Memorial Day started out as Decoration Day, according to the National Cemetery Division of the U.S . Department of Veterans Affairs, beginning with spontaneous efforts to decorate the graves of Civil War soldiers during the later years of that conflict. “The first national Decoration Day celebration took place a few weeks after the [Grand Army of the Republic] promulgated its G.O. 11, on May 30, 1868, at Arlington National Cemetery, VA,” the agency explains.
The holiday was set to take place in May, in the spring, because flowers would be at their freshest and most plentful.
It has since evolved into Memorial Day, commemorating all those lost in all of America’s wars. We know that, in the abstract. But what if you wanted to be more specific, and remember the service men and women from Hawai‘i who laid down their lives for our nation? What if you wanted to know their names?
Here are online resources where you can find those very names.
Civil War
Since this holiday originated in the Civil War, we should point out that more than 100 citizens from the Kingdom of Hawai‘i served in that war. A 2020 Civil Beat article goes into the details, including the fact that details are actually hard to come by.
King Kamehameha IV had declared the Kingdom neutral but men were drawn to fight for the Union, including Native Hawaiians and missionary descendants who identified with New England and the cause of ending slavery. No one seems to know exactly how many of them died in the war, but it is known for a fact that they included Henry Ho‘olulu Pitman, who died at the age of 17 in a Confederate prisoner of war camp.
World War I
A plaque at the Waikīkī Natatorium War Memorial lists 101 people from the Territory of Hawai‘i who perished in that war. All their names are transcribed here, including men who served in U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and who died serving Great Britain.
A full, searchable database of everyone who served for the United States in WWI can be found at this Roll of Honor.
A great deal of research and history was compiled not long ago, for the 2018 centennial commemoration of the end of WWI. The Hawai‘i page of that national remembrance lives here.
World War II
In 1949, the University of Hawai‘i Press published “In Freedom's Cause: A Record of the Men of Hawai‘i Who Died in the Second World War,” by Thomas D. Murphy. It names all 806 “of Hawai‘i’s sons [who] gave their lives while serving in the armed forces of the United States during the Second World War.”
Notably, this exhaustive book contains a photo and brief biography of each man and can be found online in its entirety here.
You might be thinking, “Wait a minute, I thought many more people than that died on Dec. 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor."
You’d be correct. The UH Press book is specifically concerned with people from Hawai‘i who died throughout World War II. The 2,390 military and civilians who were killed here on Dec. 7 included people from across America. Complete casualties lists for that terrible day in Hawai‘i is online at Pearl Harbor National Memorial site.
Korean War
You’ll find 401 names at the National Archives site, U.S. Military Fatal Casualties of the Korean War for Home-State-of-Record: Hawai‘i.
Vietnam War
Here’s the corresponding page at the National Archives for U.S. Military Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War for Home-State-of-Record: Hawai‘i, with 275 names.
We also found other lists for the Vietnam War with slightly different totals. This 2011 Hawai‘i News Now article says 276 fallen heroes for Hawai‘i
This virtual memorial wall gives 285 names for Vietnam, sorted by neighborhood.
If you subscribe to Newspapers.com, you can read a September 24, 1990 list published in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, covered those killed or missing in action for both the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
Up to the Present
For those lost in 21st-century conflicts, since 2001, you can search a database of 2,347 names by name, date, conflict, home state and home town at the MilitaryTimes.com, in the Honor the Fallen feature.
There you’ll find 43 who hailed from Hawai‘i. The most recent of these was Chief Warrant Officer 2 Kirk Fuchigami Jr., who was 25 when he died on Nov. 20, 1019, “in a helicopter crash while providing security for troops on the ground in Afghanistan's Logar province.”
A. Kam Napier can be reached at kam@alohastatedaily.com.
