The food line

If you talk to anyone who lived through World War II, eventually they will tell you about the lines--the lines at the grocery store, the lines at the gas station, the lines for ration coupons. My mother-in-law said there were even lines in church to receive Holy Communion.

Earlier on, I wrote about Alice Harder Sorensen, and her experiences on December 7, 1941. During the attack, she was at the home of Commander "Swede" Momsen at Makalapa Housing. It wasn't until early afternoon that she was able to get home.

She remembers: “I didn’t leave Makalapa until 2 p.m. that day. I was evacuated in a caravan and driven home. When I got home, mother told me that Mrs. Rudee called. Mrs. Rudee was an old family friend from their days at St. John’s Military Academy in Delafield, [Wisconsin] whose husband was stationed at Hickam. Mrs. Rudee asked Mother if she and three other wives from Hickam could stay with us because their homes had been strafed by machine gun fire from low-flying Japanese planes and their entire housing area was evacuated. Of course, my mother welcomed them.

“When Mrs. Rudee and the other Hickam wives arrived, I remember staring into the car they came in. The car had been used as an ambulance during the attack and the back seat was covered with blood. A wool Army blanket had been draped over the seats, but some blood seeped through and couldn’t be hidden.

“By the time our guests arrived, my father had already covered the windows of our house with tar paper. The overall effect was to make the house feel hot and humid. The paper blocked out breezes and light and trapped in the heat. There was no TV then, and all our news came from the radio. Our radio was a large RCA model. There were large tubes in the radio, and they cast a glow from the back so my father put the radio on the floor against an interior wall so no light would shine from the tubes. Then he brought in our supply of surplus food from the garage. It was mostly cans of spaghetti, fruit cocktail and tuna, but it came in handy feeding the four extra women.

“The morning after the attack, my mother sent me to Hadley’s Bakery on Beretania Street to buy bread because she knew that food would become scarce—and she was right. People were already lined up on the sidewalk in front of Hadley’s and in front of every other store on Beretania Street, and for the rest of the war it seems like all we did was stand in line for something.

Kokokahi

This is the bridge at the Kokokahi YWCA. According to Gwen Allen (Hawaii War Years) it was used as a convalescent home for Marines. The note on the photo (from the Hawaii War Records Depository collection) has an "n.d." on it--meaning "no date." I strongly suspect that it was taken about 1942-1943 time frame.

The current bridge is a modern pedestrian bridge, and that narrow road you see in the above photo is now Kaneohe Bay Drive. At the point where the current bridge is, the road narrows from a six lane to a two lane road.


Kokokahi YWCA is still at the same location. It's on the windward side, in Kaneohe, overlooking the Kaneohe Bay.

One of the main missions of the YWCA is to foster interracial communication and understanding. That particular YWCA was used after the war as a weekend recreational retreat for the many Japanese women who volunteered with the USO, Red Cross, and several other social service agencies during the war. For some of those women, it was the first time they slept outside their own homes.

The photo below is taken from Kokokahi. The mountain range you see on the other side of Kaneohe Bay are the Koolau.

Text of Patton's List of "Initial Seizure of Orange Nationals”

Here's the original plan I mentioned earlier today.

Plan: Initial Seizure of Orange Nationals
by George S. Patton, Assistant Chief of Staff for G2, Hawaiian Department. (1935 and 1937)

The secret routing sheet attached to that document and the document itself were declared obsolete by the Hawaiian Army Department Chief of Staff in May 1940 and it was relegated to the Headquarters Depository.

128 Japanese names were listed. Two were Caucasian: A. Bornhold and Ernest Hunt.

All were community leaders.

Medical: Harry Kurisaki, Iga Mori, Isoto Dewa, Chinami Hasegawa, Tokue Takahashi, Kinji Uchida, Tomizo Katsunuma, Kiyoshi Hosoi, James Kuninobu, Toshitsugu Monuki, Rijuichi Ippongsugi, Robert Kimura, Noboru Asahina, George Nakagawa, Napoleon Nakamura, Richard Arizuma, Bunpachi Fujioka, Saburo Hayashi, Masao Kubo, Ernest Kuwahara, Eiji Yoshimura, Howard Honda, Haruto Kanno, Tsutomo Nitta, Satoru Hirae.

