Colonizers recall wartime survival
By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer
Elvin Mattson remembers it was just after noon, Dec. 8, 1941, when the first Japanese bombs fell on Howland Island.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
"We were drying fish," he said.
Three survivors of the little-known Pacific mission share memories while examining vintage photos in the Bishop Museum exhibit. From left: James Carroll, George Kahanu and Abraham Piianaia.
Mattson and Tom Bederman hit the ground and didn't look up until the bombing stopped 15 minutes later. When they got up, they found comrades Joseph Keli'ihananui and Richard Whaley dying from shrapnel wounds.
"Tom went to get medicine, but they died before he could get back," Mattson said. "We wrapped them in our canvas blankets and buried them in a bomb crater."
The four men were part of a historically significant, if little known, U.S. operation that used young men from Hawai'i to colonize remote desert islands in the equatorial Pacific in the years before World War II.
Yesterday, Mattson joined five other Hawai'i-born colonizers, part of a select group now dubbed Hui Panala'au, at Bishop Museum for the opening of a extraordinary exhibit honoring their contributions.
Also present were James Carroll, Arthur Harris, George Kahanu, Victor Kim and Abraham Piianaia.
"At first there was secrecy (about the operation), then publicity, then the war, and finally a tragic ending," said Noelle Kahanu, project director and granddaughter of George Kahanu.
"Hui PanalA'au: Hawaiian Colonists, American Citizens" can be viewed at Bishop Museum's Castle Building until June 16. Call 847-3511.
For seven weeks after the initial bombing, Mattson and Bederman were left to survive on their own on the tiny, deserted island, completely cut off from the rest of the world.
At the museum
They spent their days on the shore break trying to avoid the shelling of a Japanese submarine and bombing by Japanese aircraft. They survived on a small ration of canned goods, beer, and whatever rain water, fish or birds they could collect with their bare hands.
Mattson and Bederman were eventually rescued by the USS Helm on Jan. 28, 1942. Bederman died two years ago, leaving Mattson as the only survivor of the last Howland party.
In all, some 130 young men — most of them Native Hawaiian — took part in the project from 1935 to 1942.
The project grew out of military and commercial interest in Pacific air routes between Australia and California, and from a desire to assert jurisdiction over three main islands: Baker, Jarvis and Howland.
The U.S. military worked with Bishop Museum and Kamehameha Schools to recruit young men who could survive the rigors of unadorned island life. The men signed on as federal employees and were paid $3 per day.
The first group included Kamehameha students Henry Ahia, William Kaina, James Kamakaiwi, Killarney Opiopio, Daniel Toomey and Piianaia. They joined 12 enlisted men for the first of a series of expeditions that lasted from March 1935 to March 1936. A second phase began in June 1936 with the U.S. annexation of the three islands.
Piianaia participated in four expeditions and played a crucial role in leading his Hawai'i comrades.
"You could call that first group colonists," said George Kahanu. "But I would call them pioneers.
"They were brave enough to go from the modern age to the dark ages. The were able to go to these places without knowing what was going to happen."
Kahanu was assigned to Jarvis during the second phase of the operation. Thanks to a 1913 shipwreck on the island, the colonizers had enough wood to make a permanent structure. "It was the best island of the three," he said. "The others had nothing."
Life on all of the islands was harsh. Kahanu remembers using seasoning extract to hide the taste of oil and gasoline from the water they drank out of old oil drums.
Harris, who spent two months on Baker, remembers the pounding surf — and sharks grabbing his oars as he tried to row near shore.
"The island was a half-mile by 1 mile and no more than 15 feet above sea level," Harris said. "It's not worth a damn, but at the time it was strategically important because it was so close to the war zone."
Reach Michael Tsai at at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.
