War Touched Isolated Island -- Hawaiian Killed Downed Japanese Pilot 6 Days After Pearl Harbor Attack

HONOLULU - Six days after the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States won what some call its first victory of World War II when a downed Japanese pilot was killed while terrorizing residents of an isolated island.

The affair became known as the Battle of Niihau.

Unable to make it back to his aircraft carrier on Dec. 7, 1941, Shigenori Nishikaichi landed his crippled Zero fighter on the small, privately owned ranching island of Niihau, about 100 miles northwest of Honolulu. About 180 people lived there at the time.

Five days later, the armed pilot began terrorizing the island's residents. On Dec. 13, 51-year-old Benehakaka "Benjamin" Kanahele, who was shot three times, slammed the pilot into a stone wall and crushed his skull.

Kanahele, who recovered, was commended by President Roosevelt and later was awarded the Medal for Merit and the Purple Heart by the Army. He died in 1962. Another islander, Hawila Kaleohano, was commended for disarming Nishikaichi soon after his plane landed on the island.

Although he didn't know about the attack on Pearl Harbor, Kaleohano knocked a pistol out of the pilot's hand, dragged him out of the plane and found his papers, according to the Army.

There were no telephones or radios on Niihau, so residents lit signal fires to alert residents of Kauai Island, 15 miles away. The military, believing Japanese ships were in the area, wouldn't allow a civilian boat to make the crossing.

Various accounts differ on whether Nishikaichi was held prisoner or allowed to roam. It's known that by Dec. 12 he had enlisted the aid of Yoshio Harada, a Japanese American, and forced Japanese alien Ishimatsu Shintani to assist him, according to the Army account carried Dec. 19, 1941, in The Honolulu Advertiser.

Sent by Nishikaichi, Shintani offered Kaleohano a bribe for the pilot's papers and gun. Kaleohano refused.

An hour later, Harada and Nishikaichi, using a shotgun to hold a Hawaiian youth hostage, approached Kaleohano's home. Kaleohano hid while they recovered the pistol, but not the papers.

Nishikaichi and Harada rounded up several Hawaiian men and forced them to carry the Zero's machine gun back to the village.

"They went through the village, shooting off their guns and taking prisoners," the Army report said.

Early Dec. 13, they captured Kanahele and his wife, Ella.

Kanahele lunged for the pilot's gun, and Nishikaichi fired three times, hitting Kanahele in the chest, hip and groin.

"Then I got mad," the muscular Hawaiian said. "I picked up the flier and threw him against the stone wall and knocked him cold."