As we celebrate Independence Day on Saturday, I’m taking a look back to World War II, when we again had to fight for our independence and freedom.

Seventy-five years ago the war was coming to an end. This is the third article in a series I plan to write leading up to VJ Day — Sept. 2 — as a way of honoring those who served, or supported the war effort in Hawaii.

In December 1941 the Imperial Japanese Navy launched an attack on Hawaii. Pearl Harbor was the main target since most of our battleships were there.

However, the Japanese actually hoped our ships would have been anchored off Lahaina at what was called Lahaina Roads, said Capt. Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the Japanese air attack. Fuchida was interviewed by the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings Magazine in September 1952.

U.S. ships often had exercises south of Maui and then anchored at Lahaina Roads.

The day before the attack, a Japanese submarine reported that the “American Fleet is not in Lahaina anchorage.”

“If the Pacific Fleet was there, it would have offered our best chance for success,” Fuchida said. He knew ships sunk in deep water off Lahaina would never be refloated and repaired, unlike many of the ships in shallow Pearl Harbor.

Thus the focus shifted to Oahu. But all was not peaceful on the neighbor islands.

Japanese submarines attacked Hilo, Maui and Kauai, and a Japanese plane crashed on Niihau, where the pilot briefly fought with Hawaiians.

Valley Isle resident Kazu- ichi Hamasaki, who later served in the 442nd Infantry, told the Maui News in 2016 that he was glued to the radio Dec. 7 when he heard a loud explosion outside. Was Maui being bombed?

His brother, Tadayoshi, and he hurried to Kahului Harbor where they caught sight of a small Japanese submarine not far from the shore. It fired a projectile that landed in front of what is now the Maui Beach Hotel.

The Punahou football team was on Maui to play Baldwin High School the night of Dec. 7. The game was called off, and the team was stuck on Maui for 11 days.

John T. Goss of Honolulu said he was a senior at Punahou and was there to play their last football game of the season. Instead, he found himself “on the roof of Mr. Peters’ home in Wailuku, Maui, watching a Japanese submarine lob shells at the Puunene Sugar Mill.”

Historian Peter Young thinks up to nine Japanese submarines patrolled Hawaii waters for six weeks after the initial attack to “do what damage they could, as well as stir up concern in the civilian population about the war.” The populace worried a Japanese invasion was imminent.

A week later, on Dec. 15, another submarine fired several shells at Kahului Harbor, killing two chickens and causing minor damage to the Maui Pineapple cannery, wrote Charles Young in “Hawaii at War!” — a 1942 special edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Seven-year-old Michael Baldwin remembers seeing an orange flash and hearing a dull boom as the submarine fired on Kahului, about 3 miles east of the Baldwin family’s home in Spreckelsville.

“They put a cannon shell through the stack of the power plant behind the harbor, a lucky random shot as the stack could not have been visible,” Baldwin told the Maui News. “I remember how the smoke curled out of the two holes, about two-thirds up the stack.”

Another projectile crashed through the roof, and two landed on the front lawn of the Maui Pineapple Co., blowing out several windows and a second-floor water tank. A power line was severed during the shelling and stopped Maui Pineapple’s main clock at 5:51 p.m.

Other shells hit a driveway at the Maui Vocational School (now called UH Maui College) and a lumber pile near the pier, and another exploded in front of a fertilizer plant, all causing no damage.

The shelling could be seen from Central Maui and as far away as Kula.

In the early hours of Dec. 31, a Japanese submarine fired shells that landed harmlessly in Central Maui. U.S. coastal artillery at Kahului returned fire with a 75-mm shoreline cannon, according to John Clark’s “The Beaches of Maui County.”

At Nawiliwili Harbor on Kauai, a Japanese submarine surfaced and fired upon the island. Little damage was seen but nearby residents were terrified.

The night before, a submarine in Hilo Bay shelled fuel storage tanks at Kuhio Wharf. They missed, but a shed was damaged slightly.

Mac McMorrow remembers a sub opened fire on a radio tower near Keaukaha, north of Hilo, where his family lived. “The explosion was loud enough for my father to think they were landing in our backyard.”

A midget submarine ran aground in Waimanalo on Dec. 7, and its captain was captured — the first POW of WWII.

Their submarines were more successful at sea, sinking the freighter USS Lahaina and the transport ship General Royal T. Frank.

Stranded

Many people found themselves stranded by the events of Dec. 7 far from their homes.

The Saint Louis College football team was stranded on Kauai, where it had played an all-Army team on Dec. 6. Saint Louis won 39-0.

The Punahou football team I mentioned earlier was stuck on Maui for 11 days. Punahou assistant coach Tommy Miles made himself useful by volunteering with the Maui provisional police until he could return to Oahu. Team members dug trenches and stood guard duty.

All members of both teams secured transportation home by Dec. 19, but they returned to find Punahou had been taken over by Army engineers; classes were moved to the University of Hawaii.

Saint Louis College had been turned into a hospital, and younger students had to share St. Patrick’s School in Kaimuki. Older ones took the afternoon “shift” at McKinley High.

Two mainland football teams — San Jose State and Willamette University — were on Oahu to play UH and found themselves unable to leave as planned. Several players decided to stay in Hawaii, joining the police department.

The Hawaiian Electric basketball team was stranded in Hilo, where it had come to play the Hilo Electric Co. team. The 15 members of the Electrics stayed with their Hilo counterparts.

The Hilo team had won the Hilo Commercial League title, and the Oahu team was champs of the Honolulu Businessmen’s League, so the game would have been a “world series” of sorts.

The Hawaii Tourist Bureau estimated about 200 tourists were stranded in the islands.

Many locals on business or pleasure trips found themselves stuck on the wrong island. Most of them had enough clothing for only a short stay. They had to replenish their wardrobes at local stores. Several were interviewed at the Alexander Young Hotel downtown.

Hawaii was placed under martial law. People had to be home after dark, unless they had written permission, and homes were blacked out at night.

“Dinners aren’t the leisurely affairs they once were, and if you aren’t hungry between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m. (dinner hour nowadays at the Young), you’re out of luck for a hot meal,” one person said.

“Most of the guests go to their rooms and to bed as soon as it’s dark,” another remarked, “but others sit around in the darkened lobby and listen to the radio.”

Within a few weeks most were able to get back home.

Bases sprang up all over neighbor islands, and tens of thousands of troops were trained for action in the Pacific Theater. Neighbor islanders definitely felt they were part of the war effort.

Have a question or suggestion? Contact Bob Sigall, author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books, at Sigall@Yahoo.com.