On December 7, 1941, Honolulu was a one newspaper town, and that paper was the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Certainly there were other papers printed on that day—the Neighbor Islands had newspapers with healthy circulations, and the foreign language newspapers had a thriving network, but the other “big” newspaper, the Honolulu Advertiser, never put out an issue. And on the following morning, Monday, December 8, 1941 when they finally did put out a war issue, the headlines confirmed false rumors of “Saboteurs Land Here!” and “Raiders Return in Dawn Attack.”

The Advertiser’s problems didn’t start the morning of the attack, but during the dark hours of the night before when a gear sheared on their printing press, completely shutting down their operation. As soon as Henry Herrick, the department superintendent, figured out the press couldn’t be fixed, he called over to the Nippu-Jiji, the Japanese language newspaper to ask if the Advertiser could use their press. The Nippu-Jiji was close by on Bethel Street and they used similar equipment so it seemed like a good idea. The pressman at the Advertiser made asbestos mats of the complete edition and ran them over to the Nippu-Jiji.

George Chapin writes: “By the time the curved metal plates for the press had been cast, by pumping molted lead into the asbestos mats, it was about 8 a.m. Strange noises were heard from outside and the Japanese pressmen and the Advertiser people went out of the building to see what was happening. The December 7 Sunday Advertiser never went to press. Even if it had, its contents had been overtaken by one of the greatest, albeit tragic news stories in American history.” (Presstime in Paradise, page 200)

While the pressmen of the newspapers had a good working relationship, there is an irony in that the Advertiser would call on the Nippu-Jiji for assistance, given that the Advertiser had a deep anti-Japanese attitude and that that attitude was, according to Chapin, “a dominant feature of the paper’s policy.”

At the Star-Bulletin that morning, Editor Riley Allen was at his desk at the Merchant Street office. He immediately called in his reporters and production people, and within two hours of the final attack they put out three EXTRA EDITIONS.

Riley put aside newspaper rivalry and allowed the Honolulu Advertiser to use the Star-Bulletin’s presses to put out its December 8, 1941 issue. It was a gracious offer that the Advertiser editors probably regretted. On that day, the Advertiser ran the false stories of Japanese saboteurs landing on the North Shore and Japanese paratroopers


















dropping in near St. Louis Heights.

The alarm caused by that edition moved U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel K.J. Fielder, Chief of Intelligence, to summon the Advertiser’s publisher and editor to his office and announce that if there was any repetition of such irresponsible journalism, the paper would be shut down.

The Military Governor immediately imposed a severe censorship of the Hawaii newspapers. On December 11, 1941, the Japanese language papers the Nippu-Jiji and the Hawaii Hochi were shut down. They were allowed to reopen a few weeks later in January. During 1942, the Nippu-Jiji changed its name to the Hawaii Times and the Hawaii Hochi became the Hawaii Herald.

Due to the imposed evening curfew, the Advertiser’s street-sale evening edition was abolished. But business was good for the newspapers during the war. The circulation of the Advertiser zoomed from approximately 29,000 to 139,000 and the Star-Bulletin went from 45,000 to 153,000. But once peace was declared and the hunger for immediate news was abated, circulation dropped almost half (67,000) at the Advertiser and about 40% (92,000) at the Star-Bulletin.

Despite it all, both newspapers survived, and continued to survive through economic downtown and challenges of electronic-platform journalism. The Honolulu Advertiser founded in 1856 as the Pacific Commercial Advertiser continues. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin is the “oldest continuously published daily newspaper in Hawaii” founded in 1882. Depending on the events of this week, both newspaers may not have survived and Honolulu may become/has become a one newspaper town.