Maui attack
Maui Attacked
I received this e-mail from a man who read my explanation that Pearl Harbor was not the only place attacked in Hawaii during WWII. He told me about his father, Morris Bushman's experience on Maui during that scary time. It's really quite fascinating. I read with interest your brief story of the attack on other islands of Hawaii following the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. My father, a mormon missionary assigned to Hawaii (ironically to learn Japanese and serve the Japanese people there)was on Maui the day of the attack. My father passed away December 8, 1991, but before his death, our entire family all traveled to Hawaii to relive his stories he told of those harrowing days following the attacks. While in Kahului, Maui, my father took us to the spot overlooking Kahului harbor. The morning of the attack, my father was in a church meeting on Maui. A small boy came running into the church yelling that Oahu was being attacked. My father mentioned that they could see the smoke rising from Oahu all the way from Maui. As soon as marshall law was established and black outs occurred at night, my father's mission president, Clark Clissold, who was also a commander in the US Navy immediately had all mormon missionaries volunteer as civil servants. While my father did missionary work during part of the day, in the afternoon, on Maui, he and his companion would split with the local police and go on patrol. One evening, about dusk, my father and the policeman and stopped and were out of their car overlooking Kahului harbor. As they were talking, they noticed a bright flash come from the harbor and then a corresponding explosion near the city. They grabbed their binoculars and could see Japanese sailors walking up and down the top of a sub about a 1/4 mile out in the harbor. They continued to shell the city. My father and the policeman radioed headquarters who immediately sent a military contingent out to check it out. As soon as they confirmed the attack, a Grumman Hellcat fighter, with its engines running was awaiting orders to take off from the nearby airport. They watched it come over the beach at tree top level heading towards the sub. The sailors were quickly jumping into the hatches as the submarine was submerging. The coning tower still above the surface, the fighter dropped an ash can nearby. It swung around, dropped another ash can, and as the sub disappeared out of site, the Hellcat came over again and straffed the surface with machine gun fire. Soon, the marines sent out soldiers to guard the harbor and were stationed about six yards apart around the entire harbor during the night to see if survivors came ashore. Meanwhile, my father and the policeman traveled into town to see what damage the sub had done. They found that it had hit a chicken coop, killing a couple of chickens, took a foot of track out of the local railroad, and had hit the juice room of the local pineapple factory, causing a minor flood of pineapple juice. The next morning, the Navy asked my father to come back down to the harbor to see if he could again determine the location he had spotted the submarine the evening before. Out in the harbor, a frigate was searching with divers. My father pointed out the area he believed he saw it and a radio man talked to the frigate to get it into position. They sent down divers and after about 20 minutes, word came back that the submarine was there with two holes in it. There were no survivors. My father, while understanding the necessity of the action against the sub, always felt badly for the families of those Japanese sailors who died in Kahului harbor, of which he had involvement. A big thank you to Craig Bushman, for sharing this story, and permission to reprint it -- Lisa |
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