Museum Monday (On Monday Oh Yeah!)

This one is very dear to my heart and actually touches upon my family line. My Great Uncle Richard "Dickey" Whaley was one of the local graduates to be selected to help America "colonize" a few islands south of Hawaii for American interests building up toward the war in the Pacific. Young, local, able-bodied men were selected from Kamehameha and other schools because at their young age they would be willing to travel and be physically able to live off of the land where they were to be spending months at a time. These islands were Howland, Baker, and Jarvis Island. My uncle was a member of the Jarvis group. They were asked to keep a journal and record weather data as well as what happened throughout the day with the group.
One of these journals are on display at Bishop Museum. Sadly, Uncle Dickey and his friend were killed during a bombing raid by the Japanese a day after they attacked Pearl Harbor. They were buried in a bomb crater on Jarvis Island and then moved to plots in Fort Shafter. After heightened security at military bases following the more recent 9/11 bombing, it became difficult for the civilian descendants of these two heroes to visit their gravesite. Attraction toward their story also grew and a documentary was made about these events called, "Under a Jarvis Moon." Richard Whaley and Joseph Keliihananui were posthumously recognized for what they did and were reentered into their final resting place at the Veteran's Memorial in Kaneohe. Labelled civilians on their headstones.