June has arrived, and I thought it might make an interesting topic for Rearview Mirror. So, today’s column is a collection of June events involving Hawaii people, places and organizations. Let’s take a look.
June 1, 1940
When I was a young man with a few dollars in my pocket to spend, Spencecliff Enterprises was the biggest restaurant chain in town. Spence and Cliff Weaver had more than 50 eateries in their portfolio, such as Tahitian Lanai, Queen’s Surf, the Ranch House, Coco’s, Kelly’s, South Seas and Fisherman’s Wharf.
The two brothers founded Spencecliff Enterprises on June 1, 1940. Forty years later, they had annual sales of more than $40 million and employed more than 1,700 people.
June 1, 1938
The most popular medical insurance provider in the state is Hawaii Medical Service Association. It was founded on June 1, 1938.
Margaret Catton, the head nurse at Queen’s Hospital, came to the Territorial Conference of Social Workers with a plan for “a community association of participating members who, through regular monthly dues, would share their medical costs among themselves.”
Three dollars a month provided a maximum of $300 in medical coverage in a year.
June 1, 1945
When I went to the University of Hawaii in the early 1970s, a popular restaurant and bar was Kuhio Grill, on King Street near University Avenue. We’d order beers for 50 cents and leave a generous tip. A few minutes later, the waitress would leave a plate of pupu on the table. The more we tipped, the better the pupu. I had never seen anything like it.
Kuhio Grill was founded on June 1, 1945, by Mark Miyashiro, who was known to his friends as Miya-san.
“Kuhio Grill quickly became known as a place where university students and artists could find encouragement, jobs or enough free pupus to make a meal, even if they could buy only a single beer,” his 1973 obituary said.
“Miyashiro was particularly sympathetic to young and hungry artists. He attended their shows, bought their paintings and displayed them proudly in his restaurant. The artists included Tadashi Sato, Bob Ochikubo, Satoru Abe and Bumpei Akaji.”
Sato recalled that Miyashiro went to all of the artists’ shows. “In my case, he’d pick out the largest, most expensive painting and buy it. I’d tell him no, it’s too big. It won’t fit in the restaurant. But he’d go ahead and buy it anyway, because he knew I needed the money.
“It was people like him who made an artist’s life bearable.”
June 4, 1942
World War II began for the United States on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan launched a daring attack on our military bases and battleships.
Less than six months later, Japan planned an attack on Midway Island, 1,200 miles to the west of Oahu. Code breakers at Pearl Harbor deciphered their messages and anticipated the Midway attack, and Adm. Chester Nimitz was able to strengthen our forces and take them by surprise, historian Alan Lloyd said.
We sunk four of their aircraft carriers, turning the tide of war in our favor. If we had lost that battle, military planners anticipated a possible Japanese invasion of Oahu. Residents near the coasts of Oahu were asked to make plans to move further mauka if necessary.
Winning the Battle of Midway certainly shortened the war by months, if not years.
June 8, 1955
Camp H.M. Smith in Halawa Heights came into being on June 8, 1955. It’s the headquarters of the Marine Forces Pacific, the United States Indo-Pacific Command and Special Operations Command Pacific.
In 1942, the Navy needed hospitals during World War II and purchased land that had been sugar cane fields. It opened the 5,000-bed Aiea Naval Hospital. It treated over 40,000 wounded just in 1944.
After the war, the hospital closed in 1949 and the land sat idle. “General Holland M. ‘Howlin’ Mad’ Smith came up and looked at it. He decided this was what he wanted for the home of the (Fleet Marine Force Pacific) headquarters,” said Robert Stubbs, a historian for Pacific Command.
The Marine HQ had been at Pearl Harbor before that. It was renamed on June 8, 1955, in honor of Smith, the first commanding general of Fleet Marine Force Pacific.
June 8, 1947
What time is it? Time zones for Hawaii and the U.S. are standardized, but 100 years ago, that was not the case. In Hawaii, each plantation manager wanted their own unique time and didn’t want to collaborate with neighboring plantations.
The world was simpler then, and it didn’t matter if local time varied from place to place.
Before 1947, Hawaii was 2 hours, 29 minutes earlier than the west coast, historian Lloyd told me. When it was noon in Los Angeles, it was 9:31 a.m. in Honolulu.
On June 8, 1947, Hawaii’s Legislature set Hawaii Standard Time to conform with Pacific Standard Time, setting it three hours behind PST. It went into effect at 2 a.m. that day.
June 8, 1963
President John F. Kennedy flew into Honolulu on June 8, 1963. He selected the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting that week in Waikiki to announce his new civil rights bill for America.
Kennedy spoke to a crowd that greeted him at Honolulu Airport. The racial harmony found in Hawaii was an example that the rest of the country should follow, he said. “This island state represents all that we are, and all that we hope to become.”
June 11
On June 11, we celebrate the king who united the islands. How was June 11 chosen? We don’t know his actual birth date.
The King Kamehameha Celebration Commission said, “originally, the idea was to hold an event to mark the legacy of Lot Kapuaiwa (Kamehameha V) on his birthday, Dec. 11.
“Being the humble chief that he was, Lot opted to honor his grandfather instead, and pushed the holiday as far away from his own birthday as possible, hence the arbitrary date of June 11.”
On June 11, 1872, the very first Kamehameha Day holiday was celebrated.
Some Oahu events this year include: Lei draping on the Kamehameha statue across from Iolani Palace on June 13 from 2:30 to 5 p.m. and the 108th King Kamehameha Celebration Floral Parade on June 14 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The King Kamehameha Celebration Floral Parade on Kauai will take place on June 14 from 9 to 10 a.m.
June 14, 1925
On June 14, 1925, Duke Kahanamoku and some of his surfing pals were having a beach party in Corona Del Mar, Calif. A fishing boat, the Thelma, was attempting to come into the harbor.
Duke Kahanamoku, who was 34 at the time, described what happened. “Big green walls of water were sliding in from the horizon, building up to barnlike heights, then curling and crashing on the shore.”
Duke saw a mountain of solid green water curled down upon the vessel. The Thelma capsized and threw her 29 passengers into the sea.
“Neither I nor my pals were thinking heroics; we were simply running — me with a board, and the others to get their boards — and hoping we could save lives,” he said.
Eight were rescued by Duke and his surfboard, and four others by his friends. Seventeen died. “Without the boards, we would probably not have been able to rescue a single person,” Duke said.
Word of the rescue spread, and soon lifeguards began using surfboards for lifesaving purposes. In the 100 years since that day, it’s estimated that surfboards have saved millions of lives.
June 23, 1937
Beginning in the 1920s, a wave of fascination with Hawaii swept the United States. From the mid-1930s until the 1960s, Hawaiian- and Polynesian-themed showrooms, restaurants and bars sprang up around the country. Nearly every large city had one.
The first was at the Lexington Hotel in midtown Manhattan, N.Y., which opened a Hawaiian Room on June 23, 1937.
More than 500,000 people dined there in its first two years and the room grossed more than $1 million (more than $15 million today).
The success of the Hawaiian Room created copycats in San Francisco, Hollywood, Chicago, Denver, Buffalo, Cleveland, New Orleans, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale and even London, Tokyo and Mexico City.
Los Angeles has had more than 50 tiki bars and restaurants in the last 100 years.
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Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
