 Welcome back to the Human-Human-Architecture thing to comply. I'm your host, Mark Disping. The show today is called Bad Breathing. We're going to talk about the attack of pro-harbor and its effect on island architecture. My guest for today's discussion is Bishop Museum's historian, DeSoto Brown. Welcome to the show, DeSoto. Welcome to me. Thank you. The background of the matter is that in this little mini-series of island legacy, we look at how best practices from the past can inform future architecture. Today, however, in commemoration of the pro-harbor attack 75 years ago, we also look at how the worst practices, in this case here of post-attack blackouts, shaped the way of sheltering us on our islands. So, again, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. In the tradition of this little mini-series, we have professionally prepared lots of slides that illustrate what we're talking about. So, if we can get the first slide... Let's look at what we've got to show everybody. Dive-riding. That's not the first slide, I'm sorry to say. No. That's the first slide. Okay, well, as you said, we are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the pro-harbor attack. And we say that it was the pro-harbor attack because that was the focus of what the Japanese did that day. But, in fact, it was all of the military bases on the island of Oahu, even though pro-harbor bore the brunt of it. And although the Japanese focused on the military side of everything, there was damage to civilians, which, unfortunately, in most cases was from friendly fire from the United States, which, at the time, people didn't realize. But this attack, of course, changed everything. It changed everything internationally. It changed everything in the United States. It changed everything here in the Hawaiian Islands. And let's go to our next picture, because what we're going to see is one of the things that happened was barbed wire was put everywhere. And that was not only around certain buildings, important buildings, but military bases, military locations, but also along miles and miles of coastline. And because there were not enough military personnel to do that immediately, a lot of civilians had to participate and put up that barbed wire as well. And if we go to our next picture, we're going to see that even the famous beach at Waikiki was lined with barbed wire. And if you look in the background, in the center background, you can see the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. The Royal Hawaiian was taken over by the U.S. Navy. It was surrounded by barbed wire as well. It was only used by military personnel during that time. And if you look at this picture, you can see that stakes have been driven into the pavement of the sidewalk at Kuhio Beach to hold up all of that barbed wire, although they did leave some openings for people to be able to get to the beach, to get to the sand, and get to the ocean. And this was because they thought the Japanese might attack again. Well, because they thought there might be further attacks, if we go to our next picture, there was the need for sheltering people because they thought there might be more bombing raids. So if we go to our next photograph, you will see that the quickest, easiest way to shelter people was to dig trenches. And trenches like this for shelter were built or dug if they had equipment to do it. They did it, but otherwise, as you can see, people just got in there with shovels. All large open areas in parks, around schools, athletic fields, as well as this is a picture of the lawn at Central Union Church where had these trenches dug. And they were zigzag because a single line exposes you to more danger of shrapnel being hitting you, but a zigzag is more protective. That was not ideal. The better type of shelter, which we will see in our next picture, was an underground shelter. And most of these underground shelters were constructed the way this one was, which has just a wooden structure underground, a roof over it, and then they would pile dirt on top of that. So that's a bunker. That's a bunker. And it was not, however, bomb-proof because it was shrapnel-proof, but not bomb-proof. If they, for the places that they were able to do it in our next photograph, we'll see that they built concrete shelters. And this is, as you can see, an air raid shelter. It says so right there. It's got dirt on the top of it. It's got some ventilation shafts sticking up from it. And these were built not only on military bases, but also in public areas. And also all individual homeowners were required by martial law to construct, to dig their own personal shelters like that in the ground around their homes. Fortunately, none of this ever came to pass because the Japanese did not seriously attack the Hawaiian Islands. Again, there were some small attacks, but nothing major. But something that did affect everybody, as you said at the beginning, was the blackout. And from December 7th, 1941, through the summer of 1944, there was a blackout every single night. At the very beginning, it was very strict, and it went from sun down to sun up. So if you look at this schedule for January 1943, you see that at 7 p.m., your lights had to be out and you couldn't turn lights on again until 7.15. Well, it wasn't any point because the sun had come up at that point. And what this meant was that you could not show any lights outside of your home. And they were very strict to the point that you couldn't even walk around with a lit cigarette outside. And you could be arrested and taken to court immediately if you broke the blackout. So how do you live under conditions like that? Well, one thing that you could do, and we'll see that in the next photograph, is that if you had drapes, if you had curtains in your home already, you could cover up your windows with your curtains. The downside was that even curtains could not keep out all the light. And so what they had to do was in extreme