Posted on 08/10/2004 12:06:44 AM PDT by rmlew
The following is an exclusive excerpt from Michelle Malkin’s new book, In Defense of Internment: The Case for “Racial Profiling” in World War II and the War on Terror (Regnery).
The Turncoats on Niihau Island
"Are you a Japanese?”
Those were the first English words spoken by downed Japanese fighter pilot Shigenori Nishikaichi on tiny Niihau Island, located about one hundred miles northwest of Honolulu. It was December 7, 1941. Nishikaichi had had a busy, bloody morning at Pearl Harbor. Now, with the aid and comfort of a Japanese-American couple, Nishikaichi was about to make the lives of the Niihau residents a living hell.
Around 7:00 a.m., Nishikaichi boarded his Zero single-seat fighter plane and took off from the carrier Hiryu in the Pacific. An hour and a half later, the young Japanese pilot strafed planes, trucks, and personnel on Oahu. Headed back to his carrier, Nishikaichi and some fellow pilots encountered a group of American P36 fighter planes. During the air battle, Nishikaichi’s plane took several hits. One punctured the Zero’s gas tank. Nishikaichi steered the crippled plane toward the westernmost Hawaiian island: Niihau. Fewer than 200 Hawaiians plus three laborers of Japanese descent called Niihau home. Japan planned to use the island as a submarine pickup point for stranded pilots.
Nishikaichi crash-landed the plane in a field near one of the ranch homes. The first to reach him was Hawila “Howard” Kaleohano, a burly Hawaiian. The island had no telephones. On that tranquil, late Sunday morning, none of the inhabitants was yet aware of the death and destruction that had just rained down on Pearl Harbor.
Nonetheless, Kaleohano wisely confiscated the dazed Nishikaichi’s gun and papers. Kaleohano, perhaps the most educated Hawaiian on Niihau, had been keeping tabs on world affairs through newspapers supplied by ranch owner Aylmer Robinson (who paid weekly visits to the island and lived twenty miles away on Kauai). Wary but warm, Kaleohano brought the enemy pilot to his home. Along the way, Nishikaichi asked Kaleohano if he was “a Japanese.” The answer was an emphatic “No.”
After sharing a meal and cigarettes, Nishikaichi demanded that Kaleohano return his papers, which included maps, radio codes, and Pearl Harbor attack plans. Kaleohano refused. To make their communication easier, Kaleohano asked his neighbors to summon one of the island’s three residents of Japanese descent to translate for Nishikaichi. They first brought a Japanese-born immigrant, Ishimatsu Shintani, to the house. He reluctantly exchanged a few words with the pilot in Japanese, but left in a hurry—apparently sensing trouble.
The islanders then turned to Yoshio Harada and his wife Irene, both U.S. citizens, born in Hawaii to Japanese immigrants. Harada had moved from Kauai to California as a young man and lived there for seven years before relocating to Niihau with his wife in 1939. Instantly at ease with the Japanese-American couple, Nishikaichi dropped the bombshell news about the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Haradas did not inform their neighbors.
That night, the hospitable Niihau residents learned about the Pearl Harbor attack on the radio. They decided to confine the pilot in the Haradas’ home until help arrived.
Exploiting their common ethnic ties and urging loyalty to the emperor, Nishikaichi won over the Haradas. They enlisted the other resident of Japanese descent—the skittish Shintani—in a conspiracy to retrieve Nishikaichi’s papers from Kaleohano. On the afternoon of December 12, a reluctant Shintani visited Kaleohano and asked for the enemy pilot’s papers. He offered his neighbor a wad of cash. Kaleohano refused. Shintani desperately told him to burn the papers. It was a matter of life and death, Shintani pleaded with Kaleohano. Kaleohano again refused.
An hour later, Nishikaichi and the Haradas launched a campaign of terror against the islanders. They overtook the guard on duty and locked him in a warehouse. Mrs. Harada cranked up a phonograph to drown out the commotion. Yoshio Harada and Nishikaichi retrieved a shotgun from the warehouse and headed to Kaleohano’s home. Kaleohano, who was in the outhouse, saw them coming and hid while Nishikaichi and his collaborators unsuccessfully searched for the pilot’s papers. They recovered Nishikaichi’s pistol and headed toward his grounded plane. Harada watched as the enemy pilot tried in vain to call for help on his radio.
