The Turncoats on Niihau Island

Tyler Durden camera_lumina at hotmail.com
Tue Aug 10 11:39:01 PDT 2004


Wow. What a dumb fuck this columnist is. No wait...this guy's got a gig and 
fuck the truth.

I wonder how many of the Japanese in internment camps owned a Zero?

And, if a Saudi citizen on our shores gets rowdy, should we round up 
Morrocans? (ie, Japan is a country and a nationality...Islam is neither.)

-TD


>From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
>To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net
>Subject: The Turncoats on Niihau Island
>Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 08:09:02 -0400
>
><http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/printmm20040810.shtml>
>
>Townhall.com
>
>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
>
>--
>-----------------
>R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
>The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
>44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
>"... 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'
>

_________________________________________________________________
Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! 
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/





More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list