Biden Honors Hawaiians Who Served On Remote Pacific Islands
The U.S. sent 135 men before and during World War II to secure land claims.
The White House has posthumously honored the service and sacrifice of members of Hui Panal膩驶au and renamed the Pacific Remote Islands National Marine Monument as the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.
About 135 mainly Native Hawaiian men, many students or graduates of the then-Kamehameha Schools for Boys, were sent between 1935 to 1942 by the U.S. government to live and work on the remote, uninhabited Howland, Baker, Jarvis, Enderbury and Canton islands.
The main purpose of the mission, according to a press release Monday from U.S. Rep. Ed Case of 贬补飞补颈驶颈, “was to perfect U.S. claims to the islands” as World War II closed in on the Pacific. Of the group, several became ill and three died on the islands including in an attack by Japan the day after Pearl Harbor.”
Today, Baker, Howland and Jarvis along with the U.S. remote Pacific possessions Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Palmyra Atoll and Wake Atoll are part of what was previously known as the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
In his , President Joe Biden renamed the monument to recognize “not just its environmental significance but its deep cultural heritage both recently through the Hui Panal膩驶au but as an ancestral voyaging pathway and interrelationship for the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific.”
Case, who has advocated for the preservation and enhancement the area, said in a statement, 鈥淚 am very grateful to President Biden for finally formally recognizing the very difficult assignment carried out by the Hui Panal膩驶au in this all-but-forgotten key chapter of our nation鈥檚 Pacific history. That this mission was successful then and now is a great credit to their commitment and sacrifice.”