Meanwhile, Kaleohano fled from the outhouse and ran to the main village to warn his neighbors of Nishikaichi’s escape. He returned to his house to retrieve the papers, hid them in a relative’s home, and set out with a strong team of islanders in a lifeboat toward Kauai to get help. That night, Harada and Nishikaichi set both the plane and Kaleohano’s home on fire. They fired off their guns in a lunatic rage and threatened to kill every man, woman, and child in the village. After gathering for a prayer meeting, many residents escaped to a mountaintop with kerosene lamps and reflectors in an attempt to signal Kauai.
On the morning of December 13, Harada and Nishikaichi captured islander Ben Kanahele and his wife. Kanahele was ordered to find Kaleohano. In their own “Let’s Roll” moment of heroism, the gutsy Kanaheles refused to cooperate. When Nishikaichi threatened to shoot Kanahele’s wife, fifty-one-year-old Ben lunged for the enemy’s shotgun. The young Japanese fighter pilot pulled his pistol from his boot and shot Kanahele three times in the chest, hip, and groin. Mrs. Kanahele pounced at Nishikaichi; her once-peaceful neighbor Harada tore her away.
Angered, the wounded Kanahele summoned the strength to pick up Nishikaichi and hurl him against a stone wall, knocking him unconscious. Quick-thinking Mrs. Kanahele grabbed a rock and pummeled the pilot’s head. For good measure, Ben Kanahele took out a hunting knife and slit Nishikaichi’s throat. A desperate Harada turned the shotgun on himself and committed suicide.
The Kanaheles’ harrowing battle against a Japanese invader and his surprising collaborator was over.
The significance of the Haradas’ stunning act of disloyalty and Shintani’s meek complicity in collaboration with Nishikaichi was not lost on the Roosevelt administration. The facts of the case “indicate a strong possibility that other Japanese residents of the Territory of Hawaii, and Americans of Japanese descent . . . may give valuable aid to Japanese invaders in cases where the tide of battle is in favor of Japan and where it appears to residents that control of the district may shift from the United States to Japan,” wrote Lieutenant C. B. Baldwin after a naval intelligence investigation.
The Haradas were neither radical nationalists nor professional spies. They were ordinary Japanese-Americans who betrayed America by putting their ethnic roots first. How many other Japanese-Americans—especially on the vulnerable West Coast—might be swayed by enemy appeals such as Nishikaichi’s? How many more might be torn between allegiance for their country of birth and kinship with Imperial invaders? These were the daunting questions that faced the nation’s top military and political leaders as enemy forces loomed on our shores.
Michelle Malkin is a syndicated columnist and maintains her weblog at michellmalkin.com
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Hmmmm, that story was never related in either civics or history classes.
Publik Skool teaches that there was no reason or logic at all to the American Japanese internment's.
History is most interesting when it is not censored.
Never heard this story. Thanks.
Note the heroism of the Americans who happen to be of Hawaiian descent.
bump for a read with coffee, too many japanese names for now
Very interesting indeed. Thanks for the post, love WWII history.
I have read somewhere about this Japanese pilot, but never knew the whole story, even though I live on Kauai. Mr. (and thats all I would have ever called him) Kanahele must have been one bad ass bruddah - 51 yrs old, three bullet wounds and still whupped the pilot. And his wife had some cahones too. I hope Ben Kanahele and his wife got some kind of award or recognition.
You live on one of the most beautiful chunks of this planet to stick out of an ocean. But you already know that.
Ping
This is true on both sides of the aisle, however. I agree that at the time the Nisei were probably dangerous. However, there were and ARE plenty of times that the U.S. has killed or intentionally looked away from the slaughter of innocents. It's valuable to know that the left sometimes has a point that must be reckoned with. It might not always be right, but if you don't know it's coming, the discovery that America sometimes messes up can be disconcerting and put you off kilter in an argument quickly.
Lies My Teacher Told Me is a useful prepatory read on this point, as is Lies Across America. I strongly recommend you do NOT buy them--the author is a leftie--but they'll probably be in a bookstore or library where you can check `em out.
But Malkin is providing a valuable service. There's also an interview on the same site, http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Aigner20040809.shtml, where she points out some other interesting facts I didn't know. For instance:
"My book provides a balanced portrayal of life in the camps. Of course, conditions in some of the camps were awful, but most readers will be surprised to learn that:
- most Japanese-Americans were free to leave the camps, provided they had a school or job to go to outside the exclusion zones on the West Coast;
- one of the most infamous assembly centers, the Santa Anita racetrack, was used to house GIs immediately after Japanese-Americans left in the fall of 1942; and
- the threat of violence to camp residents from pro-Japan extremists was greater than the threat of violence from guards.
