work of good people like Lieutenant Commander Kuch who are still carrying out the Navy’s mission with professionalism and pride.

Captain Gerald Coffee, USN (Ret) is greeted by Captain John Alexander Commanding Officer, USS Abraham Lincoln.

Captain Coffee and guests are introduced to Lieutenant Commander Juston Kuch.

Posing next to an F-18 of VFA-34 in hangar bay 2.

Describing flight operations on the flight deck.

Lieutenant Commander Kuch and two wide-eyed future recruits.

Ninety-nine years ago today the U.S.S. California transited the channel entrance to Pearl Harbor and effectively opened the historic port to the world.  The ship that took center stage this morning is not to be confused with the battleship California, or BB-44 which found herself on Battleship Row in 1941.  This California was an armored-cruiser weighing in at about 14,000 tons and laden with 8, 6 and 3 inch guns.  Her entrance into Pearl Harbor was historic because she was the first large warship to enter the harbor following extensive dredging of the channel. 

Sanford Dole

On board the California on December 14, 1911 was the first and last President of the Republic of Hawaii Sanford Dole, and Queen Liliuokalani the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii.   Also along for the ride was the son of Sun Yat-Sen, whose father eventually lead the revolution in China which ended two-thousand years of imperial rule.  Sun Yat-Sen would be elected the first President of the Republic of China two weeks later on December 29.

Queen Liliuokalani

All of this resulted in an incredible juxtaposition of history in this famed haven on Oahu’s idyllic South shore.  Hawaii had undergone a great deal of turmoil in the years following Queen Liliuokalani’s ascension in 1891 and her subsequent attempts to restore control of the kingdom to the monarchy.  The Queen was overthrown in 1893 and in 1898 the new Republic of Hawaii was formally annexed as a territory of the United States.

The events that were occurring in the Far East, including the European colonization of coastal enclaves in China and South-East Asia and the genesis of the ascendancy of the Japanese Empire were important drivers that led to the United States growing interest in the Pacific region, and a recognition of the need for military facilities to provide American influence in the area. 

On the decks of the California that afternoon, all of those streams of history came together to open Pearl Harbor to the world.  None would fathom the importance of Hawaii’s place in the events that would soon set the world on fire.

Later in September of 1912 President Taft closed the harbor to all but American military traffic and Pearl Harbor's long legacy as America's central pacific bastion had begun.

USS California in Pearl Harbor.  December 14, 1911

A Nearly Historic Flight

On September 10, 1925 the submarine R-4 spotted an unusual site about 10 miles off the coast of Kauai. There, moving slowly through the Pacific waters was a PN-9 seaplane, with the canvas torn from its wings and rigged as sails. The sub captain hoped against hope that this was the aircraft that they had been searching for and ordered his signalman to contact the plane and ask for identification. The crew of the R-4 was relieved to receive the reply, “PN-9 No. 1 En route from San Francisco to Nawiliwili.”

On board the PN-9 No. 1 was Lt. Byron J. “Smike” Connell, Chief Aviation Pilot S.R. Pope, Aviation Pilot First Class William H. Bowlin, Chief Radioman Otis G. Stanz, and the aircraft’s commanding officer, Commander John Rodgers. These five men had left San Francisco Bay on August 31 in an attempt to become the first aircraft to fly non-stop to Hawaii. They ran out of gas about 450 miles shy of their destination and were forced to land on the afternoon of September 1. They spent the next 10 days at sea in their makeshift sailboat, while an extensive sea and air search was conducted.

The resourceful crew was fortunate to have Commander Rodgers in command. He had served as the first commanding officer of the Naval Air Station on Ford Island and was thoroughly familiar with the seas surrounding the Hawaiian Islands. At one point the crew could see the searchlights above Oahu, but Commander Rodgers was an expert navigator and determined that, based on the currents and wind directions, an attempt to head for Oahu would cause them to miss the island by 10 miles and sail off into the Northern Pacific which would be the end for them all. Instead, he correctly judged the elements and, led them away from Oahu to the position just off of Kauai where they were discovered.

