The Turncoats on Niihau Island

[R. A. Hettinga]

<http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/printmm20040810.shtml>

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The Turncoats on Niihau Island
Michelle Malkin (back to web version) | Send

August 10, 2004

The following is an exclusive excerpt from Michelle Malkin's new book, In
Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and
the War on Terror (Regnery).

The Turncoats on Niihau Island

"Are you a Japanese?"

Those were the first English words spoken by downed Japanese fighter pilot
Shigenori Nishikaichi on tiny Niihau Island, located about one hundred
miles northwest of Honolulu. It was December 7, 1941. Nishikaichi had had a
busy, bloody morning at Pearl Harbor. Now, with the aid and comfort of a
Japanese-American couple, Nishikaichi was about to make the lives of the
Niihau residents a living hell.

Around 7:00 a.m., Nishikaichi boarded his Zero single-seat fighter plane
and took off from the carrier Hiryu in the Pacific. An hour and a half
later, the young Japanese pilot strafed planes, trucks, and personnel on
Oahu. Headed back to his carrier, Nishikaichi and some fellow pilots
encountered a group of American P36 fighter planes.  During the air battle,
Nishikaichi's plane took several hits. One punctured the Zero's gas tank.
Nishikaichi steered the crippled plane toward the westernmost Hawaiian
island: Niihau. Fewer than 200 Hawaiians plus three laborers of Japanese
descent called Niihau home. Japan planned to use the island as a submarine
pickup point for stranded pilots.

Nishikaichi crash-landed the plane in a field near one of the ranch homes.
The first to reach him was Hawila "Howard" Kaleohano, a burly Hawaiian. The
island had no telephones. On that tranquil, late Sunday morning, none of
the inhabitants was yet aware of the death and destruction that had just
rained down on Pearl Harbor.

Nonetheless, Kaleohano wisely confiscated the dazed Nishikaichi's gun and
papers. Kaleohano, perhaps the most educated Hawaiian on Niihau, had been
keeping tabs on world affairs through newspapers supplied by ranch owner
Aylmer Robinson (who paid weekly visits to the island and lived twenty
miles away on Kauai). Wary but warm, Kaleohano brought the enemy pilot to
his home. Along the way, Nishikaichi asked Kaleohano if he was "a
Japanese." The answer was an emphatic "No."

After sharing a meal and cigarettes, Nishikaichi demanded that Kaleohano
return his papers, which included maps, radio codes, and Pearl Harbor
attack plans. Kaleohano refused. To make their communication easier,
Kaleohano asked his neighbors to summon one of the island's three residents
of Japanese descent to translate for Nishikaichi. They first brought a
Japanese-born immigrant, Ishimatsu Shintani, to the house. He reluctantly
exchanged a few words with the pilot in Japanese, but left in a
hurry-apparently sensing trouble.

The islanders then turned to Yoshio Harada and his wife Irene, both U.S.
citizens, born in Hawaii to Japanese immigrants. Harada had moved from
Kauai to California as a young man and lived there for seven years before
relocating to Niihau with his wife in 1939. Instantly at ease with the
Japanese-American couple, Nishikaichi dropped the bombshell news about the
attack on Pearl Harbor. The Haradas did not inform their neighbors.

That night, the hospitable Niihau residents learned about the Pearl Harbor
attack on the radio. They decided to confine the pilot in the Haradas' home
until help arrived.

Exploiting their common ethnic ties and urging loyalty to the emperor,
Nishikaichi won over the Haradas. They enlisted the other resident of
Japanese descent-the skittish Shintani-in a conspiracy to retrieve
Nishikaichi's papers from Kaleohano. On the afternoon of December 12, a
reluctant Shintani visited Kaleohano and asked for the enemy pilot's
papers. He offered his neighbor a wad of cash. Kaleohano refused. Shintani
desperately told him to burn the papers. It was a matter of life and death,
Shintani pleaded with Kaleohano. Kaleohano again refused.

An hour later, Nishikaichi and the Haradas launched a campaign of terror
against the islanders. They overtook the guard on duty and locked him in a
warehouse. Mrs. Harada cranked up a phonograph to drown out the commotion.
Yoshio Harada and Nishikaichi retrieved a shotgun from the warehouse and
headed to Kaleohano's home. Kaleohano, who was in the outhouse, saw them
coming and hid while Nishikaichi and his collaborators unsuccessfully
searched for the pilot's papers. They recovered Nishikaichi's pistol and
headed toward his grounded plane. Harada watched as the enemy pilot tried
in vain to call for help on his radio.

Meanwhile, Kaleohano fled from the outhouse and ran to the main village to
warn his neighbors of Nishikaichi's escape. He returned to his house to
retrieve the papers, hid them in a relative's home, and set out with a
strong team of islanders in a lifeboat toward Kauai to get help. That
night, Harada and Nishikaichi set both the plane and Kaleohano's home on
fire. They fired off their guns in a lunatic rage and threatened to kill
every man, woman, and child in the village. After gathering for a prayer
meeting, many residents escaped to a mountaintop with kerosene lamps and
reflectors in an attempt to signal Kauai.

On the morning of December 13, Harada and Nishikaichi captured islander Ben
Kanahele and his wife. Kanahele was ordered to find Kaleohano. In their own
"Let's Roll" moment of heroism, the gutsy Kanaheles refused to cooperate.
When Nishikaichi threatened to shoot Kanahele's wife, fifty-one-year-old
Ben lunged for the enemy's shotgun. The young Japanese fighter pilot pulled
his pistol from his boot and shot Kanahele three times in the chest, hip,
and groin. Mrs. Kanahele pounced at Nishikaichi; her once-peaceful neighbor
Harada tore her away.

Angered, the wounded Kanahele summoned the strength to pick up Nishikaichi
and hurl him against a stone wall, knocking him unconscious. Quick-thinking
Mrs. Kanahele grabbed a rock and pummeled the pilot's head. For good
measure, Ben Kanahele took out a hunting knife and slit Nishikaichi's
throat. A desperate Harada turned the shotgun on himself and committed
suicide.

The Kanaheles' harrowing battle against a Japanese invader and his
surprising collaborator was over.

The significance of the Haradas' stunning act of disloyalty and Shintani's
meek complicity in collaboration with Nishikaichi was not lost on the
Roosevelt administration. The facts of the case "indicate a strong
possibility that other Japanese residents of the Territory of Hawaii, and
Americans of Japanese descent . . . may give valuable aid to Japanese
invaders in cases where the tide of battle is in favor of Japan and where
it appears to residents that control of the district may shift from the
United States to Japan," wrote Lieutenant C. B. Baldwin after a naval
intelligence investigation.

The Haradas were neither radical nationalists nor professional spies. They
were ordinary Japanese-Americans who betrayed America by putting their
ethnic roots first. How many other Japanese-Americans-especially on the
vulnerable West Coast-might be swayed by enemy appeals such as
Nishikaichi's? How many more might be torn between allegiance for their
country of birth and kinship with Imperial invaders? These were the
daunting questions that faced the nation's top military and political
leaders as enemy forces loomed on our shores.

Michelle Malkin is a syndicated columnist and maintains her weblog at
michellemalkin.com

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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
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"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'