July, 1909 to December 7, 1941
Introduction
It’s been two years since that fateful Sunday morning when war at last made the full circle of the world and wrought a catastrophe on Pearl Harbor as sudden and preposterous as something contrived by Orson Welles. It almost seems like a prophecy come true, for the story David Kanakeawe Richards tells is authentic.
Based on the old Hawaiian traditions, the tale itself sounds legendary, but the facts are here for those who may doubt him. The docks still stand, undamaged throughout the December 7 attack, when more than 2,000 of America’s finest fighting men lost their lives. Perhaps the old Kahuna was right . . . who knows?
The author, a descendant of Kamehameha I on is maternal side, does not ask you to believe the legendary bits that seep in here and there, but now is one to separate fact from fiction? The fairylike quality of his tale is absorbing and its charm filters in among the facts to such an extent that it is difficult to tell where fact ends and legend begins.
David Kanakeawe was reared in the traditional Hawaiian manner, gathering by word of mouth all the stories about his kupunas and aumakuas from his mother and aunts.
After he became old enough to work, he held many responsible positions. As early as 1898 he showed great initiative. He was employed then, along with five other boiler makers, to work on the Honolulu Plantation. Three months later he was in charge of several hundred men who worked all over the plantation fixing pumps, digging and dynamiting tunnels, repairing the plumbing, building roads, and keeping everything in running order.
His first contracting job came in 1900 when the Honolulu Plantation decided to build four oil tanks. After some hesitation, he sent in his specifications and four weeks later received a letter informing him that he was the lowest bidder for the two smaller tanks to be built in the Iwilei district. The Honolulu Iron Works got the contract for the two larger tanks with the stipulation at David Kanakeawe act as inspector.
Another interesting period in his life was spent as warden of Oahu’s prison. At present David Kanakeawe is with the U. S. Engineers Corps, serving as a guard.
And now Aloha Nui to David Kanakeawe . . . the tides that travel from the Solomons, Singapore, and Bataan still roll into Pearl Harbor, but they aren’t the innocent tides of other years. No one knows what the waves may bring in, or what may lie farther out in the dark blue water where the bottom falls away. We’ve learned our lesson . . . whether through the old woman Kahuna or the shark goddess, it’s difficult to tell . . . but we’ve learned it well this time, and there will never be another “Pearl Harbor.”
It was more than 30 years ago that George Denison, well-known island contractor, took me to Pearl Harbor to stake out the first dry dock there. He pointed to the place where the construction was to begin and said, “Measure 10 feet square and dig 50 feet deep.” After that we went to Watertown to get men for the job. The work began four days later. As we worked three Hawaiian fishermen approached, one of whom was aged, and asked what we were doing there.
“Digging a hole 50 feet deep,” was the reply.
He then told me to move away as these places were supposed to be tabu.
“They belong to the shark goddess Ka’ahupahau,” he said.
The old fisherman then asked me who was in charge of the construction and I told him, “George Dension, but he may or may not show up today.”
He seemed so worried about the whole procedure that I in turn asked him, “What are you doing over here?” And he replied that he had come to feed his aumakau, the Ka’ahupahau, a shark goddess.
I laughed at him for that and asked him where the shark was, but he was reluctant to tell me. Living as close to nature as the Hawaiians do, they are loathe to discuss their movements for fear of being overheard by spirits who might have evil designs on them.
Kupuna Kanakeawe, the old fisherman, had just finished feeding Ka’ahupahau, the shark goddess, with many fishes which he brought every week from Keahi. As he made his offering he would chant and pray until all the fish had disappeared. Then he would begin his chants and prayers all over again for this time he was fishing for his own use and what was left over he would sell.
The old man watched my men work, and talked to them. Again he came to me with tears in his eyes and begged me to stop digging until my boss came back. I explained we couldn’t do that. He stayed several hours, watching us all the time, and finally he said, “You people will be punished severely.” We laughed at him and thought no more about it. He and his friends left with the old man chanting all the time, attempting to quiet any disturbed spirits.
The next day he came again. “Aloha,” he greeted me and I replied, “Aloha.”
He asked me if my boss had come after they left the day before. And when I told him, “No,” he asked when he might be expected. As I wasn’t sure, he sat down to wait for Mr. Denison.
All day he waited, and when it came time to quit work he was still there, so I invited him to my home. I offered him a drink of gin and he took two tumblers of straight palm tree gin with no ill effects at all. After he had had two more lie began to loosen up and told me the story of the shark goddess.
He said that the shark was so big and old that she could not go away from her home anymore, and her life depended on him to feed her once a week. He told me of the secret location where no one is allowed to fish or disturb. And then he told me that when he was old enough to get his own food, his grandfather and he used to ride on the shark to the other islands.
He told me that he himself had once helped build a trap or shark pen with which to catch other sharks. We became very friendly and as a token of our friendship he would give me fish, lobsters, and squid. In return, I would give him a bottle or two of wine. All the while he would beg me to move away and not dig any more at the dry dock, explaining that we all would be severely punished.