After landfall on Kauai the entire crew boarded a ship and headed for Pearl Harbor where they were treated to a hero’s welcome on September 11.

The "New Navy" in Hawaii

Caught this image and reference on the Naval History and Heritage Command's Facebook page.  What was interesting to me was how many of these ships played important roles in the Navy's history in Hawaii.

The Boston arrived in Honolulu in August of 1892. In 1893 the crew was there to witness the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom by local businessmen with ties to the United States who were opposed to Queen Lili’uokalani’s attempt to enforce a new constitution. Captain Wilste ordered troops ashore to protect American lives and interests and it could be argued that the presence of the landing party from an American warship emboldened the revolutionaries in their efforts to usurp the Hawaiian government. On January 17, 1893 the queen was deposed and the Republic of Hawaii was established.

The Chicago would arrive in Pearl Harbor in December of 1919 as flagship/tender of Submarine Division 14. The ship would serve in that capacity until 1923. It was in the early 1920s that the Pearl Harbor Sub Base was established with Commander Chester Nimitz serving as one of the first commanding officers and the one most instrumental in the construction of the base.

Finally the gunboat Petrel, which played an instrumental role in Admiral Dewey’s defeat of the Spanish fleet in Manila in 1898, became the first warship to enter the Pearl Harbor channel in 1905.

Today in History - Britannic Hawaii

Rear Admiral Richard Thomas

On February 25, 1843, the Kingdom of Hawaii was unofficially annexed by British Captain Lord George Paulet of the HMS Carysfort.

Following several unfortunate disputes between the Hawaiian government and the British Consul, Richard Charlton, Captain Paulet cited "alleged insults and malpractices against British subjects" as his justification for his actions.  Both the French Consul and the commander of the U.S. East India Squadron, Commodore Lawrence Kearny, aboard his flagship the USS Constellation, also issued formal protests regarding Paulet's decision.

After five months of British rule under a temporary commission Rear Admiral Richard Thomas sailed into Hawaii aboard his flagship the HMS Dublin to settle the issue on behalf of the Queen.  Immediately upon arriving in port, Thomas requested to see Hawaii's King Kamehameha III.  This resulted in an apology and a promise to restore the kingdom at once with the condition of

The protection of rights and privileges of British subjects in Hawaii and [the guarantee of]  perfect equality with other favored foreigners.

On the morning of July 31, 1843, as the population began to gather at Kulaokahua, a plot of land at the foot of Punchbowl in central Honolulu, a downpour threatened to sour the events planned for Hawaii's restoration.  But according to accounts of the day, at 9am the sky cleared and several companies of Royal Sailors and Marines lined up facing the sea, awaiting the arrival of Admiral Thomas and the king.  Upon their arrival, an artillery unit fired a 21-gun salute.  As the British flag lowered and the Hawaiian flag was raised, British and American warships, merchantmen and whalers fired salvos in honor of the occasion.

In the afternoon, Kawaihao church held a thanksgiving service whereby King Kamehameha III declared that the life of the land had been restored.  He stated, "Ua Mau ke Ea o ka Aina I ka Pono" or "The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness."  The phrase eventually became the motto for the State of Hawaii.

In 1850 the area where the ceremony occurred was renamed Thomas Square and became the first public park in Hawaii.  Aerial photos of the square reveal that it is designed in the shape of a Union Jack.

Courtesy of Google Earth

FDR Visits Hawaii

America’s 32nd Chief Executive made two trips to Honolulu in his unprecedented 12 years as President of the United States. Interestingly, the trips occurred 10 years apart almost to the day.

