The Army’s hold on Makua Valley was originally intended to last the duration of the war, and six months longer. Half a century later, the Army shows no intention of moving out. How it managed to stay so long, possessing at times only the flimsiest of permits from the land’s owners, is a complicated tale.
Actually, the first military presence in Makua dates back to 1929, when the Army acquired three parcels high on the slopes of Makua Valley. There it intended to place howitzers for the “Protection of the Territory of Hawai’i.” Two of the parcels were set-asides of territorial land; the third was acquired by the Army through condemnation of land owned by Lincoln McCandless. The gun emplacements were built, but, for reasons not made public, were never used. In April of 1940, the Army gave title to its three parcels to the Territory of Hawai’i.
In February 1932, the Army and Navy conducted troop landing exercises at Makua Beach, but no further activity of the U.S. armed forces in the area is documented until after the outbreak of World War II. Following declaration of martial law in the islands, Makua Valley was occupied by the Army. “One year later,” Marion Kelly writes, “in December 1942, the Army issued a Real Estate Directive for the 6,000 acres of land in Makua that they already were using… This meant they could obtain territorial lands through the governors consent and private lands by issuing a condemnation order to private owners.”1 Eventually the Army acquired through condemnation all of the kuleana parcels in the valley including many that lie along Farrington Highway, surrounded by state land.
The territorial government issued Revocable Permit No. 200 to the Army, allowing it to occupy Makua Valley and surrounding areas for the duration of the war plus an additional six months. But after the war, the Army wanted to continue the use of the valley. According to an official Army history of the war,2 the Army “made a study of the training areas and facilities on O’ahu and… determined their dispositions.” Makua Valley was among the areas that the Army did not wish to relinquish.
The territorial government was not pleased. Governor Ingram Stainback made his objections known in a letter November 26, 1945, to General H.T. Burgin, commanding officer of the Army’s Central Pacific Base Command. “The public lands on the island of O’ahu have been very seriously depleted,” Stainback wrote. “At the present time, not including forest reserves, etc., they constitute less than four percent of the area of O’ahu. Should this land be transferred, as you propose, it will take approximately fifty percent of the public lands now remaining on the island of O’ahu under territorial control….
“I need not point out that of the 180 miles of coastline on the island of O’ahu, various federal departments already hold or are acquiring under other projects more than one-third of the total. These holdings include such projects as the beach at Fort DeRussy, the one at Bellows Field, beaches and fishing grounds at Fort Kamehameha, Hickam Field, Makapu’u Peninsula, Waialua, Wai’anae, Leilehua, Barber’s Point, Fort Weaver and Pearl Harbor.
“In view of the foregoing, I suggest that the War Department’s decision in this matter be reconsidered.”
The Army Stays
In 1946, the War Department came back with an offer to Stainback that the Army and the state work out an arrangement “whereby the site would be set aside permanently as a forest preserve and public recreation site with provision for use from time to time by the War Department for training purposes.” The state was not so confident that this could work. Colin G. Lennox, president of the Board of Agriculture and Forestry commented: “As a matter of suggestion we would like to urge that the U.S. Army examine other locations” – Lennox suggested Kaho’olawe – “in the Territory for the exercises proposed for Makua since the use of high explosives and recreation are so highly non-compatible.”
On September 19, 1947, Governor Stainback was informed by A. Lester Marks, commissioner of public lands (and, coincidentally, son-in-law of Lincoln McCandless) that the Army and the territorial Land Use Committee had agreed that the area should be turned over to the Board of Agriculture and Forestry as a forest reserve and recreational area, “with the understanding that the area may also be used for occasional maneuvers by the Army,” which would restrict live-fire activities to a designated impact area.
(In light of the current status of Kaho’olawe, it is worth noting that Kaho’olawe was included in these discussions. A note to the files from “ALM” – Lester Marks, the land commissioner – dated September 22, 1947, states: “At a conference with the governor and Mr. Lennox… it was agreed that both Kaho’olawe and the 6,608 acres of government land at Makua would be turned over to the Board of Forestry under executive order and permit issued by the Board to the Navy for the use of Kaho’olawe, and that an occasional use by the Army for maneuver purposes be worked out between the Board of Forestry and the Army.”)
Despite the agreement in principle, issuance of the executive order setting aside the lands of Makua Valley as a forest reserve never came. In 1949, the Army Corps of Engineers’ real estate division was asking about the set-aside. An internal memo in Board of Agriculture and Forestry files (now the Department of Land and Natural Resources) states that the Army was informed that the hang-up was owing to the fact that “the Territory has not revoked Revocable Permit No. 200 … because of the Army’s contention that there has not been a formal Declaration of Peace as yet.” If the Army wanted to settle things, the memo went on to say, the Army should “dedud” and restore the area so that implementation of the agreement could move forward as planned. In 1949 and 1950, the makai area of the valley (inland to about 1,000 yards) was cleared of dud explosives and, in January of 1950, a draft executive order (written by the Corps of Engineers) was circulated. The Army had no intention, however, of clearing the more inland parts of the valley, which it wanted to continue to use as an impact area for live-fire exercises.
