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Location Niʻihau Island (Niihau) is the western most island in the Southeast Islands (Windward Islands) of Hawaii. The island is roughly 18 mile long and 6 mile wide encompassing roughly 69.5 square miles (180 square kilometers) surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. Borders the Kaulakahi Channel to the northeast and beyond roughly 17 miles away is Kauai (Kauaʻi). Prewar and during the Pacific War, part of the Territory of Hawaii. Today part of Kauaʻi County in Hawaii in the United States of America. Prewar Niihau Island is privately owned by the Robinson family. In 1915, the owners closed the island to most visitors. Even relatives of the inhabitants could visit only by special permission. As early as 1924, the U.S. Navy maintained a small installation on the island. General Mitchell predicted an aerial attack against Pearl Harbor, and that it might be staged from Niihau. Later Major Brant secretly contacted Aylmer Robinson and asked him to dig deep furrows across the island, to make it impossible for planes to land. Starting in 1933, at his own expense, Robinson began plowing checkerboard lines across the island, each roughly 100' across using horses and later a tractor. By the middle of 1941 he had plowed roughly 5,000 linear miles of lines. Meanwhile, the Japanese Navy incorrectly believed the island was uninhabitied. In the planning for the attack against Pearl Harbor and Oahu, Navy pilots were instructed to land on Niihau and an await pickup by submarine. Wartime History On December 7, 1941 after the Japanese attack, low on fuel A6M2 Zero 2266 pilot PO1c Shigenori Nishikaichi force landed on Niihau as instructed. News of the attack had yet to reach residents on the island and none of the Hawaiians spoke Japanese. He befriended issei (Japanese born immigrant) Ishimatsu Shintani and nisei (second-generation Japanese) Yoshio Harada. Pilot Nishikaichi told them both about the start of the Pacific War and they did not to inform the Hawaiians about their conversation. Nishikaichi asked for his papers to be returned, but Kaleohano refused. The island lacked electricity or a radio. That night, an islander using a battery operated radio and learned about the Japanese attack and Harada translated the news. The next morninng, the island's owner Aylmer Robinson was scheduled to return and the pilot would be taken to Kaua'i. Nishikaichi played on the Japanese-Americans loyalties, and won him over to assist him with a plan for death with honor. He convinced Harada to steal back his pistol and a shotgun. The two took control of the village where they took two prisoners before stripping the machine guns off the crashed zero and stowing them on a wagon. They tried to destroy the plane, but the fire did not spread past the cockpit. They two were "drunk" with power, firing their weapons and demanding residents to surrender. The pair controlled the island until the night of December 12, 1941 when a Hawaiian named Kanahele cornered them. In the melee, Kanahele was wounded. Harada was shot by the pilot before taking his own life with the shotgun, ending the "Niihau Incident". When the Army rescue part arrived, Kanahele was awarded two Presidential Citations: the purple heart and Medal of Merit. The conduct of Harada helped to fuel the anti-Japanese sentiments that lead to the decision by FDR to have Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans detained in the United States. References Thanks to Syd Jones and David Aiken / Pearl Harbor History Associates for additional information Contribute
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