Hawaii - James Michener [505]
THE MOST subtle effect of the war fell upon Hoxworth Hale, who was only forty-three when it began. Of course he volunteered immediately, reminding the local generals of his World War I experience, but they replied that he was essential to H & H, many of whose activities tied in with military requirements. He was therefore not allowed to rejoin the army. Later, when he heard that a group of Yale men were organizing a submarine outfit, he fought to get into that, feeling that he was well fitted for submarine duty, but the navy rather stiffly pointed out that the Yale men involved were more nearly his son s age than his. He therefore had to stay in Honolulu, where he worked closely with Admiral Nimitz and General Richardson, making a substantial contribution to the war effort. Along with his other duties he served as head of the draft board and chairman of the Office of Civilian Defense.
In the former capacity he was pleased at the forthright manner in which young Japanese in Hawaii volunteered for military duty, and thought that the Army's arbitrary rejection of the boys was unwarranted, and he wrote to President Roosevelt to tell him so: "I can speak of first-hand knowledge, sir, and these Japanese boys are among the most loyal citizens you will find in the nation. Why can't you order your people to form a combat team composed of Japanese intended for use in Europe only?"
On the other hand, he was distressed that so few Chinese stepped forward to bear arms in defense of America. "If they don't volunteer," he stormed one day, "I shall direct our draft boards to flush them out with cyanide of potassium. Where are they all?" When he had civil authorities look into the matter, he found that most of them were out at Pearl Harbor, and he asked Admiral Nimitz, "Do you mean to tell me that all those Chinese boys are essential to the war effort?" He was surprised when Nimitz looked into the matter and reported curtly: "Yes. We've got to have somebody out there who can use slide rules."
In early 1942 the air corps asked Hoxworth to join a group of senior officers who were flying to various South Pacific islands to study the possibilities for new airstrips, and he of course quickly consented, for with his wife in a depressed spell during which she could not converse intelligently, with his daughter in a mainland school, and his son in the air corps, he had no reason to stay at home, and the pleasure he got from climbing into uniform, with the simulated rank of colonel, was great.
His military contribution to the journey of inspection was not significant, but his sociological observations were of real import, and whenever the PBY started to descend at bases like Johnston Island, or Canton, or Nukufetau, and he saw from the cramped windows the crystal lagoons and the wide sweep of sand upon reef, he recalled all that one of his ancestors, Dr. John Whipple, had written about the tropics, and he was able to instruct the air corps men on many points. When he first stepped upon an atoll reef he had the peculiar sensation that he had come home, and although for years he had forgotten the fact that he was part-Polynesian, that ancient ancestry came flooding back upon him, and often while the officers were inspecting possible landing areas, he would remain upon the reef, looking out to sea, and long-submerged components of his blood came surging before his eyes, and he could see canoes and voyagers.
But these were not the subtle influences of which I spoke. They began when the PBY landed on Suva Bay, in the Fiji Islands. Hoxworth climbed into a small British boat and went ashore to meet the governor, a proper Englishman with an American wife, and the visit started out like any normal wartime trip to an island that might soon be