LIHUE — Mildred Rapozo was 9 years old and playing outside her home behind the Lihue Plantation Dispensary when she saw the planes passing overhead. Countless planes. She didn’t understand what it meant, but knew it was an unusual sight.
LIHUE — Mildred Rapozo was 9 years old and playing outside her home behind the Lihue Plantation Dispensary when she saw the planes passing overhead.
Countless planes.
She didn’t understand what it meant, but knew it was an unusual sight.
“You could hear the sound of airplanes like a swarm of bees and when I think about it I can still hear it,” Mildred said.
Her father, a plantation shop supervisor, was in the house listening to the radio. All of a sudden he yelled for her to come inside.
“Of course, I didn’t know what that meant,” she said.
It was the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, and the planes were Japanese war planes on their way to attack Pearl Harbor.
Mildred and her husband Neil Rapozo of Hanamaulu both recall the day vividly.
Neil, who turned 82 on Dec. 7, was celebrating his 10th birthday in 1941. The day started at the 7 a.m. early mass at Immaculate Conception with his sister and grandmother, and he was looking forward to a beach picnic with the family.
“We were in church and there it was,” said Neil, the eldest sibling with two brothers and two sisters. “We heard these funny noises and then airplanes flying over.”
He learned later that the carriers were located about 100 miles behind Kauai and that some of them flew over the island on their way to Honolulu.
Mass had started at 7 a.m. A police officer came in during the service, approached the altar and handed the priest a note. Father Filbert informed the congregation that Pearl Harbor was being attacked.
“I think mass was finished right there and then and we all had to go home immediately,” Neil said. “My grandmother was all worried because she had two son-in-laws working at Pearl Harbor at the time, but luckily they were home that Sunday.”
His uncles were civilian workers at the Navy yard. One was a machinist and the other worked in supplies. They watched the entire attack from the Aiea heights.
Neil’s party was canceled and they returned to their home on Hanamaulu Beach Road.
Everyone was afraid that the planes would drop their remaining bombs on Kauai during the return to their carriers, Neil said. There were no shelters and the plantation-style houses were exposed.
His father and grandfather were both plantation supervisors. They, along with other sugar and pineapple plantation workers, were ordered to cut zig-zag trenches across the fields and to park trucks and equipment on the roads to prevent any planes from landing, he said.
A few weeks later, Neil said a Japanese submarine shelled Nawiliwili Harbor. One of the shells struck a fuel tank but did not explode.
The welders installed a patch plate over the hole and engraved some information about the attack and date. The patch has since been removed, Neil said, but the tank is still there.
“I don’t know if they got the submarine or not,” he said.
Plantation men armed with spears and bolo knives were sent to guard water tanks and wells in the mountains for several months until relieved by the military.
In the following weeks and months, every household was ordered to cover their windows with tar paper and remove outside bulbs for a nighttime blackout. There was an 8 p.m. curfew for people and cars avoided using headlights.
The horse racing track near where the Wailua golf course is located today was converted into an ammunition dump. Rows of barbed wire covered the beaches around the island.
The Army placed big guns and lookouts on Wailua, Kalepa, Nawiliwili and other mountains. The lookouts could radio the location of any ship to the guns and the practice rounds would roar over the homes, he said.
Mildred said she was at church when the real thing happened a year or two later. She was taking First Communion at the old St. Catherine’s church in Kealia, and recalls that the big guns fired on a Japanese ship spotted on the ocean.
Worries about poison gas meant protective masks were issued to everyone, including children and babies. They were heavy and they had to carry them wherever they went, Mildred said.
Each household dug a six-foot trench as an air raid shelter and concealed it from the air. Hospitals and schools had huge shelters.
Mildred recalled that the Lihue dispensary built an aluminum structure frame that held multiple stretchers. It was to be used as a triage in the event of casualties.
“We kids would walk on it like a tightrope on top,” she said.
The two married in 1950 and raised four children. They now have six grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandson — all here on the island. Neil joined the Civil Air Patrol in 1955 with communications and became a pilot in 1980. He is the oldest active member on Kauai today.
Dorothy’s story
Dorothy (Sugawa) Brierley of Lawai is a retired federal employee, and was a 12-year-old girl who was camping near Spouting Horn the morning of the attack. She saw two planes coming from the northeast and flying low to the deck toward Niihau.
At that time you could walk down to the beach before the hurricanes destroyed it, Brierley said. She, along with her parents, grandmother and siblings, walked down to a sandy spot with a little cave and camped the day before.
It was early in the morning and the sun was rising, she said. Everyone was sleeping but her father, who was at the water talking to himself.
“Just then, two planes flew by really low,” Dorothy said. “My dad said, ‘huh, that’s funny, what are British planes doing here?’”
Her father had mistook the Japanese markings for British insignia. It made sense because they were America’s allies and were also present in the Pacific, she said.
“These two planes were so low that I could see the pilot,” she said. “I could see his head with a leather type helmet and straps underneath the chin.”
The planes were so low on the horizon that they were near eye level, she said. She waved to the one plane that was closer.
“They didn’t wave back but us kids got so excited just to see an airplane,” she said.
Dorothy eventually learned that the planes were likely returning from the attack on Pearl Harbor. She also learned about the crippled plane that made a landing at Niihau, with a second plane en route.
These planes showed no sign of trouble, she said.
“When we got home my sister was listening to the radio and said Pearl Harbor was bombed,” Dorothy said. “We had no idea what was happening.”
She recalls that her father had her elder brother get the hunting rifle and they went off to protect the cannery. They thought that the Japanese would come back and bomb the island industries, she said.
Her father was a third-generation American-born Japanese man who worked for the county. This helped prevent him from being interned and was contract by the Navy as a carpenter foreman to build the airport that is now Pacific Missile Range Facility.
Her oldest brother, Ben Sugawa, enlisted and served with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He survived and attended college in Colorado before being called back to service in the Korean War.
Sugawa remained in the Army and retired as Lt. Colonel. He taught school for 10 years in Kauai. He passed away in January.
Dorothy, who will turn 84 this month, married William Brierley, and worked in federal jobs around the world — wherever her husband was stationed throughout his military career.
William passed away in 1996 and Dorothy moved back to Kauai to care for a sister and aunt who has since passed.
