In June, 1942, Laruentsius David Larsen, former manager of Kilauea Sugar Plantation from 1918 to 1930, spent several days on Niihau as the guest of the island’s owner and manager, Aylmer Robinson. On June 17, 1942, the day Larsen arrived,
In June, 1942, Laruentsius David Larsen, former manager of Kilauea Sugar Plantation from 1918 to 1930, spent several days on Niihau as the guest of the island’s owner and manager, Aylmer Robinson.
On June 17, 1942, the day Larsen arrived, a detachment of soldiers of the 165th Infantry Regiment that had been stationed on Niihau pulled out and returned to Kauai.
These soldiers, all of them Caucasians, had been ordered to Niihau on June 2, 1942, to defend it against a possible Imperial Japanese attack.
A few days after their arrival and following the U. S. Navy’s victory in the Battle of Midway (June 4 to June 7, 1942), the threat of imminent invasion of the Hawaiian Islands ended, and the 165th Infantry was therefore no longer needed on Niihau.
During the 165th Infantry’s short stay on Niihau, there had been practically no fraternization between its soldiers and Niihau’s native Hawaiian residents, who had little previous contact with strangers to their island.
One way Niihau women avoided contact with the soldiers was by refraining from going to the beaches to pick shells, from which they made necklaces.
Elsewhere, girls would run inside their homes whenever soldiers appeared in Puuwai village.
Larsen also met Benehakaka Kanahele who, along with his wife, Ella, had killed Shigenori Nishikaichi, the Japanese Navy Air Service fighter pilot who had crash-landed on Niihau on Dec. 7, 1941, following his participation in the attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, and had then terrorized the people of Niihau until he was dispatched on Dec. 13.
When Larsen observed Kanahele effortlessly lifting 130-pound cases of honey at the Nonopapa warehouse, it was obvious to Larsen that Kanahele had fully recuperated from the gunshot wounds he’d suffered during his fight with Nishikaichi.
Enormously strong, Kanahele could easily carry two cases at a time down to the beach some 500 feet away for shipping.
What’s more, his younger brother could carry three all at once.
