During the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, Japanese pilots were given instructions that if they were in trouble, to fly 30 minutes to Niihau — a small island off Kauai they thought was uninhabited — and wait for a submarine to pick them up at night. One first-class Japanese Zero pilot, Shigenori Nishikaichi, would need to stop in Niihau.
The island of Niihau, however, was not uninhabited. Purchased by the Sinclair family in 1864 and passed down to the Robinson line, Niihau is an undeveloped island that had a 200 or so residents at the time, mostly Native Hawaiian. They lived without electricity, and guests are restricted even to this day.
Nishikaichi’s role in the attack on Pearl Harbor would have been combat air patrol over Pearl Harbor. But his plane was losing fuel quickly, so he made it to Niihau, where he crash-landed.
“We think his gas tanks were hit, did not explode,” Rod Bengston, the director of exhibits, restoration and curatorial services at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum, told SFGATE. “So he made his way down to Niihau, and as he was coming in, his landing gear either hit a fence and were sheared off, or he landed in a field that had been plowed on purpose with big ruts across it to keep planes from landing there, and that had ripped off the gear.”
There would be no way for the plane to fly again.
The mysterious downed pilot
Hawila “Howard” Kaleohano, a 30-year-old ranch hand, was the first to reach the crash site. He took Nishikaichi’s pistol and documents, including a map of Oahu, charts and other military documents, out of the plane and held them in his possession.
“He could speak a little English,” Kaleohano later said in a 1946 article in the Honolulu Advertiser, “but he didn’t say anything about the war or attack.”
Unaware of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Niihau residents took care of Nishikaichi as they would any other downed pilot. Because he spoke Japanese, the residents sent for the island’s beekeeper, Ishimatsu Shintani, to interpret what the pilot was trying to say. However, the beekeeper became alarmed and upset upon hearing what the pilot had to say and left without translating.
Next, the Niihauans reached out to island residents Yoshio and Irene Harada, who were also of Japanese descent, and they talked to the pilot, who told them about Pearl Harbor and that he wanted his weapon and papers returned. For unknown reasons, the Haradas decided to keep what he told them about the Pearl Harbor attack a secret. They did tell Kaleohano that Nishikaichi wanted his weapon and papers back. Kaleohano said no.
With still no knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack or of any threat to their town, the Niihau residents were hospitable to Nishikaichi.
“They felt they had rescued this guy. They had his papers and gun because they weren’t quite sure what was up, but they didn’t expect anything. Most of them didn’t really think about it. So they treated him to a luau and were singing songs, and they had a great time,” Bengston said. “And he, the pilot, sort of adopted the attitude that he was just going to wait for the Japanese submarine to show up and look for anybody that made their way to the island as a downed Japanese aviator.
“What he did not know is that all the Japanese submarines had been ordered not to go to Niihau but rather to attempt to patrol for any American ships that went out that night. It may be that they didn’t know anybody went to the island and crashed there.”
The remains of Shigenori Nishikaichi’s Zero on Dec. 17, 1941.
US ArmyThe attack on Pearl Harbor is revealed
News finally came later that night, through a battery-operated radio, that Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the Niihau residents then realized they had an enemy fighter pilot on their hands. The residents were unsure what to do. The owner of the island, Aylmer Robinson, was on Kauai, and there was no way to reach him.
In the end, the residents held Nishikaichi under house arrest at the Haradas and placed a guard outside.
Even so, Nishikaichi found a way to sneak back to his plane and set it on fire, in an attempt to destroy it so it would be no use to the U.S. government. His orders were to destroy his plane and his documents, which he failed to maintain, should he be captured.
Between Monday, Dec. 8, and Wednesday, Dec. 10 — days after the Pearl Harbor attack — Nishikaichi talked a lot with the Haradas and convinced them to help him. Shintani, the beekeeper, was also brought back in to ask Kaleohano once more if Nishikaichi could get his papers and weapon back.
Again, the answer was no.
Nishikaichi and the Haradas knew then that negotiating with Kaleohano wasn’t going to work, so Yoshio Harada snuck in and stole the pistol back, as well as a resident shotgun. Later, Harada and Nishikaichi returned armed to demand the documents. Then Nishikaichi took a shot at Kaleohano, but he missed.
An enemy among them
Kaleohano got away and ran to warn the rest of the residents, who gathered together to form a plan. Some built a fire to send a distress signal to Kauai. Others, including Kaleohano, took a 10-hour boat trip to Kauai to let the owner know.
Meanwhile, the pilot terrorized the town — and set Kaleohano’s house on fire.
“The pilot came back to town with the weapons that had been stolen, and he demanded to see the ranch hand. And they made excuses. They couldn’t produce the ranch hand because they didn’t want to tell him that he had gone for help,” Bengston said. “So he took hostages and threatened them if they didn’t produce him or his papers that bad things were going to happen.”
One of the hostages was Kealoha “Ella” Kanahele. Her 49-year-old husband, Benehakaka “Ben” Kanahele, and others pretended to look for Kaleohano to buy time until Ben saw an opportunity to make a move on the pilot.
“The pilot was faster and pulled his pistol out and shot Ben, the Hawaiian Islander, three times, but this didn’t stop him. It made him really mad,” Bengston said. “So he went over, and he just picked up the pilot and threw him against the stone wall. This all happened very quickly. He threw him against the stone wall, and Ben’s wife grabbed a rock and smashed it into the pilot’s head. Almost immediately, the husband Ben was on top of him and slit his throat. So that was the end of the pilot.”
Immediately after, Harada, who had witnessed it all, turned the shotgun on himself and committed suicide.
“I got mad,” Kanahele was quoted as saying later in a 1942 San Francisco Examiner article. “She was plenty mad, that woman,” he said of his wife. “She beat that pilot’s brains out, and she did a good job.”
Kealoha “Ella” Kanahele and Benehakaka “Ben” Kanahele, two of the Hawaiians living on Niihau, who ended the reign of terror brought to the island by a Japanese pilot who crashed his fighter plane the day of the raid on Pearl Harbor.
Bettmann/Bettmann ArchiveThe morning after
On Sunday, Dec. 14, 1941, Robinson arrived on the island with Kaleohano and the U.S. military, who examined the plane and pilot. The plane was hidden under some trees should another wave of Japanese planes fly over and see it.
Irene, Harada’s wife, was imprisoned at Honouliuli internment camp on Oahu, returning to Kauai 33 months later. Shintani, the beekeeper, was interned at a camp in the continental U.S. He returned later to live on Niihau again. Kaleohano, the ranch hand, was awarded the Medal of Freedom. Ben Kanahele recovered from his wounds and received the Medal for Merit and a Purple Heart.
In 2006, the story of the Niihau Incident was pieced together by the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum’s restoration expert for an exhibit, by interviewing people on the island and visiting the sites. The exhibit and what’s left of the deteriorated plane — parts of the engine, wings and fuselage — can be seen there today.