Editor’s note: On Dec. 3, the Kaua‘i Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary. Museum leaders have chosen 50 stories from exhibits, collections and the archives of the museum to share with the public. One story will run daily through Dec. 3.
Editor’s note: On Dec. 3, the Kaua‘i Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary. Museum leaders have chosen 50 stories from exhibits, collections and the archives of the museum to share with the public. One story will run daily through Dec. 3.
LIHU‘E — The Kaua‘i Museum receives many interesting artifacts and sometimes wonderful stories that come with them. A surprising story came in 1990 from George Larsen, a Coast Guard veteran of WWII.
“On December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor I was transferred from the C.G. radio Station NMO to the CGC Kukui (NRXL). The ship was assigned the duty of extinguishing all the automatic navigation lights in the Hawaiian Chain.
We headed towards Kaua‘i that afternoon feeling apprehensive because of the destruction we could see around Pearl Harbor and Oahu. Our first light to put out was the Nihoa Rock automatic light, which was 750 feet high and the outermost light in the Islands. While passing through Kaulakahi channel between Ni‘ihau and Kaua‘i our Chief Quarter Master, Sheldon, spotted a long boat rowing across the channel towards Kaua‘i. We reported it to the captain, Chief Warrant Officer Sticklemeyer, who then checked with Warrant Officer Anderson, the executive officer, and they decided since the rowers weren’t in any real trouble they should proceed towards the job of putting out automatic lights.”
After completing their mission they arrived at Port Allen and said “that a long boat had been rowed over from Ni‘ihau Island to Maui by four or five native Hawaiians who worked and lived on Ni‘ihau. They told army authorities that a Japanese Navy plane had crashed on the island and that the pilot had taken control of Ni‘ihau by force.
The Army stationed on Kaua‘i came aboard and requested us to take them over to Ni‘ihau Island … formed a landing party between the army, the ships crew and some of the rowers. After a long silent wait on board ship the landing party finally returned with good news that the pilot had been killed by one of the Hawaiians and that the Hawaiian was wounded, but not too badly. The landing party brought the Hawaiian aboard along with his wife who helped him subdue the intruder. Most of the landing party assembled in the radio shack which was quite large and displayed all the things that had been used by the pilot to control the Island, such as the synchronized machine gun and its ammunition belt of bullets, a water proof packet which had a Honolulu High School student body card (McKinley), maps and various items that would help him blend in with the population if he crashed in O‘ahu. On the way back to Kaua‘i I was hoping to keep the gun and bullets for a souvenir. Of course when we docked at Port Allen, Army Intelligence took over and kept everything except the one bullet that I had removed from the belt.
The landing party group told me that the big Hawaiian had rushed the pilot and had gotten hit three times with pistol bullets from the hand gun the pilot had. He rushed the pilot grabbed him by the waist, turned him upside down and smashed his head into the ground killing him. … The best part of the story was the fact that the big Hawaiian walked off the ship to the ambulance refusing to be carried off on a stretcher.”
The artifact donated was the bullet from the ammunition belt.
