The quest seemed quixotic. Two men on bomb-studded Kaho'olawe — in defiance of a military order banning civilians — engaging in a game of hide-and-seek with the Navy and Coast Guard. Their goal was to somehow reclaim the military-controlled island for Hawaiians, even though it had been a bombing practice target for decades.
But on Jan. 4, 1976, when Emmett Aluli and Walter Ritte Jr. stepped ashore, they tapped a vein of activism that brought Hawaiians together to end the bombing.
The two men were part of a group of nine who intended to occupy the island that day. When they headed inland to explore, they escaped the U.S. marshals who arrested the other seven invaders.
No one had been allowed on the island without military permission since World War II, when it was taken over by the Navy for live-fire training. During the course of three wars, various ordnance was exploded on Kaho'olawe, including ship-to-shore shells, rockets, grenades, guided missiles, flares and bombs. The attacks took a toll on the 45-square-mile island.
Aluli and Ritte surrendered after two days on Kaho'olawe, deeply affected by what they had seen. Their stories about it moved others to act.
Before their defiant trip, they thought of Kaho'olawe as barren. But the pair found beauty amid a damaged landscape, including heiau and shrines that had been bombed. Runoff clouded bays on the island, and the wind often carried its red soil aloft in huge clouds.
Aluli said the island had been desecrated and spoke at length. Ritte simply cried, but would later say the island told him it was dying.
A dozen illegal occupations followed what Aluli and Ritte had set in motion, including one the very next week when both men, as well as Ritte's wife and sister, kept the military searching for them for days.
But the men had started a movement that rallied Hawaiians and communities statewide.
Within weeks, the Big Island and Kaua'i county councils urged an end to the bombing. And Maui Mayor Elmer Cravalho said military arguments that forces would leave Hawai'i if they could not use Kaho'olawe were "pure bunk."
That year, concerned activists formed the Protect Kaho'olawe 'Ohana and filed a federal court lawsuit to stop the bombing.
In March 1977, however, the occupations took on a tragic tone when George Helm and Kimo Mitchell were lost at sea during a visit to the island. Helm was the charismatic leader of the Protect Kaho'olawe 'Ohana.
That same month, Hawai'i-based Marines angered the group when they created T-shirts that read: "Bomb Kaho'olawe 'Ohana ... Firepower for Freedom."
Ultimately, the military lost. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush halted the bombing. Four years later, the deed to the island was returned to the state, and Washington agreed to a $400 million cleanup of unexploded ordnance.
