The Work Truck Blog: Lifeguard pickup truck, City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii.

The Work Truck Blog: Lifeguard pickup truck, City and County of Honolul...:  

Lifeguard pickup truck, City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii.

 

Churches of the West: Maria Lanakila Catholic Church, Lahaina Maui Hawaii

Photos now coming forth show the Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in Lahaina completely untouched by the devastation there, caused by the recent horrific fire.

Churches of the West: Maria Lanakila Catholic Church, Lahaina Maui Hawaii: T

Maria Lanakila Catholic Church, Lahaina Maui Hawaii

This impressive church is the Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in Lahaina Maui Hawaii.  The Church was established in 1846 with the present church having been built in 1873. Renovations were done in 1918, including the cleaning of the impressive paintings that are located within the church, gifts of Maui residents who might possibly be King Kalakaua or his sister, Queen Liliuokalani.

One of the very unusual features of this church is the chicken weather vane that is affixed atop the cross on the steeple.  I have no idea what the story behind this is.

 

 The name of the church means Mary Victorious in Hawaiian.

I've been to Mass there.

I'm just pointing this out.  A bright spot amongst the devastation.

Wednesday, April 11, 1923. Forgotten islands, forgotten roles.

Laysan Island, April 11, 1923.  It's a Hawaiian Island.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover addressed the League of Women's Voters and advocated participating in the World Court.

Hoover, truly, was a great man.  Like the song "Those Were The Days" held, we really could use a "man like Herbert Hoover again."

News reports on the capture of the ill-fated, and perhaps ill-advised Liam Lynch, started hitting the press.

Former Congressman Thomas F. Smith, age 57, was hit by a taxicab crossing 14th Street in New York City after leaving his office in Tammany Hall, and was killed.

Laysan Island.  It's only a little over one acre. The interior lake is three times as saline as the ocean.

Wednesday, May 4, 1923. Warner Brothers Founded.

Albert, Jack, Harry and Sam Warner.

The Warner Brothers Company incorporated, formed by the four brothers Wonsal, Jewish immigrants from Poland, and in Jack's case Canada, who anglicized their last name, as was typical at the time.

The first of five Hawaiian biological surveys known as the Tanager Expedition commenced.  They were named after the USS Tanager, a minesweeper, which was used in the effort.

The Tanager was later assigned to the Philippines and was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 4, 1942.

Hitler told the Chicago Tribune that he didn't intend to march on Berlin and overthrow the German government.

Monday, April 3, 1922. Changing seats at the Butcher's Ball.

Setting the stage, in some ways, for what we're witnessing today in Ukraine, Vladimir Lenin designated Joseph Stalin, sort of, and maybe, as a successor, such that the latter became the new General Secretary of the Communist Party in Russia.

Cast of health play given by the Scabi Tuberculosis Home school, Hawaii.

Doris Day, born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff; was born in Cincinnati.  She achieved initial fame as a singer, and then went into acting from there.

Wednesday, March 4, 1942. Counterstrikes

Today in World War II History—March 4, 1942: Two Japanese H8K flying boats bomb Pearl Harbor—no damage. Aircraft from USS Enterprise strike Marcus Island in South Pacific.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

If you were fighting the war, of course, it was a horrible day. . . if fighting was going on, which it was all over the world. But in terms of huge events, well, it was just another day in the war in some ways.

Operation K, the flying boat raid, had significant aspirations but was a flop.  It didn't do much, other than to remind everyone that Hawaii was still within Japanese air range.

H8K.  This one was in its last moments later in the war, just before the U.S. Navy, which took this photo, shot it down.

The round trip flight engaged in by the two Japanese aircraft from the Marshall Islands was nearly 5,000 miles in extent.

Marcus Island is the easternmost island of the Japanese archipelago and is extremely isolated.   The US bombed it repeatedly during 1942 and 1943, but never occupied it.

The remote island was first discovered by the Portuguese in 1694.  They didn't make a specific recordation of the location of the island, however, and it was not sighted again until British/Australian mariner Bourn Russell spotted it in 1830, noting that it was not on his charts, which of course it was not.  It was next sighted by an American evangelical mission to the Hawaiian islands in 1864. The first effort to occupy it commenced by a private Japanese expedition in 1886.

The United States and Japan both claimed the island early on, and in 1902 the US dispatched a warship to enforce its claims, but withdrew when it found the island occupied by the Japanese and a Japanese warship patrolling nearby.  The Japanese withdrew the civilian population in 1933 and made the island a military installation with a weather station and an airstrip.

The island was transferred to the United States in 1952, but in 1968 the US gave it back but continued to occupy it, having a substantial radio station there, whose antenna can be seen in the photo posted above from 1987.  The Coast Guard occupied the island until 1993, and then it was transferred to the Japanese Self Defense Force.

Friday, February 24, 1942. The Battle of Los Angeles

 

The Battle of Los Angeles occurred started on the night of February 24, 1942, and lasted into the morning of February 25, the result of jittery nerves amplified by a submarine shelling Ellwood the day prior.  Much of what sparked the event remains somewhat of a mystery.

