Native Hawaiian colonists honored in Hawaii legislature

It was 80 years ago on Monday, March 30 that a Coast Guard ship left Honolulu headed for the Pacific carrying six young Native Hawaiian men who would colonize. On Monday, they were honored.

Click here to watch Paula Akana's report.

Paul Phillips stood on the House Chamber floor as state lawmakers honored him and 129 other young Hawaii men for helping the United States in its wartime efforts decades ago.

The young men, most of them Native Hawaiian, were dropped off on the tiny islands of Howell, Baker and Jarvis 1,800 miles from Hawaii not really knowing what they were being sent to do.

Gordon Piianaia was at the House, too, representing his father Abe Piianaia, who was a member of the original party of six Kamehameha boys who left Honolulu on this day 80 years ago headed for Baker Island.

"He was pretty quiet, you know. He didn't talk about his life after Kamehameha too much," said Piianaia.

The U.S. government's secret plan was for the young men to live on these islands to colonize them. So the U.S. could claim jurisdiction of the islands to make sure no other country could.

Phillips left Honolulu in July 1941, just a month after his high school graduation. Following in the footsteps of his brother Woody, he was dropped off at Jarvis Island.

"It was flat as this floor. A mile and a quarter long. Scrub brush and that's it. Not a tree on the island. But thousands of birds," said Phillips.

He says they lived in a building previous colonists had built from wood claimed from a shipwreck. Provisions were dropped off regularly, incuding 55-gallon drums of fresh water.

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Native Hawaiian colonists honored in Hawaii legislature