I receive a lot of email from readers each week. Some add their story to something I’ve written, and some suggest possible future topics.
Sylvia Baldwin wrote to me recently. She said, "My family moved to Kailua on April 1, 1959, four months before statehood. I have a vivid memory of a small airfield where Aikahi Park subdivision and Aikahi Park Shopping Center are now. I even remember seeing small planes take off and land. This is the area just in front of Kaneohe Marine Air Base.
"The problem is that I appear to be the only person who has this memory! Could I have been hallucinating all these years? If it turns out there is no record of this alleged Kailua airfield in anyone’s memory but mine, well — let’s hope it doesn’t come to that!"
Thanks for asking, Sylvia. I called my go-to guy for anything aviation-related: Alan Lloyd, who lives in Kailua. He has a pilot’s license and remembers the airstrip vividly.
"I probably landed there 50 times or more," Lloyd recalls. "It was called the Kailua Sky Ranch and was privately owned by Bob Whittinghill, I believe. It was in operation sometime after World War II until the early 1960s."
The Kailua Sky Ranch was on the makai section of what’s now Aikahi Loop, behind the Aikahi Park Shopping Center and along the Marine Corps Air Station fence. Today it’s a residential street.
Lloyd recalls it having a 1,700-foot-long strip. The terminal was on Mokapu Road — an office in a Quonset hut and a hangar.
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A number of readers wrote to me about my article on Judd Street (May 2). One recalled playing in the old McInerny house on Judd and Bachelot streets before it became the United Church of Christ in 1948.
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Bishop Museum historian DeSoto Brown said, "An interesting thing that many people probably won’t know today is that until the Pali Highway was completed through this area in the early 1960s (on the other side of the stream), this part of Nuuanu Avenue was the route to reach the Windward side.
"Today this street is busy but not jammed. In the 1950s, though, it was filled with solid traffic every morning and afternoon from people driving from or to Kailua.
"There was only one lane in each direction, so if there was an accident, or a fallen tree in the mountains, everything just stopped moving — even as far down as Judd Street."
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Alvin Yee reminded me that anti-aircraft fire during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack killed a few people on Judd Street.
"A Packard carrying four shipyard workers including a father-son pair named Adams from Kaneohe was traveling along Judd Street on its way to Pearl Harbor when an unfused Navy anti-aircraft round blew up next to their car at 801 N. Judd.
"All four of them died, including a little girl who was sitting on her porch nearby. There was supposed to be a fifth worker in the same car pool, but he was too busy arguing with his wife and he couldn’t let go of the argument to ride in the car pool. He went in his own car a half-hour later and came upon the above scene of his buddies."
Yee went on to say that Judd Street was a planned evacuation area in case the Japanese returned.
"My late father told me that in preparation for a possible Japanese invasion of Hawaii in May 1942, all the civilians in town had to practice evacuating the city of Honolulu. He and thousands of others had to gather up their gas masks and bedrolls they kept next to their front doors and walk up Nuuanu Avenue to Judd Street. Others walked up Liliha Street to Judd. After a while the civil defense wardens gave the all-clear, and everyone walked back home."
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Renee Tanner says she grew up a little ways away from Judd on Burbank Street. "I went to Sacred Hearts Convent from 1967-1976. I have such fond memories of the property and building and was glad that it remains as beautiful as my memories. I would love to know more about the building and its history. Perhaps other readers would, too!
Do any of my readers know about that building?
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Marian Crocco says she also lived in that neighborhood, just a little farther up on Kawananakoa Place. "I know that there must be some rich history here as well. I’ve heard from a neighbor that one of the properties was the estate of Princess Kawananakoa." Do any of my readers know about this?
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John Veltri asked about the history of the Diamond Head Tennis Center at 3809 Paki Ave. "I heard that it was the site of the horse stables for the Honolulu Trolley System. Any information you could share on this landmark would be appreciated."
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Herb Yee recalls buying Krispy Kreme doughnuts on Oahu. "As popular as Krispy Kreme is on Maui, prompting folks to bring it to Oahu as omiyage, no one seems to recall there being two of them here in the late ’70s. I distinctly recall picking them up for potlucks from the one at the now-gone Star supermarket in Moiliili and from the Aiea Shopping Center. Back then they only made the glazed holed ones. Whenever I bring this up, the listener invariably goes, ‘Really?’ Was I in another dimension or were they really here?’"
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If you have information about any of these things, drop me a line.
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.
