THE GREAT WAR, later to be known as World War I, ended for 24-year-old Marine Corps Capt. Edward Canfield Fuller on the bloody fields of France on June 12, 1918.
During the Battle of Belleau Wood, Fuller was killed "while fearlessly exposing himself in an artillery barrage in order to get his men into a safer position," according to the Navy.
Fuller’s name is one of 101 on a bronze plaque at the Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial.
So is John R. Rowe’s — the first of Hawaii’s sons to die in France as a member of the American Expeditionary Forces.
Rowe wrote to his mother a few days before being killed on July 31, 1918, according to Ralph Kuykendall in his book "Hawaii in the World War."
"Don’t worry, Mother dear," Rowe said. "We have got to win this war. If I fall do not mourn for me as I will have done only my duty. All of us won’t come back. I hope I shall. However, if I do not, always remember me as having done my full duty for my country."
He did not come back, but he, too, was remembered Sunday at the natatorium in recognition of Memorial Day, the day the nation reserves to honor its war dead.
The natatorium holds its service the day before to avoid conflict with other commemorations in a state with a great many who have made sacrifices in war, both past and present.
Air Force Gen. Gary North, a speaker at Sunday’s 24th annual natatorium event, said in a Memorial Day message last week that the U.S. military has protected the nation’s interests at home and abroad, in peace and war, for 236 years.
"Many American servicemen and women have selflessly given their lives — some more than 200 years ago, some this week in Afghanistan — all in the defense of freedom," said North, the four-star commander of Pacific Air Forces at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
More than 10,000 Hawaii men and women served in World War I and the war effort, and the Friends of the Natatorium, a nonprofit group, is trying to put faces and stories to that history 94 years after the conflict ended.
A "Descendants" project — playing off the movie name — has been started to link past World War I duty by Hawaii residents with their present-day families and to chronicle that service.
Donna Ching, vice president of the Friends of the Natatorium, noted that Frank Buckles, the last living U.S. World War I veteran, died last year at the age of 110.
"As we as a society move forward, we lose living ties to events and places and ways of life. … As time marches forward, are we going to forget on Memorial Day the Afghanistan veterans at some point?" Ching asked.
One of the reasons the organization is eager to move forward on the Descendants effort, Ching said, "is because we feel what’s really important, especially in Hawaii, is the sense of extended family and people standing on the shoulders of ancestors."
The website for the project is at goo.gl/k50rz.
The Natatorium, with its graceful arched entryway, bleachers and 100-meter saltwater swimming pool, was intended to be a living memorial to the 10,000 Hawaii residents who served in World War I when it opened on Aug. 24, 1927.
The date happened to be Duke Kahanamoku’s birthday, and he dived in as the inaugural swimmer to roaring applause.
Just about ever since, the natatorium has experienced problems with water circulation and upkeep, with plans alternately floated over the years to restore or demolish the dilapidated pool structure.
Jill Byus Radke, a Friends of the Natatorium board member who has researched Hawaii’s service members who were in the war, said the then-territory had a large turnout for the war effort.
"We exceeded the initial draft," she said. "We exceeded all of the quotas we needed to hit, and it was really remarkable for the time."
Kuykendall wrote in the preface of his 1928 book, "The part played by Hawaii in the World War of 1914-1918 was so important, in view of the size and situation of the territory, that its people are justly proud of their record in war work."
Among those noted in the Descendants list and biographies being developed is Queen Liliuokalani, who Byus Radke said volunteered for Red Cross service in Hawaii during the war.
Byus Radke is not sure why there are 101 names on the bronze plaque mounted on volcanic rock outside the natatorium, or how exactly those names were selected.
Some, but not all, died in battle, she said.
The Roll of Honor plaque is divided into Army and Navy names and those "In the service of Great Britain."
Among the latter is Claude Usborne, whose family originally was from Canada but lived in Hawaii at the time.
"They still had Canadian ties, so when he enlisted under the Canadian army, (that was) of course Great Britain, and that’s how he ended up there," Byus Radke said.
The website "Canada at War" lists a Claude Usborne as dying on May 2, 1917.
Another veteran on the plaque, Manuel Gouveia Jr., was among several Hawaii-born sailors serving on the Carl Schurz when it collided with a steamer while on patrol off the coast of North Carolina in late 1917, according to the Friends of the Natatorium.
Gouveia died when the Carl Schurz sank. The ship had previously been the German gunboat Geier, which was seized during a visit to Honolulu Harbor and reflagged as a U.S. Navy ship, the natatorium organization said.
Oahu resident Dianne Castro is among those seeking to make ties with a World War I relative.
Her grandmother’s uncle Sam Kainoa is listed on the Roll of Honor plaque.
She has her Maui-born Hawaiian relative’s draft registration, and she knows that he died at a Fort Shafter hospital at the age of 26 in July 1918.
"I don’t know if he got hurt in the war or why he ended up in that specific hospital at Fort Shafter, and that’s what I’m trying to find out," Castro said. "Now I’m really interested, because this is all my family, right?"
