Two weeks ago, I wrote about the neighbor islands and World War II as part of an ongoing series commemorating the end of the war 75 years ago. Hilo, Kauai and Kahului were fired upon by several Japanese submarines in island waters, causing little damage.

In the article, I mentioned a transport ship, the Royal T. Frank, that was sunk by a Japanese sub between Maui and Hawaii island, but I didn’t go into detail.

An anonymous reader said, “It was the largest loss of life of local troops in Hawaii at the time and kept a secret for decades, so no one knew the magnitude of the tragedy.

“Those killed are still MIA to this day and my hope is that the deep water explorers who located the USS Nevada, just recently, will look for the Royal T. Frank.

“They deserve to be found and not forgotten.”

The ship was named for Royal Thaxter Frank (1832-1908), who was an 1858 West Point graduate. He served in the Civil War and the Spanish-American War.

The tragedy took place on Jan. 28, 1942, journalist Peter von Buol wrote in Maui Magazine.

A Japanese submarine came across the Royal T. Frank transporting Big Island soldiers home from Oahu. It fired.

Two torpedoes missed, but a third hit and the Frank sank in less than a minute, von Buol said. Thirty-four lives were lost. Their families were not told about the cause of death.

Thirty-six were thrown or jumped in the water. They were picked up later by another ship and taken to a hospital and gym in Hana, where other soldiers stood guard, as if they were prisoners. The survivors were treated, flown back to Oahu and told not to talk about it.

Nine Big Island survivors called themselves the Torpedo Gang. They all went on to serve throughout the war and most joined the highly decorated Japanese- American 442nd Regimental Combat Team. All survived the war and held gatherings afterward to remember those who had died.

The wreck of the Frank has never been found.

In 2000, for the first time, the 17 soldiers from Hawaii who died and the nine local survivors were honored at a public ceremony in Hilo. A granite memorial at Hawaii Veterans Cemetery #1 was dedicated to these early Hawaii casualties of WWII — 58 years after the Frank was sunk.

Hannibal Tavares

Waikiki resident Jim Kelly sent me an interesting story and I’ve yet to get to the bottom of this Maui mystery.

“There was a story I heard years ago that is great, but needs some verification,” he told me.

“The story goes that in 1941, as part of the Japanese attack, a submarine surfaced and fired a few rounds near Hana with little damage.

“The Hana police sergeant was terrified, thought an invasion was about to happen, and soon disappeared.

“In Wailuku, a replacement officer, one Hannibal Tavares. was dispatched to take charge at Hana. Law and order was maintained.

“There were no more subs, but Tavares after a time married (despite unenthusiastic parents of the bride) a young woman of local Japanese ancestry.

“As time went on, Tavares rose in the Maui police, became a school teacher, and was elected mayor of Maui.

“Mayor Tavares was a great character and accomplished many things. One was chairing the commission that returned Kahoolawe to the state in the early 1990s” after decades of military target practice, Kelly concludes.

“All (partly) because of the submarine shelling of East Maui!”

It’s an interesting story, but is it true? I spent the past week looking into it.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser archives and other online sources did not reveal a Japanese submarine shelling Hana. The Hana public library knew nothing about it, nor did a local resident it recommended.

But the resident, Bill Sides, said the Hana Buddhist Church near the shoreline was painted green to blend in with the scenery during the war in case a Japanese sub thought it looked like a good target.

I found an oral interview with Hannibal Tavares and he said he was a rookie Maui cop in February 1942 when the chief, George Larsen Jr., called him into his office. He was appointed as Hana District Commander as of that day, promoted to sergeant, and told to report there immediately. He had never been to Hana before.

Tavares’ interview shed no light on what happened to his predecessor or if a Japanese sub was involved.

Maybe the Japanese sub in the story had not shelled Hana, but had sunk the Royal T. Frank. The survivors were taken to Hana.

I called the Maui Police Department. I prefaced my question to Sgt. Ka Ena Brown in community relations by saying, “This is probably the strangest question asked of you today.”

I told her what I was looking for and asked who Tavares replaced and why he left. She said it’s the strangest question she’d been asked this YEAR!

She called back 30 minutes later and said she found that Tavares’ predecessor in Hana was Eleno Suiso, but had no idea why he left. It may have been medical, she theorized. Maui Police personnel records don’t go back that far, she said.

I found Eleno Suiso in our newspaper archives. He was born in Cebu, the Philippines, became a citizen in 1937 and Hana’s first district police commander. He died in 1965 on Oahu, where he had moved. I could find nothing about why he left his Hana post so abruptly.

Hannibal Tavares’s daughter, Charmaine, told me she knew nothing about why her dad was sent to Hana, where she was born.

Her dad was Portuguese and her mom was Japanese, and there were a few family “concerns” with their relationship, she said. Charmaine was Maui mayor from 2007 to 2011.

Harry Hasegawa was born in 1934. His father, Saburo, founded Hasegawa General Store in Hana in 1910. I gave him a call.

He remembers seeing survivors from the Royal T. Frank at the Hana school gym in 1942. They were wet and covered in tar, he said, but did not look like they were treated as POWs.

Hasegawa didn’t recall a submarine firing on Hana, but DID remember there were fears about Japanese subs or an invasion, and regular patrols kept a lookout for them. None were seen.

George Larsen Jr, who was Maui chief of police at the time, wrote a short paper about the police on Maui and World War II. He doesn’t mention Hana, Japanese subs or the Royal T. Frank, but as von Buol pointed out, the latter was a military secret at the time.

So, back to Kelly’s question: No, I don’t think Hana was shelled by a submarine.

Tavares replaced Suiso on one day’s notice, less than a month after the Frank’s survivors were brought to Hana, and two months after the war began, so I suspect a connection. However, I found no evidence of misconduct on his part. Maybe it was medical.

At this time, it’s a mystery to me.

Readers, what’s your take on this? What do you think happened? Will we ever solve this Maui mystery?

The Rearview Mirror Insider is Bob Sigall’s now twice-weekly free email newsletter that gives readers behind-the-scenes background, stories that wouldn’t fit in the column, and lots of interesting details. Join and be an Insider at RearviewMirrorInsider.com. Mahalo!