DESCRIPTION:
Army Corps of Engineers - Discussion of WWII Military Training and Unexploded Ordnance in Windward Oahu - Kevin Pien

74 years after the bombing of Bellows and Mokapu, some old-time residents of Kailua - tucked safely between - can still remember the dawning of that fateful Sunday morning. A few of them will be present on the afternoon of December 6 to share their eye-witness accounts of not only that far-off “day of infamy,” but the several years following when Kailua was literally taken over by things military.

The primary fabric for this collective memory will come in the form of carefully preserved letters written by a loving and concerned mother to her college-student son on the mainland. Anne Powlison wrote faithfully to 19-year-old Peter about her choice observations of the war from the vantage of the “Hilltop House” at Lanikai’s entrance. Snippets of these priceless documents will be shared in public for the first time, read by granddaughter, Cosette Harms.

Away from the shoreline, in the tropical environment of upper Maunawili, the Army’s Pali Training Camp (1943-45) was expressing itself in numerous and significant ways. “Tent City” as it came to be called, housing some 3,000 – 5,000 soldiers, will be remembered, along with their warfare training activities, involving tanks, Jeeps, a bakery and even a POW camp. The Army Corps of Engineers will be present to describe some of this experience . . . including their continuing efforts to safely remove unexploded ordnance, still being found in Maunawili Valley.