The Air Force's official history of the event summarizes it as follows:

During the course of a fireside report to the nation delivered by President Roosevelt on 23 February 1942, a Japanese submarine rose out of the sea off Ellwood, a hamlet on the California coast north of Santa Barbara, and pumped thirteen shells into tidewater refinery installations. The shots seemed designed to punctuate the President's statement that "the broad oceans which have been heralded in the past as our protection from attack have become endless battlefields on which we are constantly being challenged by our enemies." Yet the attack which was supposed to carry the enemy's defiance, and which did succeed in stealing headlines from the President's address, was a feeble gesture rather than a damaging blow. The raider surfaced at 1905 (Pacific time), just five minutes after the President started his speech. For about twenty minutes the submarine kept a position 2,500 yards offshore to deliver the shots from its 5½-inch guns. The shells did minor damage to piers and oil wells, but missed the gasoline plant, which appears to have been the aiming point; the military effects of the raid were therefore nil. The first news of the attack led to the dispatch of pursuit planes to the area, and subsequently three bombers joined the attempt to destroy the raider, but without success. The reluctance of AAF commanders to assign larger forces to the task resulted from their belief that such a raid as this would be employed by the enemy to divert attention from a major air task force which would hurl its planes against a really significant target. Loyal Japanese-Americans who had predicted that a demonstration would be made in connection with the President's speech also prophesied that Los Angeles would be attacked the next night. The Army, too, was convinced that some new action impended, and took all possible precautions. Newspapers were permitted to announce that a strict state of readiness against renewed attacks had been imposed, and there followed the confused action known as "The Battle of Los Angeles."

During the night of 24/25 February 1942, unidentified objects caused a succession of alerts in southern California. On the 24th, a warning issued by naval intelligence indicated that an attack could be expected within the next ten hours. That evening many flares and blinking lights were reported from the vicinity of defense plants. An alert called at 1918 [7:18 pm, Pacific time] was lifted at 2223, and the tension temporarily relaxed. But early in the morning of the 25th renewed activity began. Radars picked up an unidentified target 120 miles west of Los Angeles. Antiaircraft batteries were alerted at 0215 and were put on Green Alert—ready to fire—a few minutes later. The AAF kept its pursuit planes on the ground, preferring to await indications of the scale and direction of any attack before committing its limited fighter force. Radars tracked the approaching target to within a few miles of the coast, and at 0221 the regional controller ordered a blackout. Thereafter the information center was flooded with reports of "enemy planes, " even though the mysterious object tracked in from sea seems to have vanished. At 0243, planes were reported near Long Beach, and a few minutes later a coast artillery colonel spotted "about 25 planes at 12,000 feet" over Los Angeles. At 0306 a balloon carrying a red flare was seen over Santa Monica and four batteries of anti-aircraft artillery opened fire, whereupon "the air over Los Angeles erupted like a volcano." From this point on reports were hopelessly at variance. 

Probably much of the confusion came from the fact that anti-aircraft shell bursts, caught by the searchlights, were themselves mistaken for enemy planes. In any case, the next three hours produced some of the most imaginative reporting of the war: "swarms" of planes (or, sometimes, balloons) of all possible sizes, numbering from one to several hundred, traveling at altitudes which ranged from a few thousand feet to more than 20,000 and flying at speeds which were said to have varied from "very slow" to over 200 miles per hour, were observed to parade across the skies. These mysterious forces dropped no bombs and, despite the fact that 1,440 rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition were directed against them, suffered no losses. There were reports, to be sure, that four enemy planes had been shot down, and one was supposed to have landed in flames at a Hollywood intersection. Residents in a forty-mile arc along the coast watched from hills or rooftops as the play of guns and searchlights provided the first real drama of the war for citizens of the mainland. The dawn, which ended the shooting and the fantasy, also proved that the only damage which resulted to the city was such as had been caused by the excitement (there was at least one death from heart failure), by traffic accidents in the blacked-out streets, or by shell fragments from the artillery barrage. Attempts to arrive at an explanation of the incident quickly became as involved and mysterious as the "battle" itself. The Navy immediately insisted that there was no evidence of the presence of enemy planes, and Frank Knox announced at a press conference on 25 February that the raid was just a false alarm. At the same conference he admitted that attacks were always possible and indicated that vital industries located along the coast ought to be moved inland. The Army had a hard time making up its mind on the cause of the alert. A report to Washington, made by the Western Defense Command shortly after the raid had ended, indicated that the credibility of reports of an attack had begun to be shaken before the blackout was lifted. This message predicted that developments would prove "that most previous reports had been greatly exaggerated." The Fourth Air Force had indicated its belief that there were no planes over Los Angeles. But the Army did not publish these initial conclusions. Instead, it waited a day, until after a thorough examination of witnesses had been finished. On the basis of these hearings, local commanders altered their verdict and indicated a belief that from one to five unidentified airplanes had been over Los Angeles. Secretary Stimson announced this conclusion as the War Department version of the incident, and he advanced two theories to account for the mysterious craft: either they were commercial planes operated by an enemy from secret fields in California or Mexico, or they were light planes launched from Japanese submarines. In either case, the enemy’s purpose must have been to locate anti-aircraft defenses in the area or to deliver a blow at civilian morale.

The divergence of views between the War and Navy departments, and the unsatisfying conjectures advanced by the Army to explain the affair, touched off a vigorous public discussion. The Los Angeles Times, in a first-page editorial on 26 February, announced that "the considerable public excitement and confusion" caused by the alert, as well as its "spectacular official accompaniments," demanded a careful explanation. Fears were expressed lest a few phony raids undermine the confidence of civilian volunteers in the aircraft warning service. In the United States Congress, Representative Leland Ford wanted to know whether the incident was "a practice raid, or a raid to throw a scare into 2,000,000 people, or a mistaken identity raid, or a raid to take away Southern California’s war industries." Wendell Willkie, speaking in Los Angeles on 26 February, assured Californians on the basis of his experiences in England that when a real air raid began "you won’t have to argue about it—you’ll just know." He conceded that military authorities had been correct in calling a precautionary alert but deplored the lack of agreement between the Army and Navy. A strong editorial in the Washington Post on 27 February called the handling of the Los Angeles episode a "recipe for jitters," and censured the military authorities for what it called "stubborn silence" in the face of widespread uncertainty. The editorial suggested that the Army’s theory that commercial planes might have caused the alert "explains everything except where the planes came from, whither they were going, and why no American planes were sent in pursuit of them." The New York Times on 28 February expressed a belief that the more the incident was studied, the more incredible it became: "If the batteries were firing on nothing at all, as Secretary Knox implies, it is a sign of expensive incompetence and jitters. If the batteries were firing on real planes, some of them as low as 9,000 feet, as Secretary Stimson declares, why were they completely ineffective? Why did no American planes go up to engage them, or even to identify them? ... What would have happened if this had been a real air raid?" These questions were appropriate, but for the War Department to have answered them in full frankness would have involved an even more complete revelation of the weakness of American air defenses.