cases, you either tacked up blankets or other type of fabric, you maybe even painted the window glass black. But if you did that, and this leads to what the point of our show is, if we go to our next picture, you'll see that the main problem was there was no ventilation. And this is in a time when, and this cartoon says, we languished half asphyxiated in blacked out rooms, non-ventilated. This is from a little book of cartoons about World War II in Hawaii. Very black humor. Black humor, exactly. Black out humor. Black out humor. And you could see that those people were all smoking cigarettes because that's what people did in those days. Well, what this meant people had to do was to figure out ways to create baffles over their windows so that you could have a little open space and get some ventilation, but the baffle would prevent the light from being able to get out to where people could see it. And this just came upon people with no warning. I mean, the attack was so sudden, people were so unprepared that suddenly, and it's hard to get supplies shipped out here, so suddenly you are in a situation, what do you do? Well, for a lot of people, you just turned the lights off and went to bed. But this meant that there was no nightlife. You couldn't go to people's parties, you couldn't go out and go to the movies or go to dinner or anything like that. It was a huge restriction. And this is, we always don't have enough time in every show which is a good problem to have. Right, right, right. We always come early and prepare down there in the lobby here. Yeah, right, that's right, that's right. We're talking about the even, you know, further history of when indigenous people before they discovered the oil of the cacuyo nuts being able to lit torches, which is then sort of then sort of pop-culturalized by the tiki torches, which is not the oil anymore, but it's a natural gas. A carousel, yes, right. Right, whatever. And so they used to do that, but their shelters were conducive to do that because they were either the open hollies or they were the more fully enclosed ones which we talked about still had porosity and insulation at the same time. And this is when you live in a solid walled home, you close all your windows, you have no ventilation. And there were no room air conditioners then. So you couldn't be pulling air in and cooling it off and clearing out the smoke. And the best you could do was an electric fan that might blow the air around, but all appliances were in short supply and after a while you couldn't buy fans anymore. So you live in a solid walled building and you have to keep the light from going outside. You're stuck. And it also changed the landscape in other ways significantly visually, right? It did. In our next picture you're going to see one of the things that happened in World War II. Camouflage. And this is the downtown Hawaiian electric power plant that's been painted with camouflage paint patterns. Now the question is, does that really make it impossible to see? No, it really doesn't. And there was debate at the time was camouflage really that successful? There wasn't as much camouflage done here as there was in, for example, on the west coast of North America where there were these immense factories that were making airplanes, for example. And they had to be disguised so that people flying over in an airplane couldn't look down and see that the factory was there. So they built, in some cases, these elaborate fake towns on top. I don't know if you've ever seen pictures. They're really astonishing. And they also used some camouflage netting, right? Camouflage netting was also used to a lesser extent but they did that for, in some cases, just to cover up individual airplanes that were parked so that they're not as easy to target. And there was also another, that's the next picture, even more surreal way to sort of fake situations. That's right. Well, in our next photograph, you're going to see something really unexpected. And this was started in Britain when the war in Europe started in 1939. They tried to, they put obstructions in large open areas. This is obviously Capellini Park at the foot of Diamond Head so that airplanes or gliders could not land. And they did it for golf courses and parks. In this case, they took junk cars and put them in the middle of this place so that you can't have an airplane come in. I don't think that lasted for that long. But again, you just, you know, putting junk cars in the middle of a park seems unbelievable. Especially in paradise. Exactly. Exactly. Now, as I mentioned, this was martial law, meaning that it was essentially a military dictatorship. And the military government just decreed, you're going to do this, you cannot do that. Well, they took over quantities of private property for whatever they needed. And in the next photograph, we'll see that this is a stockpile of lumber, which was very hard to get because the military was using most of these building supplies. This is next to the Alawai Canal, just Makai of Kalakawa Avenue. And you can see there was nothing built there then, which is astonishing. But the military could and just did use private property for its own uses. And they literally in some cases went on to property and said, you have a day to get out of here and we are taking it. And we may compensate you or we may not. Okay. We're taking a very short break here. Thank you. And then we're going to be back with DeSoto Brown and his report on badly breathing buildings. That's right. Thank you for watching Think Tech. I'm Grace Chang, the new host for Global Connections. You can find me here live every Thursday at 1 p.m., where we'll be talking to people around the islands or visiting the islands who are connected in various aspects of global affairs. So please tune in and Aloha and thanks for watching. Hi, I'm Kili Ikeena, President of the Grassroot Institute. I'd love you to join us every week Mondays at 2 o'clock p.m. for Ehana