USS Houston arrives in Honolulu

On July 24, 1934, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the first sitting president to visit Hawaii. He spent the day fishing aboard the cruiser USS Houston, off the the coast of Kailua-Kona. The Houston pulled into Hilo Harbor on the 25th and visited many Big Island sites before sailing the next day for Oahu. On the morning of the 26th, he arrived at Pier 2 in Honolulu where he was greeted by more than 60,000 people. Forming the letters “F R” in the sky, 100 Army and Navy aircraft also greeted the man from Hyde Park. As he walked down the gangway with his sons at 9:15 am, the battery at Ft. Armstrong fired a 21 gun salute in his honor while the Marine band played the National Anthem. A few moments later, the president engaged in a whirlwind tour of the island of Oahu.

The presidential entourage circled the city of Honolulu before heading north on the Pali road toward Oahu’s scenic North Shore. At Schofield Barracks, Roosevelt witnessed a 15,000 troop military review, the largest ever staged in Hawaii at that time. Later that evening, he dined with Governor Poindexter at Washington Place. The next day, he visited Pearl Harbor and dedicated the new gate on the Waikiki side of Ala Moana Park. Eventually, the gate would be named Roosevelt Gate. While in Honolulu the president stayed at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel where he attended a luau. Olympic swimmer, Duke Kahanamoku, taught his sons to surf. He also spent an hour privately conversing with Harvard classmate, Walter Dillingham, at the magnate’s home, La Pietra, located near Diamond Head.

Constantly referred to as “F.R.” in the local paper, not the “F.D.R.” that many have grown accustomed, Roosevelt planted a small kukui tree outside of the Iolani Palace on the 28th before offering farewell remarks and departing the islands at a little before noon.

Radford Mobley of the Honolulu Star Bulletin wrote that the President came to Hawaii,

For more than a mere fishing expedition...Concerning Hawaii as the American outpost of the Pacific, the president is anxious to confer with the heads of the military units first hand to determine for himself the defense needs here. His visit may later lead to an increase in the size of the army and navy posts…As the time approaches for the release of the Philippines, the president desires full preparedness information regarding this bulwark in the Pacific.

By the summer of 1944, much of Mr. Mobley’s insight proved prescient.

MacArthur, Roosevelt and Nimitz

F.D.R. spent well over 10 years in the Oval Office by July 26,1944. Still commander-in-chief when Hawaii, the “bulwark in the Pacific” was “suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan,” Roosevelt spent the last three years leading the United States from that crippling defeat to repeated victories in Europe and in the Pacific. Now on this July 26th aboard a different cruiser, the U.S.S. Baltimore, he arrived to the fabled port in Hawaii that had become synonymous with the Alamo. There at Pearl Harbor he met with his two Pacific commanders Admiral Chester Nimitz and General Douglas MacArthur.

Holmes Mansion

Although the three American leaders met briefly onboard the Baltimore, the real discussion transpired at the Waikiki home of a wealthy businessman, Christian Holmes. As in 1934, the president spent a few days touring various areas, mostly military, of Oahu. However, on the evening of the 27th he sat down in front of a large map of the Pacific in the Holmes’s mansion to discuss the way forward in Pacific operations with MacArthur, Nimitz and Chief of Staff Admiral Leahy.

Most historians probably agree that the Honolulu Conference, as it is sometimes called, served several purposes beyond simple military planning. To the president, it was an opportunity to show the country during an election year that he possessed the stamina to remain commander-in-chief for another four years at a time when his health was increasingly under scrutiny. It was also an opportunity to make an appearance with General MacArthur, the sometimes outspoken critic of the president’s policies, who purported to be a potential Republican opponent in the future. While in Honolulu, MacArthur pressured Roosevelt into accepting his plan to liberate the Philippines and thereby fulfill his promise to return to that island nation following defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1942. He argued that the nation’s honor as well as the president’s political future was at stake.

Honolulu Conference

On the 28th F.D.R. made his decision known to proceed with General MacArthur’s plan through the Philippines, while Admiral Nimitz forces continued their thrust toward the Japanese home islands via the Central Pacific. It is unclear whether the president’s decision was purely politically motivated, but it certainly didn’t hurt his election chances when the revered general heaped praises on the president’s firm control and grasp of wartime strategy.