At the end of the war, the Japanese stated that they did not send planes over the area at the time of this alert, although submarine-launched aircraft were subsequently used over Seattle. A careful study of the evidence suggests that meteorological balloons—known to have been released over Los Angeles—may well have caused the initial alarm. This theory is supported by the fact that anti-aircraft artillery units were officially criticized for having wasted ammunition on targets which moved too slowly to have been airplanes. After the firing started, careful observation was difficult because of drifting smoke from shell bursts. The acting commander of the anti-aircraft artillery brigade in the area testified that he had first been convinced that he had seen fifteen planes in the air, but had quickly decided that he was seeing smoke. Competent correspondents like Ernie Pyle and Bill Henry witnessed the shooting and wrote that they were never able to make out an airplane. It is hard to see, in any event, what enemy purpose would have been served by an attack in which no bombs were dropped, unless perhaps, as Mr. Stimson suggested, the purpose had been reconnaissance.

Now regarded by most as an amusing event, several people did die during it, and it showed the extent to which Americans were nervous and the defense of the coast uncoordinated.  UFO fans have adopted the event as their own, asserting that the unidentified objects were alien spacecraft.   The comedy movie 1941 was based on the event.

The Japanese actually did overfly US territory on this day, but with a submarine launched floatplane that flew over Pearl Harbor.

In a real air raid, the U.S. Navy raided Wake Island. The raid featuring carrier launched aircraft and surface ships targeted Japanese destroyers at Wake, but the Japanese thought it was an effort to retake the island.

A Soviet submarine sank the Panamanian registered MV Sturma which was carrying 781 Jewish refugees in the Black Sea.  Only one person survived.

German ambassador Franz von Papen survived a Soviet backed assassination attempt in Turkey when the assassin's gun misfired, and he accidentally detonated a bomb he was carrying.

The Voice of America began German language short wave broadcasts.

Norwegian Lutheran Bishops all resigned rather than swear loyalty to the Quisling regime.  The Lutheran Church, the state church of Norway.

Wednesday December 31, 1941. The conclusion of a disasterous year.

It was New Year's Eve, a traditional day of celebration in the Western World, and those using the Christian calendar in general, which at this time was the whole world, save for church calendars using the "old calendar".  Often a day of revelry, this one no doubt was in spite of the war, but the war would have weirdly warped it in at least some fashion.

It's also one of resolutions, then and now.

Making any?

As earlier noted in our Today In Wyoming's History: December 31 entry:

1941   Big Piney, Pinedale, Nowood, and Star Valley became the first Wyoming Conservation Districts when their Certifications of Organization were signed by Wyoming's Secretary of State Lester Hunt.

At least when it falls on a weekday, as it did in 1941, it's also a work day, although not all private employers observe that in the same fashion.

The Japanese were working, with ongoing advances throughout the Pacific and Far East. And they were back in action in the Hawaiian islands, where  Japanese submarines shelled Kauai and Maui.

Allied leaders agreed to a Germany First policy in the war and form a combined US/UK Chiefs of Staff organization.

While looking back it was obvious that the war had turned, for those living in the time, facing constant Japanese expansion by the day, the decision to take on Germany first must have been daunting indeed.  This is how the map of Europe then looked:

This was, moreover, even worse than this might at first suggest.  Spain was still solidly aligned with Germany at the time, and had given airfield rights to German maritime patrols and port rights to German submarines, although secretly.  Sweden was in fact a neutral, but its raw materials were going to Germany.

And then there was the Japanese offensive all over the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

In Manila, residents were destroying alcohol in fear that Japanese troops would engage in a drunken rampage, news of what had occurred in Hong Kong having reached them.

Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy and Japan.

Things must have looked awful.  And indeed they were.

But the seeds of victory were already there, even though revelers this evening would have had real reason to doubt it.  Germany had not defeated the Soviet Union, which was fighting back now that winter had arrived.  The British were advancing in North Africa, which constituted a real second front even if the USSR would never admit that.  The British were also conducting raids along the Atlantic coast pretty much whatever they wanted to, demonstrating that even though the Germans commissioned a new U-boat nearly every day, they still weren't able to drive the British from the sea or even really dominate the surface of the Atlantic.  

The Japanese, for their part, were on the march, but the case still remained that they were not into a decade long war with China which they had not defeated.  No matter how much the Japanese advanced, that remained a daunting fact.  Until they could actually take China out of the war, China would consume the bulk of its ground forces and men committed anywhere else took away from that.  They were advancing, but only because their navy had never been committed against China.  It was proving highly effective against the U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy, and the Dutch Navy, but even there, it had not struck a decisive blow against any of them.

Closer to home

My family has never been big on New Year's Eve, which makes me guess that my parents families weren't either.  For Catholics, January 1 is the Catholic Holy Day of Obligation, the Solemnity of Mary, and December 31 has always had a Mass of Anticipation.  Without knowing, my guess is that this would have been the day my parents' families would have chosen to go to Mass, but I could well be wrong.  I'd definitely be wrong if my then 12-year-old father had to serve a January 1 Mass.

My parents would have still been enjoying a holiday break from school, and probably dreading the return to school the following week.

Saturday December 13, 1941. The Niihau Incident.

