So...........My day joined the Navy in 1939 and ended up washing out of pilot school because he had ear infections when he was a kid. He then got attached to the Battleship Oklahoma when it was still based with the rest of the Pacific fleet in San Diego. The fleet then transferred over to Pearl Harbor in 1940. On December 7th he was forced to jump from a rapidly sinking ship (rolled over upside down) about 15 minutes after the first torpedo hit the Oaklahoma. He got so much fuel oi in his eyes that he was in the hospital for 4 months. He then got sent to Barbers Point Naval Air Station to repair damaged airplanes (remember he had a few weeks of flight training and was technically an aircraft rate because he was assigned to the float planes that were flown off catapults from those battleships. He had also been promoted while on the Oklahoma to seaman first class so now with all the new arrivals in the navy since the was started and he being in the navy for going on 3 years they made him a petty officer the first day. He told me he was the only person in his repair division other than a brand new pilot, who was the commanding officer, who had ever touched an airplane before.
After a few months of trying to fix broken planes (they did get one off the ground once) he got reassigned to an anti-submarine squadron. where he spent the rest of the war. By 1945 he as a Chief and at a point by the time he retired he was the longest-servicing Chief in the Navy, He served 22 years.
So Maui................. The sub patrols they flew started on Oahu flew down to Maui and landed at a dirt airfield called Airport Beach on the west side of Maui where they refueled and sometimes rearmed then flew back to Barbers Point on Oahu. He did this hundreds of times as a radioman rear gunner and assistant navigator in several aircraft types during the war. He took me to Pearl Harbor as well as Maui when I was a teenager and showed me the dirt field where he landed so many times. It was just a flat field overgrown with bushes when I was there the first time.
As the years went by I went back to Maui so many times that I have lost count. My daughter went three times before she was a year old and that is a long story by itself. I even bought a condo at Kaanapali Beach which is about two miles north of the fire-burned area. My wife and I went there on our honeymoon, My daughter learned to surf there when she was about 8 years old and scuba-dived when she was 14.
When my wife's second daughter ( first husband) was killed in an auto crash her ashes were put on the Ocean at Papaaua Beach Park which is south of Lahania about 8 miles and just past where the fire stopped. Lahania is between the Condo and our special beach, We even watched a baby whale being born along that same stretch of beach.
We even came VERY close to buying a 3-acre lot to build a second home just a mile or so south of there once in Launiupoko. That's where the fire pretty much ended. Oh god, that was a really a special place up on the side of the mountain with Lanai right across the ocean out what would have been the front door with the sun setting in the west. Really really perfect.
And the town of Lahani was really my/our home where our soul lived. Just perfect. Mai tai s at Kimos, diving with the Pacific Whale Foundation off their sailboat, Drinkin and dancing at the Pioneer Inn to all hours.................. Just a perfect place. I went over there once between marriages and stayed for almost a month. Didn't shave, wore the same pair of shorts for days, and just flip flops and t-shirts for weeks. I even turned down a job offer tending bar at the Pioneer Inn. The bartender said I had become a native and I needed a job so you can start right now if you want...................Damn near did!
All gone now.........................................................................................................
