The Hawaii State Archive is cataloging documents and records from the Pacific War Memorial Commission, chronicling how the state raised money to commemorate the Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor attack by Japan.
It’s a story that involves a nationwide fundraising drive, multiple architects with wildly different visions, several proposed memorial locations and an unexpected fundraising push by Elvis Presley and his controversial manager, “Colonel” Tom Parker.
“We’ve always had these records, but we never really dove into them,” said state Archivist Adam Jansen.
The state archive has in its possession an original concept sketch of the current USS Arizona Memorial by Austrian-born architect Alfred Preis. When World War II broke out, Preis was thrown into a camp with other suspected “enemy aliens” because of his Austrian heritage — along with several other “suspicious” people.
Preis was ultimately released and went on to work for the Hawaii Territorial Department of Public Works — eventually opening his own business on Oahu. In 2022 the U.S. National Park Service set up a free temporary exhibit at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial on Preis’ life and works, and the archives were revisited.
The state archive offered to loan Preis’ original sketch to the NPS, which elected instead to go with a small-scale replica with their own archivists who continued going through records.
“We knew we had the drawing, but we weren’t clear exactly how we got the drawing,” said Jansen. “So once we dug into that, it turns out that the Pacific War Memorial Commission gifted it to Gov. (William) Quinn, and so we received it through that avenue. And so we started looking into the Pacific War Memorial Commission.”
The Pacific War Mar Memorial Commission was established by the Hawaii territorial Legislature in 1949 and was tasked with figuring out how to build memorials commemorating World War II in the Pacific. But it was also expected to find its budget through private donations, with an estimated cost of $500,000.
Documents in the archive show what could have been, with several suggested potential memorials around Oahu to commemorate the attack. Among suggested memorial locations were Pearl Harbor itself and Red Hill — which in recent years has become controversial because of the covertly built underground fuel farm that sits 100 feet above the aquifer most Oahu residents rely on for clean water. In November 2021, fuel from Red Hill tainted the Navy’s Oahu water system, which 93,000 people rely on, and the service has been working to shut down the facility.
The documents also show wildly different visions of existing memorials, including a concept for a USS Arizona Memorial that included an elevated over-water walkway from Ford Island leading to a proposed platform over the wreckage of the battleship.
Ultimately, Hawaii went from being a territory to a full-fledged state in August 1959. But even so, in the years after World War II and as the Cold War ramped up, commemoration of the Pearl Harbor attack and Pacific battles took a back seat for federal officials. As the Pacific Memorial War Commission sought funds, it looked nationally for help on the state and grass-roots levels.
“We have documents here, in 1960 there was a nationwide initiative to release proclamations from the (state) governors to encourage folks to donate,” said Jansen, “There’s 24 states in here that I counted, plus several city initiatives as well doing the same.”
Hawaii’s newly formed state government pledged $50,000 in public funds, and the federal government would ultimately step forward to help bring the project to the finish line.
By 1961 only about $300,000 had been raised. But that year an unexpected opportunity arose. Presley was on-island filming one of his movies, and his manager, Parker — who had been recognized as a Kentucky colonel and preferred to be addressed as “Colonel Tom” — offered to have Elvis do a one-day benefit concert to raise money.
Archivists found that they had flyers, letters and contracts, including those signed by Parker — who signed all documents as “The Colonel.” Ultimately, Presley’s one-day show raised over $52,000. While the show made a dent in what the commission needed, Hawaii would have to raise a lot more cash to make any memorial a reality.
The federal government ultimately stepped in. By 1963, then-President John F. Kennedy visited Hawaii to see the USS Arizona Memorial.
State archivists hope to make records and documents available digitally in two years for the 85th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. But it’s a delicate process.
“We have the capability,” said Jansen. “We just need to do it very carefully, because given its age, it is possible that it could fall apart.”
Jansen said that the goal of digitizing records is to make them available for people who might not have the time or ability to come to the archives physically. But he stressed that it’s important to maintain the physical documents themselves.
Notably, heat waves, hurricanes and other weather-connected disasters have threatened data servers and raised questions about the long-term stability of digital archives. Jansen said it’s important to have multiple copies — physical and digital — of historical documents like these.
“It’s an unfiltered look into the past, and so we can get history directly from those who were there and those who shaped it,” said Jansen. “At the end of the day, we can rebuild things. (But) these were people’s lives — fathers, sons, husbands. So remembering them is critically important as a society.”
Though the digitization of the Pearl Harbor documents is still in progress, the state archives are available to the public both online and in person to those interested in learning about Hawaii’s history. For information, go to ags.hawaii.gov/archives.