The Niihau Incident, in which a Japanese pilot on Niihau secured the assistance of Japanese residents of that island to secure his release from captivity, and which saw a conflict develop between native Hawaiians and resident Japanese, came to an end when the pilot Shigenori Nishikaichi (西開地 重徳) was killed and the man aiding him killed himself.

The incident became significant in bringing the US Government to internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans.  

Niihau was inhabited primarily by native Hawaiians who spoke the language, and owned by a white family that generally precluded access to it to outsiders.  It had three Japanese residents, however, and all three helped 西開地 重徳 in his efforts after he crashed landed on the island.  

The incident had seen Hawila Kalehano, a native Hawaiian, disarm the Japanese pilot as he was concerned about the surprising event, but he otherwise treated him well.  The Hawaiians sent for Ishimatsu Shintani who was marred to a Hawaiian so he could translate.  Shintani didn't want to perform the task and only briefly spoke to the pilot. Thereafter, the Hawaiians sent for Yoshio Harada who had been born in Hawaii.  Harada was informed by Nishikaichi of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The Harada's, husband and wife, decided to aid the pilot in recovering his papers and escaping.

That night the Hawaiians learned of the attack on a battery power radio.  They then confronted the pilot, and it was decided to hold the pilot and turn him over to the islands' owner, who was due to arrive the next day from Kaua'i.  The owner, Aylmer Robinson, did not arrive, however, as the military had stopped boat traffic after the attack.  The pilot was therefore put under guard in the Harada's house.  

On December 12 Shintani attempted to buy the pilot's papers but failed.  On the same day the Harada's and Nishikaichi attacked their guards and armed themselves, taking a hostage.  They confronted Kaleohano who ran and was shot at.  During the night, the escaped pilot and confederates torched the Japanese airplane.

During the night they took additional hostages but became aware that they were being deceived by the Hawaiians and that it was likely that they were going for help.  Ultimately a struggle developed in which the pilot shot one of the Hawaiians three times, but was nonetheless overpowered and had his throat slit.  Harada killed himself after the pilot was killed.  

Shintani returned to the island after the war, after spending the rest of it in an Internment Camp, and lived there the rest of his life.  Irene Harada was held as a prisoner until 1944.  She moved to Kaua'i and lived the rest of the war there, stating in a 1992 interview that she felt sorry for the pilot and wanted to help him.  In an interesting twist, the Japanese government thanked her in later years for her efforts on behalf of the pilot, in spite of her resistance to their doing so.

Authorities, already distrustful of those of Japanese ancestry in the US, were shocked by how quickly all of the Japanese residents of the small island went over to aid the Japanese pilot which had a role in helping to convince the authority to intern the Japanese and Japanese Americans on the continental United States.  They were not interred on the Hawaiian islands where they made up 1/3d of the population, but it was felt that it was not economically possible to do so nor that they constituted a danger because of the islands isolation.

Pacific Aviation Museum: The Ni'ihau Zero Incident

Indeed, the incident remains problematic to the social history of World War Two as it does demonstrate that in at least some instances some Japanese and Japanese Americans retained sufficiently strong loyalties to Japan that it could in fact override loyalty to the United States.  That does not excuse internment, but it makes it less irrational that it is sometimes portrayed to be.  The US and Canada had a long problematic relationship with their Japanese residents as it was in which they both unfairly constantly suspected them of being hostile aliens and had often thought of them as a potential fifth column.  The incident gave a real world example of this actually occurring.

The desperate quality of the pilots actions remain curious.  The Japanese Navy had designated the island as one to land on in an emergency, as they believed it to be uninhabited.  But how anyone who landed there was to be rescued is a mystery.  It would have required either a fellow pilot to land there at the time, which was a possibility, and take the others on, or it would have required rescue by a plane designated to that task, which would have been unlikely to have been dispatched.  In this case, the pilot attempted to use the plan3's radio to radio for help, but was unsuccessful.

The Royal Navy sank three Italian cruisers off of Tunisia in the Battle of Cape Bon.

Hungary declared war on the United States.

The United Kingdom, New Zealand and South Africa declared war on Bulgaria.

Honduras declared war on Germany and Italy.

The Today In World War Two blog has some interesting items, including the destruction of American airpower in the Philippines.

Today in World War II History—December 13, 1941

A glacier collapse caused 4,000 to 6,000 deaths in Peru when it fell into a lake and caused a morraine landslide.

Sunday, November 30, 1941. War Warnings

On this day in 1941 Sunday newspaper readers in Hawaii woke up to read that war with Japan was imminent.  Indeed, headlines in the Hilo Tribune and Honolulu Advertiser read that Japan might strike that next weekend, the weekend of December 6/7.  In fact, the Emperor had issued permission to Tojo to proceed to war.

The Germans retreated near the Mius after the Soviets successfully took back Rostov.  Gerd von Rundstedt issued the order and then continued the retreat in spite of having received direct orders from Hitler to stop it.  On the same day, the commander of the German Army Group Center, Fedor von Bock, directly quested German intelligence estimates of the forces opposing him, which he correctly guessed to be inaccurate.

Also, on the same day they commenced mass murder in Rumbula, Latvia, of the area's Jewish population.  Ultimately, 25,000 people would die.

Two Faced Woman was released. The movie would be Greta Garbo's last appearance.  The film was a bomb, featuring Garbo as a woman posing as her own, fictitious, twin engaged in an effort to recapture the affections of her ex-husband.  The movie met with poor reviews and with the condemnation of the Legion of Decency.  Given the latter, the film was withdrawn and recut, but still bombed.

Monday, October 27, 1941. Navy Day. Chicago Tribune limits Japanese capacity to strike, Germans break out.

Honolulu prior to World War Two.

