Author Description

DECEMBER 7, 1941(A Week of Terror)byGary SorkinWritten in the narrative by the great grand-niece of Hawai'is most renowned Historian during the Reign of the Kamehameha Dynasty, Tere Tremaine Fase, author of December 7, 1941, (A Week of Terror), has lived up to the reputation of her famous ancestor, David Malo, author of Hawaiian Antiquities. Her extensive research into the history of the island of Ni'ihau, the smallest of the inhabited islands in the State of Hawai'i, provided her with answers to the mystery that for more than a Century, was known as the 'forbidden' island. Beginning with the discovery of the islands in 1778 by Captain James Cook, the author introduces brief histories of the first Rulers of Hawai'i, Kamehameha-I, through Kamehameha-V. She writes especially of the wisdom of the young King, Kamehameha-III who, at the age of eleven, was proclaimed King of the Hawaiian Nation. In her book, she describes in minute detail the terror that wreaked havoc on the island of Ni'ihau after Shigenori Nishikaichi, a pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy, crashed his A6M2 Mitsubishi warplane in the village of Pu'uwai on the early morning of December 7, 1941. Realizing that important papers given to him by his Superiors were removed from his flight jacket, he threatens to kill every man, woman, and child on the island if the documents were not immediately returned. The author ends with her description of the tragic account of the pilot's death at the hands of Ben Kanahele; the suicide of Yoshio Harada, the overseer of the island of Ni'ihau; and the riskseveral of the village men agree to take, knowing they might not be successful in their determination to reach the island of Kaua'i where Aylmer Robinson, owner of the island of Ni'ihau made his home. Ignoring his orders that the island's sampan boats that shipped their cattle to Freighters waiting off-shore were not to be used for personal travel, the men prepared themselves for the dangers they knew lay ahead.Forming a