The Ni'ihau Incident

Started by _AH_Col._Hogan, December 07, 2018, 09:12:37 PM

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_AH_Col._Hogan

Japs ocupy an Hawian Island, 7 DECEMBER 1941 -


In the morning of December 7, 1941, Shigenori Nishikaichi and seven other pilots took off in their Zeros from the carrier Hiryu to escort bombers to Pearl Harbor during the second wave of the attack. On the way back, the flight got attacked by P-36 Hawks. The U.S. fighters were shot down and Nishikaichi's plane was damaged and losing fuel.


The Japanese had a plan for such an event. The small island of Ni'ihau, the westernmost and smallest of Hawaii's seven main islands, was designated for emergency landings and a submarine was to pick up downed pilots later. Once Nishikaichi got there, however, he saw that their intelligence was mistaken and the island was not uninhabited, after all. It had a population of 136, mainly Polynesians who worked as farmers, sheep and cattle herders and beekeepers for the island's owner, Aylmer Robinson, whose ancestors had bought the island from King Kamehameha V in 1864.

Having no other options, Nishikaichi attempted to land but his plane got snagged on a wire fence and its nose plowed into the ground. A nearby local, Hawila Kaleohano, ran to the pilot's aid. News of the attach on Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu hadn't reached Ni'ihau yet, but Kaleohano noted the plane's Japanese markings and was aware of the diplomatic tensions between the two countries. Therefore, he took the dazed pilot's gun and papers from him as a precaution. He then took him into his house and gave him breakfast.


A Japanese-born immigrant, 60-year-old beekeeper Ishimatsu Shintani was summoned to act as a translator. After a brief exchange, Shintani turned pale and left the house without a word. There were two other people of Japanese descent on the island, a married couple: Yoshio and Irene Harada. They, in turn, were called on. Nishikaichi told Yoshio that Japan had just attacked America and demanded that his pistol and his papers (maps, codes and attack plans on Pearl Harbor) be returned to him. He convinced them that Japan will win the war and the couple decided to keep the information the pilot had just provided to themselves.

The locals threw a luau for Nishikaichi, who even sang a song while accompanying himself on a borrowed guitar. He assumed that the Japanese sub would arrive to rescue him shortly, unawares that the vessel was given a new mission in the meantime.

Ni'ihau had no telephone, but the island's single battery-powered radio brought the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor in the evening. The game was up and the islanders decided to hand over the pilot to the landlord, Aylmer Robinson. He lived on another island but made weekly visits, the next of which was due the following day.


Nishikaichi was escorted to the shore in the morning but Robinson didn't show up. Unbeknown to the islanders, the Japanese attack resulted in a ban on boat travel and now they had to deal with the enemy pilot on their own.

After several days of staying on the island as an unwanted guest under loose guard, Nishikaichi recruited the beekeeper Shintani. The latter then showed up at Kaleohano's house with $200, a huge amount on the island, offering to buy the pilot's papers. Kaleohano refused. Shintani started threatening the man, who threw him out. Meanwhile, Harada went to Robinson's ranch house and stole the pistol that was stored there, along with a shotgun. The man guarding Nishikaichi was overpowered and locked in a warehouse.


Late at night the pilot and Harada went to Kaleohano's house for the papers but didn't find him at home and moved on to the crashed plane nearby, taking hostage the 16-year-old boy guarding it. Kaleohano, who was hiding in his outhouse, used the chance to slip away, avoiding the usurpers' fire. He rushed to the village, warned the residents, then took a boat with some other men to make the 10-hour rowing trip to the nearest island and get help. Meanwhile, Nishikaichi removed one of the plane's machine guns to give himself more firepower and set fire to Kaleohano's house after realizing the man probably took the compromising documents with him when he escaped.


Nishikaichi forced another local to go search for Kaleohano. While making a show of looking for Kaleohano, who he knew was already off the island, the man secretly enlisted the aid of a friend, shepherd Benehakaka "Ben" Kanahele, to steal the pilot's machinegun. They took the weapon from the wagon Nishikaichi stored it on, but Kanahele himself and his wife were captured by the pilot in the morning. As they were turning the now-abandoned village upside down for Kaleohano and the papers, Nishikaichi started to get extremely agitated and threatened Kanahele with killing him and everyone else on the island.

That was the last straw for the 6-foot-tall shepherd. He told Harada in Hawaiian to take the pilot's gun from him. The turncoat refused to do so and called out to the pilot for the shotgun, probably to defend himself against Kanahele. The moment the gun was being handed over, Kanahele and his wife Kealoha ("Ella") sprang into action and leapt at Nishikaichi. The pilot shot Kanahele several times but the enraged islander lifted him up into the air and hurled him against a wall. Ella grabbed a rock and hit the dazed man on the head, then Ben cut his throat with a knife. Seeing the failure of the takeover attempt, Harada killed himself with the shotgun, ending the brief Japanese reign of terror on Ni'ihau.


Ben Kanahele was awarded the Medal of Merit and the Purple Heart. Kaleohano received the Medal of Freedom and was compensated for the loss of his house in the fire. The beekeeper Shintani was interned on the mainland but received his American citizenship in 1960. The widowed Irene Harada was suspected of being a Japanese spy and jailed for three years. It's been speculated that the incident, and the troubling ease with which Nishikaichi turned the island's Japanese residents to his side, was a major factor in the establishment of internment camps for Japanese Americans during the war.







AH_DealnDave

I have been to the Pacific Air Museum on Ford Island. In this museum are some of the parts of that A6M Zero, displayed across from a B-25 as the "Ruptured Duck" used in the Doolittle Raid. The story of the Ni'ihau Incident is written there. Also displayed there are the rock, knife, and shotgun that played important parts in the dispatching of the Japanese Pilot.
Salute,

AH_DealnDave

_AH_Autorotate

very interesting, never heard of this!


Kopfdorfer

A Very interesting tale to be sure !

Thanks for sharing , Hogan.

Kopfdorfer