Business men: Manzuchi Hashimoto, Takaichi Miyamoto, George Otani, Tsunetaro Harada, Uichi Yamane, Chusaburo Haruki, Shoichi Kawasaki, Sukeichi Koide, Tokuji Onodera, Andy Yamashiro, Matsutaro Yamashiro, Tadashi Ashino, Hiroshi Morohashi, Yoshito Onoh, Tamotsu Matsumura, Katsumi Tsukino, Juro Fujikawa, Sajiro Nakai, Totaro Matsui, Sadato Morifuji, Daiso Sumida, Taketo Iwahara, Miyozuchi Komeya, Taichi Sato, Mankichi Goto, Genasku Nakamura, Shunichi Nekomoto, George Oda, Matsujiro Otani, Seizo Yamamoto, Peter Fukunaga, Tamaichi Tanaka, Charles Hasabe, Seiji Iwasa, Kichitoro Sekiya, Tomoji Matsumura, Nobuichi Kobayashi, Noboru Miyake, Kuwaichi Nonin.

Religion: Zenkyo Komagata, Misao Isobe, Masato Kawasaki, Shigemaru Miyao, Nishu Kobayashi, Gikyo Kuchiba, Koin Watanabe, Sensho Fukuda, Sengaku Tanaka, Tomiji Kimura, Tooru Matsudaira, Takie Okumura, Umetaro Okumura, Nissho Takao, Jitsuyei Tanjo, Yoshimi Tatsuguchi, A. Bornhold, Ernest Hunt, Matagoro Mikuni, Satoru Takeda, Jitsuyuki Goshi, Hatsuhiko Kaokutsu, Hiseki Miyasaki, Shoshun Ouchi, Katsuon Takumei.

Education: George Kunitomo, Armand Takimoto, Genjin Tatsutani, Takeo Hirozawa, Buntetsu Miyamoto, Y. Baron Goto, Gashu Higa, Shobun Ohtani.

Japanese Diplomats: Masayoshi Asaga, Shichiro Iiyama, Tadaki Iizuka, Masayuki Kotoshirodo, Yasumasa Murata, Takichi Sakai, Teijiro Tamura, Tsunehiro Yamazaki.

Law and Government: Wilfred Tsukiyama, Masaji Marumoto, Robert Murakami, Tomekichi Okino, Thomas Sakaihara, Norbori Miyake, Tomichi Ouye, Benjamin Tashiro, Andy Yamashiro, Juichi Doi, Thomas Sakakihara, Toshio Ansai, George Kamei.

Publishing: Tetsuo Toyama, Masao Sogawa, Jiro Hayakawa, Senchu Tsuchiya, Yasutaro Soga, Shinatsu Kurihara, Fredrick Makino, Saburo Hayashi, Thomas Kawahara.

Patton's List of "Initial Seizure of Orange Nationals.”

A reader asked if I knew about General Patton's "internment list." I think the list that she requested is the "Initial Seizure of Orange Nationals" plan drawn up by General Patton while he was stationed in Hawaii (1935-37) This following is a copy of an article written by June Watanabe on February 27, 1984 for the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

“Hostage Plan Revealed”


In May 1983, while doing research at the National Archives for the USS Arizona Memorial, Michael Slackman, historian for the memorial, discovered a document titled, “A General Staff Study/Plan: Initial Seizure of Orange Nationals.” (“Orange” was the term sometimes used for Japan before World War II.) The document was prepared by George S. Patton while he was stationed in Hawaii as the Chief of Military Intelligence. The plan, drawn up as ordered by Major General Hugh Drum, was discarded and considered obsolete even before the war started.

The plan listed 128 men to be “seized.” The plan called for making the telephones of the targeted men inoperative through use of busy signals. Then, 80 soldiers were to board trucks and arrest the civilians who lived in the Honolulu area. Other arrangements were made for picking up eight diplomats at the Japanese Consulate.

Once arrested, the men were to be held at the Schofield Barracks hospital. Among the men named and what positions they held after the war are: Wilfred Tsukiyama, first Chief Justice of the Hawaii State Supreme Court; Masaji Marumoto, Assistant Justice. Tomekichi “Tom” Okino, Circuit Court Judge of the Big Island; Benjamin Tashiro, Circuit Court Judge of Kauai; Toshio Ansai, Maui County Councilman and State Legislator; Noboru Miyake, State Senator from Kauai; Thomas Sakakihara, Big Island District Judge, Territorial Legislator; Y. Baron Goto, Vice-Chancellor of East-West Center; Ernest Hunt, the only Caucasian Buddhist priest in Hawaii; Fredrick Makino, founder of Hawaii Hochi.

I'll keep looking through my notes for the original list. By now, you know, my organizational skills are lacking. I can't even think of the book that has the complete list. If you're really interested, check with www.densho.org, I'm sure they would be able to help you.

PHOTO: Patton's Polo Team in Hawaii. Photo: Department of the Army, Hawaii