But I told him again and again that it couldn’t be done, for haoles just didn’t believe in that sort of thing. He kept on coming to my house for almost four years, and just a few days before the dry dock blew up, he took sick and died.
All this time we kept going deeper and deeper with our work. When the hole became 19 feet deep I blasted, but nothing came up . . . instead it went down. We ran the pump all day, but could not reach the bottom. We got a larger pump and began all over again. When the water had all been pumped out, we went down and found there was a big tunnel, measuring 9 feet in diameter, leading off through the red soil from Halawa Gulch. There we found river stones and very hard lava rock, and in the pools of water from the many springs seeping through I found shiny, soft, white shrimps. The waters from these springs were not the same, some were salt, some brackish, and others fresh.
From then on it seemed as if one obstacle after another confronted us. First the pump would break, then the boiler, and then numerous repair jobs would have to be done. After a time things went along smoothly and we finally reached a depth of 48 feet. Then the drilling started and in December, 1909, the dry dock was ready for dredging. After a year of work, the dredging was complete and an area of 180 feet by 250 feet had been cleared.
In the meantime many men were brought from the mainland, all classes of mechanics. Several sailing ships brought lumber, wooden piles, and equipment through the channel. Dry Dock Smith, an island contractor, was in charge of the big construction work, with Mr. Ross, Mr. Hartman, and myself assisting.
We rigged up four pile drivers, organized crews with nine men to a crew, and started driving sheet piles day and night. I had charge of the night shift. We built machine shops, saw mills, blacksmith shops, restaurants, office buildings, and electric shops so as to have everything convenient.
As we went along full speed, carpenters were putting struts or braces on the inside. Number one strut is a timber 16 inches square, number two strut is 14 inches square, number three strut is 12 inches square, and number four is 10 inches square.
The dock was divided into four sections 1 feet by 250 feet, and when one section was completed we would start on the next. As we started to pump section one, engineers watched carefully to see if the bottom would rise. After a few days of pumping it did start to rise and then we drove piles on section two.
After we drove piles to cover 180 feet by 250 feet, we set reinforced steel rods on the bottom and poured concrete 8 feet thick on the whole area. In the meanwhile, we were driving in the bottom of section one in the same manner as section two. Finally section three was ready to pump. After it was dry, more than one hundred men were sent down to stop the leaks and divers went around on the outside doing the same.
At the end of four days our instruments indicated that the bottom would rise. All the men were ordered to come up and also the divers on the outside. Then just as the last diver emerged, section two let go its bottom, and sections one and three caved in. The sound of section two crashing was like that of an explosion of tons of black powder. It was unbelievable that those huge timbers could be crushed to splinters in so short a time. Luckily no one was hurt. Nearly $4,000,000 and four long years of hard work were destroyed in about four minutes.
After so many reverses, I could not help but think of the old fisherman’s warning, “Byrne, bye, too much pilikia.”
A few days later I got orders to lay the men off. More than a thousand were left without jobs.
A year passed and I received word that we were going to start work again on the same dry dock.
Preparation for the rebuilding of the dock was a long and tedious job. It took us three years to clean the bottom, for it was necessary to remove all the debris of the previous job which included thousands of piles and huge concrete blocks about 8 feet square.
After the bottom was clean and dredged, we started to drive piles all over again, covering 180 feet wide and 1,000 feet long this time, at 5-foot intervals and sawed them off at 48 feet at low tide. The whole area was then filled to a 52-foot elevation with clean blue rocks and at 50 feet below the surface it was leveled and tamped and filled with smaller crushed rock until the 48-foot level was again reached. These elevations were made exactly to specifications as the Navy inspector was very strict. Each block, after it was built, was 50 feet by 180 feet by 16 inches, with all the foundation piles sawed off at a 50-foot elevation at low tide. All the blocks were built on the floating weight of 3,500 tons, and when set in place we built the side and the balance of the bottom. The dock’s capacity is 4,000 tons.
In 1917 we were ready to pour the concrete. Walter F. Dillingham came that day to witness the event.
After greetings had been exchanged he asked me how much Hawaiian I was and I told him, “One hundred per cent!”
“That’s fine,” he replied, “then you know that we must make some kind of an offering when anything as big as this is built.”
But I assured him I didn’t believe in that. Then he said, “I’m more Hawaiian than you.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“I think you should make an offering of a white chicken and a pig,” he said. We both laughed and he went away.
Later that morning Dry Dock Smith said everything was in readiness and we would start to pump any minute. I suggested that some kind of an offering be made in the Hawaiian manner as they do on the mainland when ships are christened. It would please the men who had worked so hard for the last ten years. I told him about the Hawaiian custom of a “white chicken and a pig” but he told me I was crazy and walked away.
A little later Robert Atkinson and Governor I rear came over where I was working. They wanted to know what it was all about and so I explained again.
What do you think of David’s idea?” laughed Atkinson. Governor Frear did not laugh and said that I was right in my belief.
