Mohammad Salameh sat on a small stool in a several-foot-deep pit Monday,
laboriously uncovering the history of Honouliuli Internment Camp one small pile of dirt at a time.
Beneath his feet was the concrete slab of the mess hall for Compound 1, where Okinawans — including boys who were conscripted in their teens as laborers — as well as mainland Japanese were held as prisoners of war in rows of tents.
Opened in 1943 in a remote Kunia gulch, Honouliuli was a World War II civilian internment and prisoner of war camp that held about 400 internees and 4,000 POWs over the time of its use.
It was the largest and longest-used confinement site in Hawaii for Japanese-
Americans and residents of European ancestry arbitrarily suspected of disloyalty following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the National Park Service said.
The majority of Honouliuli’s civilian internees were Japanese-Americans who were citizens by birth. Honouliuli closed in 1945 for civilian internees and in 1946 for prisoners of war, and was bulldozed sometime after that.
Forgotten for years among Guinea grass, haole koa and scorching heat, Honouliuli was brought back to the public consciousness in part by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii.
The 160-acre site, which also has irrigation infrastructure from early-1900s sugar cane farming, was proclaimed a national monument by President Barack Obama in 2015.
While the treatment of Japanese-Americans in Hawaii differed from the treatment of those on the mainland, the proclamation noted “the legacy of racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and failure of political leadership during this period is common to the history of both Hawaii and the mainland United States.”
As the park service continues to plan for Honouliuli, students at the University of Hawaii at West Oahu taking a course in archaeological field techniques over the summer have been trekking out to the 160-acre site Monday through Friday from about 7 to 11:30 a.m. to uncover Honouliuli’s past.
Thirteen made the half-mile hike down to the former camp Monday.
Salameh, 24, was using a pick to remove dirt at the mess hall site that would be sifted for possible historical objects. Digs of various sizes dotted a clearing that was hacked out of chest-high Guinea grass.
Planning a career in forensic science, Salameh, who grew up in Hawaii, thought it would be a good idea to take the archaeology class. But the sense of history is there, too, he said.
“It makes you think … how long it took to get buried,” he said, adding it’s “humbling to know that this is part of that (World War II) history.”
After the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Oahu, government officials began selectively rounding up Hawaii residents of Japanese descent, including community leaders, teachers and priests.
Most were sent to the mainland to be held for the duration of the war. About 1,330 Japanese from Hawaii were interned.
Internee barracks were wooden buildings, and some photos showed neatly planted shrubs and trees. Boredom was oppressive, and internees worked on gardening, landscaping or crafts to pass the time.
The Kunia site also held enemy soldiers and labor conscripts from Japan, Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan and Italy.
Bill Belcher, an assistant professor in archaeology at UH West Oahu, said students from the class found the Compound 1 concrete floor under a couple feet of earth in 2016.
And while some might say “it’s just a concrete platform,” Belcher’s response is, “We’re uncovering something that nobody has seen in 70 years.”
Sabrina Gustafson, 32, a Mililani High School graduate taking the class, was sifting dirt dug up from the site for artifacts.
“To be in an area where our nation put people it believed were threats is really an important historical thing, and if we can bring any sort of honor or validity to their memory … it’s a privilege for us to be here,” she said.
Six students worked at the Compound 1 site while seven others were assessing features at Compound 5.
Jacqueline Ashwell, superintendent of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument and Honouliuli, said the park service is receiving $346,000 this fiscal year for work related to the site.
An overall planning document for Honouliuli’s future is expected to be completed this year. The park service needs to establish a public access road and infrastructure for visitor access, Ashwell said.
This year, in addition to the UH-West Oahu archaeological field school, the park service will enter a contract to retrace historic roads and footpaths through the camp, and is working on a natural resources survey to deal with the fast-growing Guinea grass without affecting critical wildlife, including pueo, Ashwell said.
