Kalaheo Tunnels

I%26#39;ve heard from a number of people that there were tunnels and underground shelters dug in and around Kalaheo during WW2 used by our troops. There was a concern that Japan would invade Kauai. Does anyone know anything about these and were they are located? Can they be toured?

Kalaheo Tunnels

Aloha from Kaua%26#39;i!

I have never heard of this at all -- and I work part-time at the Kaua%26#39;i Museum too where you hear all kinds of interesting things like this!

I know about the ';hole in the mountain'; over on A+B land between Koloa and Lihu%26#39;e (they use it now for ATV tours) but never heard about these.

Anyone else?

Malama Pono,

Janet

Kalaheo Tunnels

nope. Never heard of any bunkers.

We have a WWII concrete observation bunker near our house but it%26#39;s about 4 ft X 4 ft and fallling in. Not much to see.

Aloha from Kaua%26#39;i!

Here is an excerpt from our newspaper from a couple of years ago talking about the discovery of a World War II internment Camp for Japanese-Americans in Kalaheo.

';United States Government archeologists and leaders of an O%26#39;ahu based Japanese cultural group searching for Kaua%26#39;i%26#39;s lost World War II internment camp for Japanese-Americans may have hit pay dirt Saturday.

Deep in the jungles and in heavy rains, archeologist Jeff Burton, his wife and assistant Mary Farrell, an archeologist with the U.S. Forest Service, members of the Japanese Cultural Center of O%26#39;ahu and interested residents of Japanese descent found three concrete slabs within a quarter mile of each other.

The significance? Because the slabs could be the foundations for a military barracks, a mess hall and a latrine, the three structures identified in historical documents that made up the ';Kalaheo Stockade';.

Historical documents also chronicle relentless mosquito attacks on the occupants of the stockade, 50 American troops who had committed offenses, and Japanese Americans from Kaua%26#39;i.

';This is all very promising'; said a beaming Farrell. ';The evidence points to it.';

';.......Japanese Americans were put there because they were perceived to be a threat to U.S. national security after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Burton, Farrell and others from the Japanese Cultural Center came to Kaua%26#39;i two weeks ago and checked out the grounds of the Medeiros Farms chicken operation in hopes of locating the stockade, based on the remembrances of Toraichi Marugame, 88, of Lihu%26#39;e. Marugame was a 24 year old detainee at the camp in 1942, and was confined there because he was a Japanese radio announcer for KTOH, Kaua%26#39;i%26#39;s first radio station. He was released after three months of incarceration.';

';Though he swears the Medeiros Farms area was the site of the stockade, no traces of it could be found there.';

';............The discovery of the first slab came after a grueling hike over muddy roads. They were tired and wet when they found a worn and pitted cement foundation that, in places, rose three feet from the ground. Heavy vegetation covered the surface.';

';.........Farrell and others speculated the slab could have supported a warehouse, partly because five areas along the slab looked as if they had been fitted with wide doors years ago.';

Interesting, no? I had no idea anything like this existed in Kalaheo!

Malama Pono,

Janet