History — July 6, 2009 22:19 — View Comments Written by: Jan

Hawaii in the 1940’s

RememberWhen…

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives

In the decade leading up to Hawaii’s Statehood, Hawaii would undergo tumultuous times along with the rest of the world. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, thrusting Hawaii and all of America into World War II. Immediately after the attack, fear of possible Japanese landings in Hawaii led the military to surrounded the perimeters of the main islands, set up barbed wire and barricades on the beaches, take over the airports and shortly thereafter, declare martial law that would unexpected last for the next three years.

2948828752 70b38695ff o Hawaii in the 1940’s

Memories of the internment of local Japanese, enlistment of ten thousand local Japanese in Hawaii’s 442nd Regiment and 100th Battalion, curfews and rationing remain sharp, even today. Miriam Hironaga, who was just six years old and a kindergarten student at Lunalio Elementary School at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack recalls:

“We had to stand in line at the market to get rice. The lines were so long! Our family had 5 kids, and my mom and my dad so we couldn’t just send one person to get one 5 pound bag of rice. So they took me too. I was hungry, I was tired and hot. I remember well, because I fainted.”

Although World War II and it’s aftermath would dominate Hawaii for much of the 1940’s and beyond, other important events were unfolding. Sugar cane was still Hawaii’s main source of revenue in the years following the war, but the growth of unions and the influx of wartime-soldiers-now-tourists traveling back to the islands meant that Hawaii days as a plantation economy was now slowly beginning to evolve. Other events of the decade include the worst tsunami to ever hit Hawaii in 1946 in Hilo on the Big Island, while on a lighter note, 1949 saw Hawaii’s first drive in theatre—The Drive-In—which opened on Kapiolani Boulevard.