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.