As the U.S.S. Baltimore pulled away from the Hawaiian Islands later that day, the charismatic leader flashed his famous smile, concealing the reality of his failing health which prevented him from witnessing the fruits of that strategy. Within nine months the president would pass into eternity.

On the grounds of the Iolani Palace stands a tall kukui tree and a plaque that reads,

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Planted This Kukui Tree

July 28, 1934

The tree stands as testament to the passage of time and of the momentous events that occurred in the decade between 1934 and 1944 when the Hawaiian Islands took center stage in the world’s history.

Today in History - The USS Nautilus

On July 23, 1958 the USS Nautilus SSN-571, the first nuclear powered submarine departed Pearl Harbor for a historic journey to the North Pole known as "Operation Sunshine". 

The Nautilus and her 116 crewmembers would arrive at 90 degrees north 11 days later on the evening of August 3.  Upon reaching the pole Commanding Officer, Commander William Anderson, would utter the words, "For the world, our country, and the Navy - the North Pole."  This milestone saw the Nautilus traverse under 1,830 miles of polar ice for a total of 96 hours.

The Nautilus is now a museum in Groton, Connecticut.

The USS Nautilus prepares to depart
Pearl Harbor for Operation Sunshine

The U.S.S. San Diego, Fire Island and Pearl Harbor

I am always amazed at the way that history seems to entwine and combine in various patterns that seemingly have no connection until you look just below the surface.

On my desk is a copy of the St. Louis Star-Times from Monday December 8, 1941. Obviously the big news item on that day was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war on the Japanese empire by the United States. As I perused page seven I came across a small article titled “Loss of Battleship First Such Blow in U.S. History.” The piece was squeezed between a lengthy report on Japan’s attack on the Philippines and a larger article discussing President Roosevelt’s address to Congress.

As is the case throughout history, the specific details of such a catastrophic event had yet to filter down through the 4,100 miles between Oahu and the American heartland. Consequently the article reported that one battleship had been lost in the attack and that it had been “officially announced as capsized.” Of course the damage to the U.S. Pacific Fleet was much more extensive than that and the capsized vessel was almost surely the U.S.S. Oklahoma. The article pointed out that this was the first time an American “dreadnought” had been destroyed as a result of war. The word dreadnought is a reference to the first ship of its kind completed by the British, the HMS Dreadnought. The U.S.S. Maine was actually a converted Cruiser at a time when the battleship was in its infancy and would more appropriately be referred to as a pre-Dreadnought vessel, and more to the point it is more likely that the Maine was an accidental sinking and not an act of war.

But what I found most interesting was the closing sentence,

The largest American warship lost during the World War [World War I] was the cruiser San Diego, 15,400 tons, sunk by a mine off Fire Island, N.Y., on July 10, 1918.

The date of the San Diego’s sinking was incorrect; she was actually lost on the evening of July 19 approximately 8 miles off the coast of Long Island as she made her way to New York.

The USS San Diego was actually commissioned as the Armored Cruiser USS California in 1907. The California was recommissioned the San Diego in 1914, in order to reserve the name for the eventual construction of a battleship. (This is another one of those interesting twists in history, considering that the future battleship USS California BB 44 would be tied up to Pearl Harbor’s Foxtrot 3 on the morning of December 7, 1941 but too many twists can get confusing.)

The California has the distinction of being the first deep-draft vessel to enter the channel of Pearl Harbor following its dredging in 1910. On board was Sanford Dole, the first and only president of the Republic of Hawaii from 1893 – 1898. Also on board was Queen Liliuokalani whose kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown by Dole.

Why is all of this so fascinating? It's just the way that history has a tendency to be an intertwining of many different eras and epics, peoples and events. The way that a distant newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri would report on the attack on Pearl Harbor and inadvertently reference the very ship that played such an important role in opening Pearl as America’s gateway to the Pacific that thrust it and the Hawaiian Islands onto the world stage in the first place.