President Roosevelt called for the arming of merchant ships in his Navy Day address on this day in 1941.

Five months ago tonight I proclaimed to the American people the existence of a state of unlimited emergency.

Since then much has happened. Our Army and Navy are temporarily in Iceland in the defense of the Western Hemisphere.

Hitler has attacked shipping in areas close to the Americas in the North and South Atlantic.

Many American-owned merchant ships have been sunk on the high seas. One American destroyer was attacked on September 4. Another destroyer was attacked and hit on October 17. Eleven brave and loyal men of our Navy were killed by the Nazis.

We have wished to avoid shooting. But the shooting has started. And history has recorded who fired the first shot. In the long run, however, all that will matter is who fired the last shot.

America has been attacked. The U. S. S. Kearny is not just a Navy ship. She belongs to every man, woman, and child in this Nation.

Illinois, Alabama, California, North Carolina, Ohio, Louisiana, Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arkansas, New York, Virginia -- those are the home States of the honored dead and wounded of the Kearny. Hitler's torpedo was directed at every American, whether he lives on our seacoasts or in the innermost part of the Nation, far from the seas and far from the guns and tanks of the marching hordes of would-be conquerors of the world.

The purpose of Hitler's attack was to frighten the American people off the high seas -- to force us to make a trembling retreat. This is not the first time he has misjudged the American spirit. That spirit is now aroused.

If our national policy were to be dominated by the fear of shooting, then all of our ships and those of our sister republics would have to be tied up in home harbors. Our Navy would have to remain respectfully -- abjectly -- behind any line which Hitler might decree on any ocean as his own dictated version of his own war zone.

Naturally, we reject that absurd and insulting suggestion. We reject it because of our own self-interest, because of our own self-respect, because, most of all, of our own good faith. Freedom of the seas is now, as it has always been, a fundamental policy of your Government and mine.

Hitler has often protested that his plans for conquest do not extend across the Atlantic Ocean. But his submarines and raiders prove otherwise. So does the entire design of his new world order.

For example, I have in my possession a secret map made in Germany by Hitler's government -- by the planners of the new world order. It is a map of South America and a part of Central America, as Hitler proposes to reorganize it. Today in this area there are 14 separate countries. The geographical experts of Berlin, however, have ruthlessly obliterated all existing boundary lines; and have divided South America into five vassal states, bringing the whole continent under their domination. And they have also so arranged it that the territory of one of these new puppet states includes the Republic of Panama and our great life line - the Panama Canal.

That is his plan. It will never go into effect.

This map makes clear the Nazi design not only against South America but against the United States itself.

Your Government was in its possession another document made in Germany by Hitler's government. It is a detailed plan, which, for obvious reasons, the Nazis did not wish and do not wish to publicize just yet, but which they are ready to impose a little later on a dominated world -- if Hitler wins. It is a plan to abolish all existing religions - Protestant, Catholic, Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish alike. The property of all churches will be seized by the Reich and its puppets. The cross and all other symbols of religion are to be forbidden. The clergy are to be forever silenced under penalty of the concentration camps, where even now so many fearless men are being tortured because they have placed God above Hitler.

In the place of the churches of our civilization, there is to be set up an international Nazi church -- a church which will be served by orators sent out by the Nazi government. In the place of the Bible, the words of Mein Kampf will be imposed and enforced as Holy Writ. And in place of the cross of Christ will be put two symbols -- the swastika and the naked sword.

A god of blood and iron will take the place of the God of love and mercy. Let us well ponder that statement which I have made tonight.

These grim truths which I have told you of the present and future plans of Hitlerism will, of course, be hotly denied tonight and tomorrow in the controlled press and radio of the Axis Powers. And some Americans - not many - will continue to insist that Hitler's plans need not worry us and that we should not concern ourselves with anything that goes on beyond rifle shot of our own shores.

The protestations of these American citizens -- few in number -- will, as usual, be paraded with applause through the Axis press and radio during the next few days in an effort to convince the world that the majority of Americans are opposed to their duly chosen Government and in reality are only waiting to jump on Hitler's band wagon when it comes this way.

The motive of such Americans is not the point at issue. The fact is that Nazi propaganda continues in desperation to seize upon such isolated statements as proof of American disunity.

The Nazis have made up their own list of modern American heroes. It is, fortunately, a short list. I am glad that it does not contain my name.

All of us Americans, of all opinions, are faced with the choice between the kind of world we want to live in and the kind of world which Hitler and his hordes would impose upon us.

None of us wants to burrow under the ground and live in total darkness like a comfortable mole.

The forward march of Hitler and of Hitlerism can be stopped - and it will be stopped.

Very simply and very bluntly, we are pledged to pull our own oar in the destruction of Hitlerism.

And when we have helped to end the curse of Hitlerism, we shall help to establish a new peace which will give to decent people everywhere a better chance to live and prosper in security and in freedom and in faith.

Each day that passes we are producing and providing more and more arms for the men who are fighting on actual battle fronts. That is our primary task.

And it is the Nation's will that these vital arms and supplies of all kinds shall neither be locked up in American harbors nor sent to the bottom of the sea. It is the Nation's will that America shall deliver the goods. In open defiance of that will, our ships have been sunk and our sailors have been killed.

I say that we do not propose to take this lying down.

Our determination not to take it lying down has been expressed in the orders to the American Navy to shoot on sight. Those orders stand.

Furthermore, the House of Representatives has already voted to amend part of the Neutrality Act of 1937, today outmoded by force of violent circumstances. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has also recommended elimination of other hamstringing provisions in that act. That is the course of honesty and of realism.

Our American merchant ships must be armed to defend themselves against the rattlesnakes of the sea.

Our American merchant ships must be free to carry our American goods into the harbors of our friends.

Our American merchant ships must be protected by our American Navy.

