One particular Hawaii community has a special relationship with the USS Missouri. Do you know which one it is? Surprisingly, it’s Kalaupapa. It began more than 100 years ago.
In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt sent an armada of 16 ships, including an earlier USS Missouri, on a 14-month voyage around the world. The intention was to send a clear message that the U.S. was a global power that could operate anywhere in the world.
The voyage spanned 43,000 miles and made 20 ports of call including Honolulu. The steam-powered, steel-hulled battleships were painted white and were called the Great White Fleet.
Brother Joseph Dutton, a successor to St. Damien at Kalaupapa, wrote to Roosevelt and asked him to honor the residents of Kalaupapa with a visit by his Great White Fleet. Dutton was a Civil War veteran of the Union Army.
The residents of Kalaupapa felt isolated and forgotten, Dutton said. It would mean a great deal to them to be recognized by the United States in this way.
Roosevelt responded to Dutton by ordering the fleet to steam past the isolated settlement at Kalaupapa. As the armada passed, their flags were lowered as a show of respect for the residents of the colony and the work that St. Damien had done there.
The settlement’s population, which then numbered in the hundreds, stood by the shore and watched the fleet "passing in parade in our front yard," as Dutton would later write. He had hoisted an American flag on his home for the sailors to see.
It was the first time the residents felt the U.S. government was aware of them and was concerned with their plight.
Pearl Harbor was still a few years away from opening, so the 16 ships anchored between Diamond Head and Ala Moana. The crews were given shore leave and held a parade through downtown Honolulu.
"The arrival of the Great White Fleet was really the arrival of American naval power to Hawaii," said Daniel Martinez, Pearl Harbor historian for the National Park Service. "When you have a fleet of that size, you have to provision it, refuel it; you also have to have liberty for the sailors aboard. At the time they were very cramped vessels, and for those reasons the importance of Pearl Harbor began."
The 1908 visit to Kalaupapa wasn’t the only time the Missouri would visit Kalaupapa. The current USS Missouri paid a visit to Kalaupapa nearly 80 years later in 1986. It left Pearl Harbor on Sept. 19 on the first leg of its journey to circumnavigate the world. It was the first such journey since the Great White Fleet in 1908.
With its crew membersmanning the rails, they saluted as they passed the settlement. This time, some of the residents had been invited to cruise aboard the Missouri and witness the event. Afterward, some of them described it as a "trip of a lifetime."
The third time the Missouri paid its respects to Kalaupapa was in 1998 as it was being towed to Pearl Harbor. The tug, Sea Victory, commanded by Capt. Kaare Ogaard, followed the same route that was taken by the Great White Fleet during its visit to the islands in 1908. The Missouri passed within a mile of Kalaupapa, and its residents were the first to see its arrival in Hawaii waters.
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Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
