How life dramatically transformed for Hawaii’s civilians throughout WWII

By Tom Wilmer

Published February 1, 2022 at 9:17 PM PST

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All Hawaiian residents were issued gas masks shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor and a curfew remained in effect for most of WWII.

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 Marshall Law was declared. All U.S. currency was confiscated and Hawaiian war money issued in exchange and a curfew remained in effect for most of the war.

Unlike California coastal residents, surprisingly very few Hawaiian Japanese-Americans were interned.

Join correspondent Tom Wilmer for a visit with Bishop Museum historian DeSoto Brown to learn the rest of the story about life in the Hawaiian Islands during WWII.

This show was originally broadcast December 7, 2016 and is reposted as a "best-of-the-best" Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer broadcast in celebration of 32 years producing travel shows for NPR affiliate KCBX.

Life in Hawaii went on much as before the war but with the added dimension of nightly curfews.

Funding for Journeys of Discovery provided by Nashville's Big Back Yard economic initiative focused on rural communities in the southwest quarter of Tennessee and the Shoals Region of Northern Alabama.

You are invited to subscribe to the Lowell Thomas Award-winning podcast travel show, Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer, featured on the NPR Podcast Directory, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcast.