Bayonets in Paradise

Bayonets in Paradise recounts the extraordinary story of how the army imposed rigid and absolute control on the total population of Hawaiʻi during World War II. Declared immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack, martial law was all-inclusive, bringing under army rule every aspect of the Territory of Hawaiʻi's laws and government institutions. Even the judiciary was placed under direct subservience to the military authorities. The result was a protracted crisis in civil liberties, as the army subjected more than 400,000 civilians--citizens and alien residents alike--to sweeping, intrusive social and economic regulations and to enforcement of army orders in provost courts with no semblance of due process. In addition, the army enforced special regulations against Hawaiʻi's large population of Japanese ancestry; thousands of Japanese Americans were investigated, hundreds were arrested, and some 2,000 were incarcerated.^ In marked contrast to the well-known policy of the mass removals on the West Coast, however, Hawaiʻi's policy was one of "selective," albeit preventive, detention. Army rule in Hawaiʻi lasted until late 1944--making it the longest period in which an American civilian