It can never be doubted that the goods will be delivered by this Nation, whose Navy believes in the traditions of "Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!"

Yes; our Nation will and must speak from every assembly line. Yes; from every coal mine -- the all-inclusive whole of our vast industrial machine. Our factories and our shipyards are constantly expanding. Our output must be multiplied.

It cannot be hampered by the selfish obstruction of any small but dangerous minority of industrial managers who perhaps hold out for extra profits or for "business as usual." It cannot be hampered by the selfish obstruction of a small but dangerous minority of labor leaders who are a menace - for labor as a whole knows that that small minority is a menace -- to the true cause of labor itself, as well as to the Nation as a whole.

The lines of our essential defense now cover all the seas; and to meet the extraordinary demands of today and tomorrow our Navy grows to unprecedented size. Our Navy is ready for action. Indeed, units of it in the Atlantic patrol are in action. Its officers and men need no praise from me.

Our new Army is steadily developing the strength needed to withstand the aggressors. Our soldiers of today are worthy of the proudest traditions of the United States Army. But traditions cannot shoot down dive bombers or destroy tanks. That is why we must and shall provide, for every one of our soldiers, equipment and weapons -- not merely as good, but better than that of any other army on earth. And we are doing that right now.

For this -- and all of this -- is what we mean by total national defense.

The first objective of that defense is to stop Hitler. He can be stopped and can be compelled to dig in. And that will be the beginning of the end of his downfall, because dictatorship of the Hitler type can live only through continuing victories - increasing conquests.

The facts of 1918 are proof that a mighty German Army and a tired German people can crumble rapidly and go to pieces when they are faced with successful resistance.

Nobody who admires qualities of courage and endurance can fail to be stirred by the full-fledged resistance of the Russian people. The Russians are fighting for their own soil and their own homes. Russia needs all kinds of help -- planes, tanks, guns, medical supplies, and other aids -- toward the successful defense against the invaders. From the United States and from Britain, she is getting great quantities of those essential supplies. But the needs of her huge army will continue - and our help and British help will have to continue.

The other day the Secretary of State of the United States was asked by a Senator to justify our giving aid to Russia. His reply was: "The answer to that, Senator, depends on how anxious a person is to stop and destroy the march of Hitler in his conquest of the world. If he were anxious enough to defeat Hitler, he would not worry about who was helping to defeat him."

Upon our American production falls the colossal task of equipping our own armed forces, and helping to supply the British, the Russians, and the Chinese. In the performance of that task we dare not fail. And we will not fail.

It has not been easy for us Americans to adjust ourselves to the shocking realities of a world in which the principles of common humanity and common decency are being mowed down by the firing squads of the Gestapo. We have enjoyed many of God's blessings. We have lived in a broad and abundant land, and by our industry and productivity we have made it flourish.

There are those who say that our great good fortune has betrayed us; that we are now no match for the regimented masses who have been trained in the Spartan ways of ruthless brutality. They say that we have grown fat, and flabby, and lazy, and that we are doomed.

But those who say that know nothing of America or of American life.

They do not know that this land is great because it is a land of endless challenge. Our country was first populated, and it has been steadily developed, by men and women in whom there burned the spirit of adventure and restlessness and individual independence which will not tolerate oppression.

Ours has been a story of vigorous challenges which have been accepted and overcome, challenges of uncharted seas, of wild forests and desert plains, of raging floods and withering drought, of foreign tyrants and domestic strife, of staggering problems, social, economic, and physical; and we have come out of them the most powerful Nation, and the freest, in all of history.

Today in the face of this newest and greatest challenge of them all we Americans have cleared our decks and taken our battle stations. We stand ready in the defense of our Nation and the faith of our fathers to do what God has given us the power to see as our full duty.

The Chicago Tribune on this day in 1941 dismissed the possibility of Japan attacking the United States, even noting that an attack on the Hawaiian Islands was beyond Japanese capabilities.

The German 11th Army broke into the Crimean Peninsula.  On the same day, they captured the city of Plavsk.

June 24, 1921. 11th Field Artillery Brigade, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, Cigar Makers, and Mondell visiting Harding.

11th Field Artillery Brigade, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.  June 24, 1921.

The text on the photo reads:

"Just before passing in review before the Department Commander in this closely massed formation on June 24, 1921. (About 400 vehicles). No motor failed and formation remained intact, a record that will rarely be equalled and never surpassed. Tiemann N. Horn, Colonel 13th Field Artillery commanding. To General John J. Pershing, with the compliments of the brigade. R. L. Dancy, Army & Navy Photographer.".

Employees of 7-20-4, R. G. Sullivan, Cigar Factory, Manchester, N.H., no. 192, 100 [percent] Members of Cigar Makers, International Union, June 24, '21

On the same day, the employees of a cigar factory in Manchester, New Hampshire, were photographed.

As was President Harding with Wyoming's Congressman, Frank Wheeler Mondell.  Apparently that inspired President Harding to don an exceedingly large cowboy hat.

Mondell was originally from St. Louis, Missouri and had become a rancher and farmer in Wyoming, as well as a businessman involved in railroad construction.  He'd was Newcastle's mayor from 1888 to 1895 and served in Congress from 1895 to 1896 and then again from 1899 to 1923.  He was the House majority leader in the 66th and 67th Congresses.

December 9, 1920. People at their occupations.

Frank Ferera and Anthony Franchini making a recording with vocalist The Crescent Trio, December 9, 1920.

On Wednesdays I try to post a "Mid Week At Work" item, but I don't always do it.  Indeed, I miss that feature more often than not.  Yesterday, oddly enough, I looked for a photograph of a professional singer to post for that theme, getting my days of the week messed up for the second week in a row.

Today, I just happened to stumble across the photo posted above, which is 100 years old, today.