Kako. Let's work together. We report every week on the good things going on in our state as well as the better things that can go on in the future. We have guests covering everything from the economy, the government, and society. See you Mondays on Ehana Kako at 2 o'clock p.m. Until then, I'm Kili Ikeena. Aloha. Hi, I'm Stacey Hayashi with the Think Tech Hawaii show, Stacey to the Rescue, highlighting some of Hawaii's issues. You can catch it at Think Tech Hawaii on Mondays at 11 a.m. Aloha. See you then. We're back to DeSoto sharing with us the shocker and that reason necessary narrative about how the harbor attacked them. More important than aftermath, reform and change in the cultural landscape of living on the islands. Absolutely. And as I had said just before the break, the military took over whatever it needed and because it was bringing in so many huge numbers of people there needed to be buildings built quickly to house those people. So in our next picture, you will see an example of a military building. This is obviously because it says it's off limits to men. This is obviously for female military personnel like nurses. These very simple, quick wooden buildings were built and we were talking beforehand about how while on one hand they are very simple, there is a certain attractiveness to the simplicity of these buildings. Now, this is important because they weren't meant to be long lasting. They were meant to be put together fast. Even with all of the barracks, et cetera, that were constructed, there still wasn't enough room for people and a lot of civilian workers were coming to work for example at Pearl Harbor. So this is a photograph of two civilian defense workers who are sharing a rented screened porch of a private home and they're paying a good amount of money for that time to live in this little skinny room because there wasn't enough room for them in any other housing even with the military building as much as it could. Now, when I mentioned earlier too, the military taking over whatever it wanted. In our next picture, we're going to see an example of something that's really quite shocking, I think. Another very known public space. Exactly, an iconic public space. This is Thomas Square in the middle of Hodelulu which is not only a public park but a historic site in Hawaiian history. The military just walked right in and said, we need this space and they built buildings on it. That means that not only can the public not go to the park but it means that the park is also being damaged by buildings, trucks, et cetera that are being constructed there. However, I want to add because it reminds us of a current challenge we have which is our struggling with how can we sort of host and shelter all of us in an inclusive way. So we call this a homeless problem here. And once again, to your great point, well taken that these were very utilitarian structures that had no symbolic ambition, right? And when you go back to that picture, I saw some openings on both sides. So there was an attempt of natural ventilation. It was obviously not perfected or sophisticated but I have to say there is something to this structure. Yeah, this is basic, basic housing. But again, at the same time, this is in a climate in which we've got natural air movement and there didn't have to be insulation for extreme cold. So they could build this quickly and hope that natural ventilation would take care of whatever was necessary. Until the blockout came. And those people again, they're sitting in the dark. Yeah, and in the heat. In the heat, right. Okay, well, as I was saying, most of these things were very temporary. So where are they today? Well, if we look at our next picture, we're going to see that the really, in many cases, all that's left of these World War II buildings, in some cases, are the concrete foundations that were constructed for them. And this is next to Diamond Head Road and what used to be Fort Ruger at the base of Diamond Head. Fort Ruger is completely gone now. There's no military presence there anymore. But when I was a kid in the 1960s, the World War II buildings that used to stand on this particular slab were still there. Some in disrepair and others still in function. So I lived in a time when some of these things were still there and most of them are gone now. But there is one thing that's very World War II oriented. It's the Quonset Hut. And here's a picture of the Quonset Hut being constructed. Now, I'm not an architect, but we talked about this earlier. The Quonset Hut has going for it the fact that it's very simple. You set up those sort of ribs or those semi-circular metal strips and then you just put a covering over those. In most cases, I think corrugated metal and then you've got a building. And the Quonset Hut, I think, was actually invented by the British military. I'm not really sure about that, but it became spread all over the world by the American military during and after World War II. And you said that you remembered in Europe that there were Quonset Huts that were associated with the American military, understandably. And we're going to do a follow-up show on this one with our friend Bill Chapman who wants to talk about that. Excellent. As sort of an imported and then to be questioned, is it an invasive or is it an exotic building type? And it depends on the, I guess, interpretation of it. And I'm the architect. You said you're not and I am. And I'm also obligated to teach structures every now and then in my school. So yes, the Quonset Hut is the most efficient and effective way to basically build shelter. And that's why the military did it because they had this sort of the utilitarian approach to things, get things done fast and in a way with the least amount of material. And that is in fact something that is not that different to the means and methods and methodology of any indigenous culture in the world. The Eskimos, the Inus with the Iglus and here the native Hawaiians