Prior to the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Ni‘ihau had long been a peaceful home to its 130 Hawaiian residents, virtually unknown to the outside world, and was only rarely visited by invited off-island guests of Aylmer and Lester Robinson, its owners.
However, when Japanese pilot Shigenori Nishikaichi crash-landed his Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” aircraft on Ni‘ihau on Dec. 7, 1941, and proceeded to terrorize its residents for nearly a week before being killed by Benehakaka Kanahele, Ni‘ihau suddenly became famous.
The Army, although not welcome, then garrisoned troops on Ni‘ihau, while the Navy kept guard on Ni‘ihau’s shores.
With the troops came radios, movies, beer, tobacco, jeeps, trucks, electric lights, refrigerators and guns and ammunition — all of which had been previously foreign to Ni‘ihau.
The troops didn’t all go to church, they sometimes used profanity, they joked with the shy Ni‘ihau girls, and would show the residents motion pictures and let them listen to their radios – all of which was disapproved of by the Robinsons.
Meanwhile, the traffic between Ni‘ihau and Kaua‘i became relatively heavy, although somebody wanting to visit Ni‘ihau would still need to have urgent business to transact there in order to get an invitation from the Robinsons.
Later, as result of contracted negotiations between the military services and the Robinsons, an agreement was reached that troops would furthermore not drink alcohol on the island, that beer or other liquor would not be kept or served on Ni‘ihau, that the men would avoid social intercourse with residents of Ni‘ihau, and that they would not attend their church services or other social functions.
However, an attempt by the Robinsons to have written into the contract a prohibition against use of tobacco on Ni‘ihau proved unsuccessful.
The troops were also ordered not to take pictures of Ni‘ihau residents, since they resented being exhibited on film.
By 1946, the Army and the Navy had abandoned Ni‘ihau and only one officer and 10 enlisted men of the Coast Guard were stationed on the island to provide radio communication with Kaua‘i, while maintaining the use of three motor vehicles.