Frank Ferera was a professional musician and was Portuguese Hawaiian.  For those who might not know, the Portugese were and are an important demographic in Hawaii.  Ferera came to the mainland in 1915 and remained there as a musician thereafter.  He died at age 66 in 1951.  While Ferera would always remain a guitar player, he quit being a professional musician, at leat for a time, abruptly in 1927, at which time steel guitars were supplanting conventional guitars in Hawaiian music, which was his genra.

Anthony Franchini was an Italian born guitar player who partnered with Ferera and, even though he was an Italian by birth, he too specialized at first in Hawaiian music.  He'd come to the US as a boy with his immigrant family and was self taught.  He was a veteran of World War One, having served as an artilleryman, and having joined the Army prior to becoming a U.S. citizen.

He continued on with a long and prolific music career after Ferera quit.  He served in the Army again as a Drill Instructor, at which time he became a U.S. citizen.  Late in life he moved to Nevada and re arranged The Star Spangled Banner, with Nevada backing his arrangement in several bills in Congress in an attempt to have them officially adopted.  During this period he was active in Republican politics.  He died 1997 at age 99.

Dr. Oliveira de Lima and his wife Flora on this date in 1920.  He was just 53 years old at the time this photograph was taken, which says something about aging in earlier eras.

Dr. Oliveira de Lima, a Brazilian retired diplomat, was photographed on this day in 1920.   This same year he was the donor of a major Hispanic book collection to the Catholic University of America.

Dr. Olieveira would live until 1928.  Flora until 1940. The book collection remains at the Catholic University.

Freshman members of Congress, December 9, 1920.  Heck, with the average age of American politicians being what it is, these guys are probably all still there.

A new Congress was rolling into Washington D. C.  It's notable that at this point in the nation's history, the Presidential inauguration was still in March.  Given this, this wasn't a lame duck Congress, but they had a lame duck President still for months.

At this point in time visiting delegations from the French and British militaries were still quite common in the wake of the Great War, and the French were still giving decorations to American military figures.

U.S. Army General Peter C. Harris receiving decoration from visiting French delegation.

Gen. Peter C. Harris received one such award on this day.  

Harris had entered the U.S. Army in 1888, after graduating from West Point, and first served as an infantry officer.  He'd been at Kettle Hill during the Spanish American War and was, at the time of this photograph, the Adjutant General.  He would live until 1951.

May 11, 1920. Necessity, Long rides, and Representatives.

Necessity, Texas.  May 11, 1920.

Sailor Tony Pizzo passing through Washington on a Coast to Coast bicycle run handcuffed to his machine. The Handcuffs were sealed by Mayor Hylan in New York April 24th and were not to be opened until his return to that city.

 Prince Kalanianaole, Hawaii's delegate to Congress.  May 11, 1920. 

August 21, 1919. Dissension in the ranks, Orr's Ranch to Granite Rock, Utah. 15 miles in 7.25 hours. New dry docks at Pearl Harbor. Pursuit in Mexico.

Things were getting heated in the Motor Transport Convoy on this day in 1919.

The commander of the convoy, concerned about the fate of the vital Militor, pulled it out of the convoy and had it shipped by rail to Eureka, Nevada.  The diarist recorded his dissension in the diary, not something a junior officer would do lightly.  Indeed, something of that type risked being a career ender.

But the diarist may have well be right. Progress that day ground to a halt.  While the Militor was now suffering from its hard use, the convoy may well have suffered due to its absence.

On the same day, the wife of the Secretary of the Navy was present in Hawaii to push a button to open a new dry dock at Pearl Harbor.

American troops continued a new pursuit south of the border, but Mexico was once again not pleased.

Elsewhere there was a food sale:

I would have thought that this would be front page news.

And I think it should be.

Yesterday, the State of Hawaii sent out this warning, on a warning system its created:

BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL

The warning went out on people's cell phones, sort of like the emergency warning we have here for various things.

Obviously it was an error.  The mere accidental push of a button on a computer.  But it caused panic, as it would.  The "This is not a drill" language had a distinct meaning in Hawaii's history, and Hawaii would get less than 15 minutes warning in the event of a nuclear missile strike by North Korea.  

The warning was retracted about 40 minutes in.  But still, this all says a lot.

It ought to be front page news.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Maria Lanakila Catholic Church, Lahaina Maui Hawaii

Churches of the West: Maria Lanakila Catholic Church, Lahaina Maui Hawaii

This impressive church is the Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in Lahaina Maui Hawaii.  The Church was established in 1846 with the present church having been built in 1873. Renovations were done in 1918, including the cleaning of the impressive paintings that are located within the church, gifts of Maui residents who might possibly be King Kalakaua or his sister, Queen Liliuokalani.

One of the very unusual features of this church is the chicken weather vane that is affixed atop the cross on the steeple.  I have no idea what the story behind this is.

 The name of the church means Mary Victorious in Hawaiian.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. James the Less Catholic Church, Ulupalakua, Maui, Hawaii.

Churches of the West: St. James the Less Catholic Church, Ulupalakua, Maui, Hawaii.

This is St. James the Less Catholic Church in Ulupalakua, Maui, Hawaii.  It's a mission church served by Our Lady Queen of Angels, which is actually fairly close to it on the same highway.  Being used to the large distances of most rural areas of the West, to find two churches of the same faith so close together is surprising, but even in such locations as Denver Colorado that still occurs, so perhaps this should not be surprising.  This church is actually older that Our Lady Queen of Angels and the original church built in this location was constructed at least as early as 1875, with missionary activity having dated back to the 1850s.  The current structure was built in 1950 and renovated in 2002.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Lahuiokalani Kaanapali Congregational Church, Kaanapali, Maui, Hawawii

Churches of the West: Lahuiokalani Kaanapali Congregational Church, Kaanapali, Maui, Hawaii

This is the Lahuiokalani Kaanapali Congregational Church in Kaanapali, Maui. Located just off the beach, the church dates back to 1840, indicating early missionary activity. 

