The Battle of Niihau

As we close in on the anniversary of the 9/11 attack, I find myself thinking about the only event in our history that compares to the tragedy of nine years ago. It occurred on Dec., 7, 1941 on the Hawaiian Island of Oahu. Like the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a defining moment -- a terrible tragedy that killed thousands of Americans and forever altered the course of world events.

The effects of the Pearl Harbor attack still resonate, especially at the site. Resting several hundred yards across the idyllic turquoise waters from where the Navy’s active fleet moors today, the U.S.S. Arizona remains visible just below the surface. It is the final resting place of the 1,177 crew members who perished in the attack.

Ford Island, which rises in the middle of the harbor, is home to Naval support facilities and base housing. Its warehouses and towers are still pockmarked by the Japanese bullets fired 69 years ago. It remains impossible to ignore the history of the place.

And as with 9/11, the complete history of the Pearl Harbor attack will never be written. Too many lives were affected to construct a definitive story. Many of the individual struggles survive only in memories, or in stories passed down over kitchen tables.

I recently discovered a “forgotten” history of the Pearl Harbor attack in the form of Caroline Paul’s excellent 2006 historical novel, East Wind, Rain. Her fascinating book tells the story of the “Battle of Niihau.” Paul said she set out to write a non-fiction account, but found archival material both elusive and contradictory.

“This story seems to be a lost episode in history,” she explained. “That said, I stayed as close to the documented chain of events as I could. In many ways, you’re reading a true story.”

Niihau is the smallest and oldest of the major Hawaiian Islands. It is privately owned by the Robinson Family and has been since the mid-19th century. Since then, the population has fluctuated from 150 to 200 residents, most of whom are native Hawaiian. The Robinson family has kept the island isolated, prohibiting visitors and strictly controlling residents’ access to the modern world. To this day, the island has no cars, telephones or radios.

Niihauns today speak Hawaiian and work as ranchers, subsistence farmers and fishermen, just as they did seven decades ago.

On Dec., 7, 1941, a Japanese Zero crash-landed on Niihau after attacking Pearl Harbor. The pilot survived the wreck and was taken into custody, but only because visitors were strictly forbidden by the Robinsons, who lived on the neighboring island of Kauai.

Niihau had no contact with the outside world, other than through the Robinson family, but three residents in 1941 were of Japanese descent. The pilot told the Japanese Niihauns that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor and more troops were coming. He promised Niihau would soon be overrun.

Terrified, the Japanese American family declined to translate this news to their neighbors. Instead, they decided to help the pilot destroy his plane and recapture his documents, which a town leader had taken from him. The pilot assured them that their cooperation would spare the entire island from the wrath of the Japanese Imperial Navy.

Because of the Pearl Harbor attack, Robinson’s representative did not come to Niihau for his scheduled visit.

For four days, the pilot plotted with the Japanese family, who were his de-facto guards. On the fifth day, the pilot and his Japanese American host took a shotgun from the empty Robinson house -- the only firearm on the island -- and set out to find the papers and destroy the plane.

The pilot burned homes when he could not find his papers. The Niihauns fled their village and several elders crossed the 18-mile Kaulakahi Channel in a rowboat, seeking help from Kauai.

By the time the elders returned with a Japanese-American Naval commander in tow, the Niihauns had overpowered the pilot, killing him with wreckage from his own plane. His Japanese descended helper had committed suicide and the other two Japanese Niihauns were soon arrested.

That one incident, the Battle of Niihau, is barely a footnote in history, but the events there greatly influenced President Roosevelt, who signed Executive Order 9066 in Feb. of 1942, sending 120,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps.

I’m glad I picked up Paul’s book. The “forgotten” stories like the one she weaves put names and faces on the tragic attack. We need to remember both Pearl Harbor and 9/11 as more than defining moments in history. They were terrible man-made tragedies that killed thousands and affected thousands more in ways we will never know.