As for reparations, the popular perception is that the evacuees received nothing until President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. In fact, Congress had already provided a reasonable remedy to affected evacuees. The American-Japanese Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 authorized payment of more than $37 million to ethnic Japanese who made any claim for damage to or loss of property because of evacuation or exclusion. The feds processed a total of 26,568 settlements, averaging $1,400 each (equal to more than $10,000 in current dollars). Congress passed eight more compensation-related laws between 1951 and 1978. These included benefits for federal employees of Japanese ancestry; a Social Security Act amendment deeming Japanese-Americans over the age of 18 to have earned and contributed to the government retirement system during their relocation; and amendments to the Federal civil service retirement provisions giving Japanese-Americans credit for the time spent in relocation centers after the age of 18."
This is such a great story that I'm immediately suspicious. However, do a Google search on "Hawila Kaleohano," and you find evidence to back it up.
Cool!
Also recounted in a great book "Day of Infamy" published in 1957. FWIW
I have read somewhere about this Japanese pilot, but never knew the whole story, even though I live on Kauai. Mr. (and thats all I would have ever called him) Kanahele must have been one bad ass bruddah - 51 yrs old, three bullet wounds and still whupped the pilot. And his wife had some cahones too. I hope Ben Kanahele and his wife got some kind of award or recognition.
I just read the first few chapters of the book yesterday at Barnes & Noble. Ben Kanahele was awarded the Purple Heart (a civilian?). Hawila Kaleohano received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (plus $800 for the torching of his house). According to the book, it was a very big deal at the time but was subsequently kinda, sorta written out of history. Irene Harada spent the rest of her days on Kaui and successfully petitioned to have both her husband and lieutenant Nishikaichi reinterred on Kaui. Ishimatsu Shintani spent the war in one of the internment camps. Unbelievably, neither was even charged with a crime, let alone imprisoned.
Michelle does go into detail in another chapter of the significant role that (some) expatriate Japanese played in the conquest of the Philippines, Dutch East Indies, British Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. There was also the Honolulu spy ring and the Japanese loyalist organization stateside (the name of which I forget). Yes, in all fairness Executive Order 9066 does look to be a sensible action from what was then known.
Michelle goes into some detail that, at the time, at least, Japanese-American associations understood the circumstances and urged cooperation with the emergency measures. At the time, it was "stiff-upper-lip"/"doing our bit" all the way and it if there is any real tragedy it is that some of the survivors have succumbed to the grievance-mongering culture of the present day and have developed selective memory syndrome in the years since.
By the way, I was wondering what the present disposition of Ni'ihau is. When we lived in Honolulu when I was very little, the Robinsons had supposedly turned Ni'ihau into some forbidden Mysterious Island. Whazzup' with that?
Robinsons(?) have the project of maintaining a pure Hawaiian culture on Niihau, so have made it "forbidden" to tourism.
Robinsons(?) have the project of maintaining a pure Hawaiian culture on Niihau, so have made it "forbidden" to tourism.
Then they must be the only "pure" Hawaiians left in Hawaii (But that's a whole 'nother can of worms).
The Robinsons have no monetary need to exploit their island, so they have kept Niihau private, to their great credit. Niihau has its own school with about 60 - 80 students, and last year graduated 3 high school seniors.
I have read a book recently about Arizona in WWII, and there was a chapter devoted to the Japanese-Americans who lived in Arizona. They were prohibited from living in the portion of the state south of the Salt River and in the vicinity of what is now Sky Harbor Airport, but were free to pursue their everyday lives to the north of these areas. As a result, those who had friends and relatives north of the forbidden zone moved in with them for the duration of the war. Most of their non-Japanese neighbors were sympathetic to their plight, as in most cases they had been part of the community since the 1800's. My great-grandfather, who lived in Tombstone and Phoenix, had a Japanese cook from about 1885 to 1900.
The relocation camps served as much to protect the Japanese from vigilantism, as it did to protect us from a Fifth Column. Those camps relocated West Coast Japanese, NOT all Japanese. Other nationalities were also interned. There is a distinction between the Internment camps and the relocation camps.
I'm glad this book has been written to the present day public. A lot of correction to history is needed.
Cool update. Always nice to know the end of the story.
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