So Mr. Smith ordered me to get the chicken and the pig, the kahuna, and whatever else was needed.
The only kahuna I knew was Kainani who lived on Makee Island at Waikiki. She promised to come to my house if I would call for her as she did not know the way.
As we waited for the kahuna, one of the workmen reported a geyser-like fountain that had suddenly appeared at the channel end of the dry dock. Both Mr. Hartman and Mr. Smith were alarmed at the force and agitation of the waters which seemed like a boiling caldron.
As I was making a thorough inspection of the report, Mr. Smith came to me at regular half-hour intervals to inquire whether or not the kahuna had arrived. His anxiety increased as the memory of the first dry dock disaster was recalled. So great was his relief when he heard the kahuna had arrived at my house that he insisted I take his car and fetch her.
When I met the old lady I kissed her. Then she asked me what I wanted her to do. I explained that the new dock was to be christened in the Hawaiian manner. She agreed that it was necessary to make some kind of an offering. Then she prayed to God to see if it were all right for her to undertake the christening. Then we both prayed. She asked me the location of the dry dock and consulted her Bible again. After a moment she said the spot was a sacred one, belonging to the shark goddess and asked if there had not been much trouble. I told her all about it and how the first dock had blown up.
When I told her how the men had escaped with their lives by only a few seconds, she said, “It is lucky that nobody was killed. But don’t fail to make offerings!”
We left for the dry dock, for the old woman wanted to ask my boss some questions. When we arrived I found Mr. Smith talking with A. P. Taylor, reporter for the Advertiser. He asked me if everything was ready, but I told him I only had the kahuna, the old lady who was with me. Mr. Smith was extremely angry and said that this was no woman’s job ... it was a man’s job. Then he left the whole thing to me and walked away.
I went back to the car and told the old woman not to ask any questions for the boss was angry.
“Hookieki no ka kanaka, e hoopai ia no oia,” she said. In other words, there is punishment for those who scorn the sacred things. She would not stay then, but insisted upon returning to her home. After coming all the way from Waikiki she felt she had not been treated properly and would have nothing more to do with the christening or with anyone connected with it.
When we reached my home the first thing she did was to take out her Bible and ask me to hold it while she prayed for guidance about making the offering to the shark goddess. She requested me to open the book and read the first verse I saw. When she heard it she said it was all very simple. . . just water and wood ashes. But they must be wood ashes, for they symbolize the human life.
She asked for an empty bottle. I found one, cleansed it, and gave it to her. After we had our dinner I took her home and she began to work on the prayer that I was to offer at the dry dock. Later she prepared the ashes and salt water and told me that early in the morning, between two and three o’clock, I must go to the dry dock, “never turning back on the way or stopping to talk with anyone.”
I left my house at two the next morning. As I approached the navy yard gate, I became frightened. I stopped the car and got out to kneel in prayer, asking if what I was about to do was all right. If it were, I asked God to give me the power to carry out my mission.
The gate is usually guarded well, but upon my arrival, I found it wide open. There was no one in sight. I went straight to the cave, filled my hand with the sacred water and recited the prayers the old woman had taught me. When all was finished, I started home happy. This time as I approached the gate I met all the guards that should have been there as I passed through just a short time before.
I didn’t go back home afterwards, but went on to the Puuloa railway station and waited for the workmen’s train. I stopped to talk with the engineer and he wanted to know what was wrong with me.
“Nothing is the matter with me,” was my quick reply.
“Why didn’t you get the shark instead of the old man?” he asked.
“What is the matter with the old man?” I wanted to know.
“He and Mrs. Smith went to the show,” he answered, “and on their way home a car ran into theirs and turned them over. Dry- Dock has a broken collar bone and his wife is badly hurt.” When I went to work at noon I asked permission to go and see Smith. The doctor had forbidden all visitors, but I was admitted because Mr. Smith wanted to see me. He was still angry with me for having brought a woman kahuna instead of a man. He was sure that was the reason he and his wife had suffered.
I offered my apologies and left and went straight to Makee Island in Waikiki. I wanted to see the old woman again. When I arrived she asked me about my trip to the dry dock. I told her everything went off very well. Then I asked her to open her Bible again.
“Oh, my God! Too bad for the old man!” she exclaimed, seeming to know all about his accident of the night before. “I told you I wanted to ask him a few questions, and he refused me, so he is punished. It’s going to be a long time before he is well again.”
She offered to give me some Hawaiian herbs for Mr. Smith, but he would not take them. Four days later he came to work, but was so exhausted by the strain and mental worry connected with this construction job that it was impossible for him to return for nearly nine months and then only for two or three days a week.
As we continued to pump the water out of the dock, we came to a cave approximately 9 feet in diameter and found the backbone skeleton of a big shark 14 feet 4 inches long.
“You certainly got the shark, Dave,” said the workmen.
A day later the old kahuna came back and threw crackers into the water and said, “No more pilikia to this dry dock. The next time you start a big job, don’t forget to call me.”