way back to Polynesians basically with their Hollies in different forms. Absolutely. So there's an interesting analogy to that coming from different backgrounds in different times. And cultures. But different today where symbolism is a big thing because of marketing and promoting and branding. Yeah, but you know what else too though? The Quonset Hut unintentionally is symbolic as well. And as you said, I mean, it was you associated it with the military and it became a symbol of the military even though nobody intended it to do that. Well, if we go to our next picture that one of the good things about the, you know, the Quonset Hut is easy to put up, etc. The downside is that the interior is a funny space. And in this picture which is taken at the Waipio Amphibious Operations Base at Pearl Harbor shows that the inside of a Quonset Hut has this funny, hard to manage space. But it also, possibly the most difficult thing was it was hard to build partitions inside of it because it wasn't rectangular. So on the right of this picture you see that there are offices or individual cubicles. They may not have even extended those walls up all the way to the ceiling. So if it was open on the top those cubicles really didn't have privacy. However, well, and before we even get to that also in our last picture which I see on the monitor there behind us is a picture of a surviving Quonset Hut today and this is on Queen Street. There are several Quonset Huts still in Cacaaco today. They are remnants of World War II. They were probably not put there by the military. After World War II people purchased surplus Quonset Huts put them up in some cases as businesses and other cases people actually lived in them and they got moved around to different places and they are remnants which if you look for carefully today. Now, if you look in the background you can see what the fate of this Quonset Hut is eventually going to be as Cacaaco is turned into a high-rise area. And that is interesting from a climatic, cultural, typological point of view that these were all Kamehameha schools called their part of Cacaaco our Cacaaco and salt is their main area, their core area and they allude back to there was a salt pit. Correct. That was long ago and but the architecture there was basically the indigenous stick frame, bone structure and fetched. That was then sort of been replaced and after the 1945 attack was basically this change to another utilitarian sort of typology to then sort of now be replaced with hermetic high-rises. So obviously we have not been, we have left sort of the easy breezy era a long time ago and then for different reasons that sort of ironically lead to the same thing that we have not opened up anymore and you could say that the hermetic glass high-rise only is more comfortable because on the expense of oil that we burn to basically chill it down because if you turn that chiller off it's going to be even more hot because it has a glass enclosure so you get an even more direct heat gain through the glass. And it's not unlike the blacked out homes which didn't have natural ventilation and without natural ventilation you either have got to have a machine blowing air or you suffer, you don't breathe well, bad breathing, name of the show today. The last thing that we're going to talk about though the last picture we have is an interior of a Quonset hut that looks a little bit different. If you didn't have to build partitions inside of it and you left the whole thing open like this is an officer's club again at the YPO amphibious operation space that open space actually isn't that bad. What we did talk about that can be a little bit difficult is that there's not a lot of insulation because if you just put that exterior corrugated metal and nothing underneath it you're going to get heat from the sun or if it's in a cold place it's going to be really cold. That picture we just saw did have an interior finish that would have provided some insulation and it didn't look quite so utilitarian. And you could, you make it a cool roof on the expense to add another layer and then there's airspace in between and as you see there are windows on the left side you could make windows perforations on the other side and you get cross ventilation. So maybe it's time to revisit these structures because we are here have a demand for housing and once again we choose this to be the last picture because it doesn't look that bad. It actually looks kind of nice. After World War II there were people as I said people who bought them Quonset huts at surplus did live in them and so I know people and I have a friend who her family moved here right after World War II and her father worked at the University of Hawaii and they lived in a Quonset hut at Punchbowl because that was the housing that could be provided at the time and at the time of course people longed to get out of a Quonset hut into a real house, a big square house but on the other hand when we talk about homeless housing etc. there are advantages to being able to ship the material quickly and put it up quickly. That's why Quonset huts were used by the military. Very much, very much. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. This actually brings us close to the end of the show, here on Think Tech we have enjoyed bringing it to you. I'm your host Martin Despang and my guest has been DeSoto Brown today. We've been talking about how Pearl Harbor affected local architecture and thanks to our senior production engineer Zuri Bender, our floor manager Robert McLean and all the people who work and care and contribute to Think Tech. If you want to see the show again please go to ThinkTechHawaii.com or YouTube.com slash Think Tech Hawaii where there will be a link to more shows just like this one. Think Tech, taking care of where community meets, content better every day and more perfect every moment. Thanks to your guests for participation and to your viewers for watching from below.