Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in the Pacific theater; in addition to ship-to-shore and aerial bombing, it tested
submarine torpedoes by firing them at shoreline cliffs. It is estimated that of all the
fighting that took place during WWII, Kahoʻolawe was the most bombed island in
the Pacific.
After the war, bombing practice continued. In 1953, President Eisenhower signed
a decree giving the US Navy official jurisdiction over Kahoʻolawe, with the stipula-
tion that when Kahoʻolawe was no longer ʻneeded,' the unexploded ordnance would
be removed and the island would be returned to Hawaiian control ʻreasonably safe
for human habitation.'
The Kahoʻolawe Movement
In the mid-1960s Hawaii politicians began petitioning the federal government to
cease its military activities and return Kahoʻolawe to the state of Hawaii. In 1976, a
suit was filed against the navy, and in an attempt to attract greater attention to the
bombings, nine Native Hawaiian activists sailed across and occupied the island.
Despite their arrests, more occupations followed.
During one of the 1977 crossings, group members George Helm and Kimo
Mitchell mysteriously disappeared in the waters off Kahoʻolawe. Helm had been an
inspirational Hawaiian-rights activist, and with his death the Protect Kahoʻolawe
ʻOhana movement arose. Helm's vision of turning Kahoʻolawe into a sanctuary of
Hawaiian culture became widespread among islanders.
In 1980, in a court-sanctioned decree, the navy reached an agreement with Pro-
tect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana that allowed them regular access to the island. The decree
restricted the navy from bombing archaeological sites. In 1981 Kahoʻolawe was ad-
ded to the National Register of Historic Places as a significant archaeological area.
For nearly a decade, the island had the ironic distinction of being the only such his-
toric place that was bombed by its government.
In 1982 the ʻOhana began going to Kahoʻolawe to celebratemakahiki,the annual
observance to honor Lono, god of agriculture and peace. That same year - in what
many Hawaiians felt was the ultimate insult to their heritage - the US military
offered Kahoʻolawe as a bombing target to foreign nations during the biennial Pa-
cific Rim exercises.
The exercises brought what was happening to Kahoʻolawe to worldwide atten-
tion. International protests grew, and New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the UK
withdrew from the Kahoʻolawe exercises. The plan was scrapped. In the late 1980s,
Hawaii's politicians became more outspoken in their demands that Kahoʻolawe be
returned to Hawaii. Then in October 1990, as Hawaii's two US senators, Daniel In-
ouye and Daniel Akaka, were preparing a congressional bill to stop the bombing,
President George Bush issued an order to immediately halt military activities.
