Graves at missile range get Kauai talking story
By Tom Finnegan
The sugar plantation town of Mana, the westernmost camp on Kauai, has not existed since the 1980s.
The camp houses have been removed, the freshwater swimming pool was filled in and the store has been razed.
The land sits, relatively inaccessible, surrounded by scrub, planted seed corn and the Pacific Missile Range Facility, the front lines of U.S. tactical missile defense programs.
But interest in a Japanese graveyard just off the missile range airstrip has brought to life stories about the missing town on Kauai, the history of sugar and a little bit about the ghosts that might still inhabit Barking Sands Beach and the surrounding area.
Capt. Aaron Cudnohufsky, Pacific Missile Range Facility commanding officer, was sitting in the airport hangar soon after taking command last April when he looked north and saw a cemetery less than a hundred yards from the runway.
He took a closer look, said facility spokesman Tom Clements, and became concerned about the condition of the gravestones, some dating back 150 years.
The inquiry into the graveyard has led to a tremendous overflow of information about the west side of Kauai and especially about Mana.
THE CEMETERY, just 190 by 120 feet, has abided Kauai's development from the sugar era to the space age. The base serves as a testing ground for both the Navy's and the Army's missile defense systems.
It was the Japanese cemetery for Mana Camp. It sat near the main gate when the Army took over Barking Sands during World War II, said Dan Momohara, director the base's threat simulation branch.
In 1940 or 1941, when the Army began building the airstrip, they asked relatives of the deceased if they could move the bodies, said John Burger, environmental coordinator for the base. Some moved, but about 30 gravestones are still in place.
For years, facility commanders have maintained the site and promoted it as a historical site. A few members of the Japanese armed forces have stopped by to perform rituals and pour sake at the graves, Clements said, but no relatives have visited the graves since security tightened following Sept. 11, 2001.
Cudnohufsky and his employees are trying to change that.
Cudnohufsky, Clements, longtime base employees Keiko Puu and Vida Mossman, as well as Momohara and Burger, have led the charge to find relatives of the deceased.
FIRST, THEY held a ceremony, inviting about a dozen former residents of Mana camp as well as the ministers of the Hanapepe and Waimea Buddhist churches. They translated the characters on the graves into English and began circulating media releases, trying to find information on the people who rest within the shadow of the airport hangar.
The result has been a flood of stories about the people and the town of Mana, once a thriving town with stores, doctors, a school and a freshwater swimming pool fed by a mountain stream.
"People have so much to say," said Mossman, longtime public affairs officer at the base. "They have given us some wonderful oral history."
The original goal, according to Clements, was to let relatives know that they are welcome to come to the base to respect their ancestors. What will eventually come out of it, no one is sure.
"We're having fun with it," Burger said. "It's taken on its own life."
The gravestones, carved of granite and sometimes sandstone taken straight from nearby beaches, have begun to fade, especially on the sides exposed to the ocean and the airfield, said Momohara.
The Navy would like to protect them, maybe put up plaques about who these people were, said Burger.
"One lead leads to another lead," Clements added. "Because of the graveyard stories, we have received a tremendous amount of history."
But no one, so far, has come forward to ask to take care of their relatives.
Puu said that the translations, and the information that a number of children have been buried in the cemetery, might explain some of the stories people tell of seeing children giggling and electrical equipment being turned on and off on occasion.
"This place is very, very spiritual," she added.
Whatever comes of it, Clements said, the inquiry "has blossomed into something special."
The sugar plantation town of Mana, the westernmost camp on Kauai, has not existed since the 1980s.
The camp houses have been removed, the freshwater swimming pool was filled in and the store has been razed.
The land sits, relatively inaccessible, surrounded by scrub, planted seed corn and the Pacific Missile Range Facility, the front lines of U.S. tactical missile defense programs.
But interest in a Japanese graveyard just off the missile range airstrip has brought to life stories about the missing town on Kauai, the history of sugar and a little bit about the ghosts that might still inhabit Barking Sands Beach and the surrounding area.
Capt. Aaron Cudnohufsky, Pacific Missile Range Facility commanding officer, was sitting in the airport hangar soon after taking command last April when he looked north and saw a cemetery less than a hundred yards from the runway.
He took a closer look, said facility spokesman Tom Clements, and became concerned about the condition of the gravestones, some dating back 150 years.
The inquiry into the graveyard has led to a tremendous overflow of information about the west side of Kauai and especially about Mana.
THE CEMETERY, just 190 by 120 feet, has abided Kauai's development from the sugar era to the space age. The base serves as a testing ground for both the Navy's and the Army's missile defense systems.
It was the Japanese cemetery for Mana Camp. It sat near the main gate when the Army took over Barking Sands during World War II, said Dan Momohara, director the base's threat simulation branch.
In 1940 or 1941, when the Army began building the airstrip, they asked relatives of the deceased if they could move the bodies, said John Burger, environmental coordinator for the base. Some moved, but about 30 gravestones are still in place.
For years, facility commanders have maintained the site and promoted it as a historical site. A few members of the Japanese armed forces have stopped by to perform rituals and pour sake at the graves, Clements said, but no relatives have visited the graves since security tightened following Sept. 11, 2001.
Cudnohufsky and his employees are trying to change that.
Cudnohufsky, Clements, longtime base employees Keiko Puu and Vida Mossman, as well as Momohara and Burger, have led the charge to find relatives of the deceased.
FIRST, THEY held a ceremony, inviting about a dozen former residents of Mana camp as well as the ministers of the Hanapepe and Waimea Buddhist churches. They translated the characters on the graves into English and began circulating media releases, trying to find information on the people who rest within the shadow of the airport hangar.
The result has been a flood of stories about the people and the town of Mana, once a thriving town with stores, doctors, a school and a freshwater swimming pool fed by a mountain stream.
"People have so much to say," said Mossman, longtime public affairs officer at the base. "They have given us some wonderful oral history."
The original goal, according to Clements, was to let relatives know that they are welcome to come to the base to respect their ancestors. What will eventually come out of it, no one is sure.
"We're having fun with it," Burger said. "It's taken on its own life."
The gravestones, carved of granite and sometimes sandstone taken straight from nearby beaches, have begun to fade, especially on the sides exposed to the ocean and the airfield, said Momohara.
The Navy would like to protect them, maybe put up plaques about who these people were, said Burger.
"One lead leads to another lead," Clements added. "Because of the graveyard stories, we have received a tremendous amount of history."
But no one, so far, has come forward to ask to take care of their relatives.
Puu said that the translations, and the information that a number of children have been buried in the cemetery, might explain some of the stories people tell of seeing children giggling and electrical equipment being turned on and off on occasion.
"This place is very, very spiritual," she added.
Whatever comes of it, Clements said, the inquiry "has blossomed into something special."
posted by ams at 2:45 PM
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