Dedudding Required
The Army got the territory to extend the permit in 1946 and again in 1953, pending completion of the negotiations. Meanwhile, the territorial government was growing more suspicious of the Army’s intentions.
In 1955, the Corps of Engineers had prepared yet another draft executive order for the territorial government’s consent. By now, the Army wanted to have the executive order set aside the land not for a forest reserve, but for military training activities. Then-Land Commissioner Marguerite Ashford discussed the problems of Makua Valley in a memo to Governor Samuel King Wilder:3
“This revocable license was extended by letter of January 5, 1953, ‘until further notice’ on the understanding that Parcel A [the makai area] should not be used by the Armed forces as a bombardment area, and upon cancellation of the permit, the area would again be completely dedudded by the Army at no cost to the Territory. I am informed that the upper area of this revocable license is so heavily mined or otherwise with live ammunition which has been fired there that it would be impossible to dedud it or at least extremely expensive.”
The impasse continued into 1956. In January, the Corps of Engineers was asking Governor King what had happened to the draft executive order. “Although you have already stated… your opinion of the feasibility of using land that has been shelled and bombed,” wrote Lieutenant Colonel Sidney Shelley, “I feel it my duty to remind you that the Makua impact area is the most heavily dud contaminated area in the Hawaiian Islands with the possible exception of Kaho’olawe Island. In 1949 a bomb disposal expert with considerable experience… made a visual survey of the area and stated that, in his opinion, the government would never be able to clear the area to such an extent that it would be completely safe for civilian use. Shortly thereafter, government personnel carefully searched and cleared a strip of land 1,000 yards wide along the shore for joint use by the Armed Forces and the civilian community and agreed that the cleared strip would not be used for target purposes. Since that time the human element, which is always an unpredictable factor in any training activity, has resulted in recontamination of the cleared strip.
Governor King responded, informing Shelley: “You know my feeling toward the surrender of territorial public lands to the Federal Government by a governor’s executive order – that such an irrevocable transfer should not be used if the use of the land is not obviously of a permanent character.” Marguerite Ashford, asked to comment by King on the Army’s proposal, concurred: “Relative to your request for recommendation on the application of the Army for an executive order for Makua Valley, I would like to say I am opposed to it.”
Statehood
When Hawai’i was admitted to the union of states, special provisions were made for public lands held by the territorial government at the time of annexation by the United States. One provision – Section 5(d) – seemed to call for the return to the state of all of the so-called ceded lands occupied by federal agencies within five years of statehood, unless set aside for continued federal occupancy within that period by Congress or the president.
To hold to a minimum the acreage subject to federal set-asides, the state and the federal government arrived at an agreement under which the federal government would be able to use the land it wanted under long-term (65-year) leases, with the state keeping title to the land. This was the situation when, in August 1964, the state issued to the military the leases it holds for land at Pohakuha, Makua, Lualuaiei, Barking Sands, and other facilities statewide.
The agreement may have minimized the set-asides, but it did not stop them altogether. On August 15, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued Executive Order 11166, setting aside “for the use of the United States” the inland areas of Makua Valley and Kahanahaiki Valley and other sites across the state. Two days later, the state leased the rest of Makua Valley to the Army for a 65-year term, in return for which the state received the sum of one dollar.
In a further erosion of the state’s position, the lease allows the Army to escape responsibility to clear the land of unexploded ordnance when the lease expires. At that time, the U.S. government is merely to clear the area “to the extent that a technical and economic capability exists and provided that expenditures for removal of shells will not exceed the fair market value of the land.”
The Permit, Again
The land occupied by the Army under Revocable Permit No. 200 was shrunk considerably by the lease, the set-aside, and several other withdrawals, but it continued in force until 1973. In 1965, an agreement executed by the state and the Army (and approved by the Board of Land and Natural Resources) gave the government the escape it had been seeking since the war’s end from the responsibility to restore the land. Specifically, the state discharged the government “from all manner of actions, liability, and claims which the state now has or ever will have against the government, its officers, agents, and employees for restoration of the premises under the provisions of… Revocable Permit No. 200.”
By 1973, all but 1,900 acres of the original 6,600 acres covered under Permit No. 200 had been turned over to the Army through lease or executive order, or had been relinquished to the state. The remaining acreage was identified in a 1972 survey of military lands as no longer needed for military purposes. On October 23, 1973, the permit was finally cancelled and the land was turned over to the Division of State Parks.
1 Kelly, “Makua Valley, O`ahu, Historical Research,” page 41. The 6,600-acre area occupied by the Army went beyond Makua Valley proper (an area of 2,266 acres) and encompassed as well Keawaula Valley and Kuaokala (together about 4,300 acres) up the coast to Ka`ena Point.
2 Lt. Gen. Robert G. Richardson, Jr., “History of G-3, Headquarters, Army Forces, Middle Pacific, Functions and Activities” (available in microfilm at Hamilton Library, University of Hawai`i), pp. 347-348. G-3 was the Army’s intelligence section.
3 Memo dated September 21, 1955. The memo is noteworthy for its more general discussion of Army and National Guard activities on state land, particularly at Helemano, Waiale`e, and Pu`uanahulu, as well as at Makua.
Volume 3, Number 5 November 1992
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