Coffee

Coffee rationing began in on this day in 1942.

Smiling soldier.  I think he's drinking coffee.  I may have had to volunteer for service (which I likely would have done anyway) just in order to get a cup of coffee.

I would not have liked that.  Coffee roasters were already restricted to 75% of their war time prior average.  This resulted not due to fewer beans being produced during the war.  Not hardly. Rather, it resulted from the fact that this import crop is shipped to the continental United States

I think that's something that we tend not to ponder much. Coffee is a huge American drink, just like tea is a huge British drink, but in neither case do these consuming nations produce the elemental crop locally.  Given that, it's really amazing that either drink has such a hold in the consuming nation.  Indeed, by and large, with some slight exception, its not even grown in the Norther Hemisphere.  Kona coffee, grown in Hawaii, is the only coffee actually grown in the United States, in so far as I'm aware.

Just consider it for a moment.  The bean that is roasted to produce the crop is grown thousands of miles from the continental United States, roasted (often) in the US, and then packaged for sale here.  It's pretty amazing that there's more than a couple of varieties of it, frankly, or that its even affordable.

The Coffee Bearer, by John Frederick Lewis, Orientalist painter.  The same figure was a figure in his painting The Armenian Lady, whose servant she is portrayed as being.

As an aside, the second biggest coffee bean producer in the world (the first is Brazil) is. . . . Vietnam.

One more reason that not having prevailed in the Vietnam War is unfortunate, to say the least.

Well, anyhow, it's not cheap, as any coffee drinker will tell you. But it's not terribly pricey either.

And somehow, it's gone from a few basic brands to a wide variety of specialty brands and brews of every imaginable type and variety.

Coffee varieties have of course always existed.  Interestingly, one of the contenders for oldest coffee brand sold in the United States is Lion Brand which is Kona coffee.  Lion was first sold in the United States, as green coffee beans, in 1864.  Pretty darned early.  Hawaii wasn't an American territory at the time.  Folgers has them beat, however, dating back to 1850.  Hills Brothers dates to 1878.  Maxwell House to 1892.

Arbuckle Coffee, for some reason, was a huge item in the West in the late 1800s, showing how brands come and go.  I've never seen Arbuckles sold today, although it apparently still exists.  The owners of the company, John and Charles Arbuckle, owned a ranch near Cheyenne, although I don't know if that explains the connection with the West, or if perhaps that connection worked the other way around.

Now there's a zillion brands of coffee, many of which I don't recognize, and many which have pretensions towards coffee greatness.  This seems to have come about due to the rise of coffee houses, lead in a major way by Starbucks.  There's a Starbucks on every street corner now, it seems.  I'll be frank that I don't like their coffee much at all.  Too strong, and I like strong coffee.  Anyhow, the many specialty brews that Starbucks makes has spawned many various specialty coffees, or at least different coffees, to the extent to which a person can hardly keep track of it.  Over the weekend I was in City Brew, one of the local coffee houses, as well as Albertsons, where a Starbucks is located, and they both had "Christmas Blends".  How can there be a Christmas blend of coffee?

Chock full o' Nuts, a brand that, as the can indicates, has been around since 1932.  That was the date the company founder changed his nut shops into lunch counters, figuring that they were a better bet during the Great Depression.  I used to drink Chock full o' Nuts when I was in college but stopped as it seemed to have way too much caffeine.

Not that I'm complaining.  I frankly like the vast variety in coffee. And while I'm not inclined to buy something like Starbucks Free Range Easter Island Coffee Licked Gently By Baby Yaks, I will buy peculiar roasts just because the sound interesting. And I tend towards those dark roasts even if I sometimes wish I'd gotten something milder.

And it is interesting to see how coffee houses, following in Starbuck's wake, have popped up everywhere.  Just the other day I bought a sack of Boyer's coffee in the grocery store.  I was aware of Boyers, as they're a Denver brand with a Denver coffee house, but I wasn't aware that you could buy it up here.  Quasi local, as it were.  A great Denver coffee, with some good coffee houses is Dazbog, which plays up the Russian origin of the founders.  One of the independent local coffee houses here sells Dazbog, and its good stuff.  City Brew has outlets here in town, and apparently they're originally from Montana, which they play up with some of their roasts, even though we all know coffee isn't grown in Montana.  I'm told that Blue Ridge Coffee, another local coffee house that sells sacked coffee, is purely local.

And that doesn't cover every coffee house in town.  Quite the evolution when just a decade or so ago you'd have had to go to a conventional cafe and just have ordered the house coffee, whatever that was.  No special roasts or blends.  Just a up of joe.

And I prefer to buy from the locals as well.  Subsidarity in action, I suppose.  Indeed, I'm not told that I can buy Mystic Monk sacked coffee at the Parish Office, and I likely will.

In the grocery store, for the most part, you bought the major brands.  Most of those are still around,  but now you can buy any number of major and minor brands.  I even have a coffee grinder, although that certainly isn't a new invention, although most of the time I buy pre ground coffee.  Indeed, I got the grinder as I bought whole bean coffee by mistake, which I've done from time to time, and I don't want to waste it.

Using coffee grinders, of course, is an odd return to the past. Everything old is new again, sort of.  But the huge variety, of course, is wholly new.

Industrial strength coffee grinder.

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Related threads:

Coffee

The Science Behind Coffee and Why it's Actually Good for Your Health

Blog Mirror. A Hundred Years Ago: Keep Coffee Warm with a Thermos

National Coffee Day.

The Joy of Field Rations: Roasting Coffee in the Field