Hawaii Army Museum at Ft DeRussy

Today seemed like a good day to take a break from the usual tourist activities here in Waikiki so I walked over to the Army Museum to see what was new since I last toured the place ten years ago.

The museum is housed in the old Battery Randolf right on Ft DeRussy. The Hale Koa Special Services Hotel is close by. In fact you can see the corner of the one of the hotel buildings above the trees and below the tall blue building in the upper right side of this photo. Also nearby are the historic Royal Hawaiian and Moana Hotels.

The front of the building has a static display of some old guns and a couple small tanks. On the roof is a Bell AH-1 Cobra "Snake" with armament from the 1967 era in Vietnam.

Many of the concrete walls in this old building are twelve inches thick with the seaward walls designed to withstand a direct hit from a 2,000 pound artillery shell, the doors are the original steel doors and the roof is at least 14 inches thick with an additional 12 inch false ceiling in the ammo handling rooms.

 Constructed in 1911 to defend Honolulu Harbor it originally had two seven-inch guns on disappearing carriages. These were later changed to two 14-inch guns.

The building is interesting in its own right. The old walls, doors and cubbyholes for lanterns in case of power failure are just as they were when they were built. The shell handling trolleys and handling platforms give insight into the pre-WWII ways of handling big shells.

In November 1914 the Army warned the residents of Waikiki that there would be test firing of the original seven-inch guns. Despite the warnings people were shocked and as the historical notes on Shore Battery Randolf say "no one was fully prepared for the effects of the shock wave that rocked the neighborhood. Little actual damage was done, though dishes rattled and some windows cracked blocks away. To avoid damage in later years, as Waikiki continued to grow, the guns were seldom fired."

As Wikipedia says, the big shock came later: "The Fourteen inch guns of Shore Battery Randolph were fired once in a practice shortly after the Attack on Pearl Harbor, shattering many of the windows in the Royal Hawaiian and Moana, and were not fired again.^[2]"

After the war was over the guns were cut up for scrap and there were several attempts to demolish the battery building. Since they were surrounded by hotels and other buildings dynamite couldn't be used so in 1976 the building was designated as the home of the US Army Museum of Hawaii.

Now that you know a little about the building, let's take a look at some of the exhibits I found interesting.

The history of armed conflict in the old Hawaiian civilizations was interesting. When I see the old war clubs, wooden spears, rock hammers and shark tooth enhancements I wonder if our generals and other leaders would be so willing to go to war if they had to use such tools to kill each other.

There was a good exhibit that highlighted the 442 RCT and other Nisei outfits during World War II. 

There's an extensive exhibit about WWII starting with the attack on Pearl Harbor and going on through the war in the Pacific.

This might bring back memories for some of the veterans and their families who took R&R here at Ft DeRussy during the Vietnam war. This doorway leads into the exhibit on Vietnam.

The newest exhibit features local boy, Eric Shinseki, who rose from a humble birthplace on Kauai, through the ranks of the Army to become Army Chief of Staff.

The exhibit on Shinseki traces his growth from childhood through Army career and retirement. It is well designed and I'm sure it's a source of great pride to the people of Hawaii.