Honouliuli National Historic Site

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by CaliforniaAliBaba (talk | contribs) at 03:20, 5 October 2010 (→‎Sources: avoid italicising hanja/hangul title). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Honouliuli Internment Camp was one of five internment camps in Hawaii during World War II.[1][2]

Construction and operation

Run by the US Army, the camp's supervisor was Captain Siegfried Spillner.[3] The camp was constructed on 160 acres of land near Ewa on the island of Oahu to hold internees transferred from the soon-to-close Sand Island camp.[4] It opened in March 1943.[5] The isolated location in a deep gulch led Japanese American internees to nickname it jigoku dani (地獄谷, "hell valley").[6]

The camp was set up to hold as many as 3,000 people, though it never held more than 320 at any one time.[7] It was divided by barbed wire into sections, intended to separate internees by gender, nationality, and military or civilian status. By August 1943, there were 160 Japanese Americans and 69 Japanese interned there, according to the report of a colonel from the Swedish Legation who inspected the camp under the Geneva Convention. The camp would come to hold not just Japanese Americans and Japanese, but Italians, Germans, and Koreans as well. The first Korean prisoners were believed to have arrived in late 1943 or early 1944; they comprised non-combatant laborers captured during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign. A Korean-language newsletter, the Free Press for Liberated Korea (자유한인보), was written and mimeographed by three Korean soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army interned in the camp; it continued publication until December 1945.[5]

Closure and aftermath

After the camp's closure, the land was purchased by the Oahu Sugar Company, which already grew sugar on adjacent lands.[1][8] However, they did not grow sugar on the camp land itself, but rather let others use it as a dumping ground for wrecked cars.[8] Campbell Estates later acquired the land and rented it out to farmers for cultivation.[1] Some former barracks were converted into vacation cabins.[9] In 2007, the Monsanto Corporation purchased the land.[10]

The fact that the land had once held an internment camp was largely forgotten until the late 1990s, when Jane Kurahara, a volunteer from the Japanese Cultural Center, began a search for it; she located it in 2002 by tracing an aqueduct in the background of an old photo.[1] The efforts to learn more about the camp's history attracted the attention of archaeologist Jeff Burton, an expert on Japanese American internment in the mainland; he visited the camp site in February 2006 to conduct a preliminary survey, including mapping the foundations of old barracks.[2] The survey concluded that the camp may be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.[10]

Notable internees

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Gordon, Mike (2005-11-27), "Wartime stain in history retraced in O'ahu's brush", The Honolulu Advertiser, retrieved 2009-12-10
  2. ^ a b Gordon, Mike (2006-02-05), "Under Honouliuli brush, dark history", The Honolulu Advertiser, retrieved 2009-12-10
  3. ^ Hirose 1993, p. 167
  4. ^ Kashima 2003, p. 84
  5. ^ a b c Choe 2009
  6. ^ a b c Chun, Gary C. W. (2009-12-07), "Exhibit shows the harsh life of Honouliuli internment camp", Honolulu Star-Bulletin, retrieved 2009-12-10
  7. ^ Gordon, Mike (2008-03-03), "WWII internment camp revisited", The Honolulu Advertiser, retrieved 2009-12-10
  8. ^ a b Kashima 2003, p. 86
  9. ^ Wilson, Christie (2008-02-17), "Clues sought to Honouliuli's dark past", The Honolulu Advertiser, retrieved 2009-12-10
  10. ^ a b "Hope for a Visitor's Center at Honouliuli May Become Reality", Pacific Citizen, 2009-03-09, retrieved 2009-12-11
  11. ^ Pak 1967

Sources

Further reading

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Honouliuli_National_Historic_Site&oldid=388824406"