Six months after the smoke cleared over Pearl Harbor, leaders of the Hawaiian Mission were still trying to assure the parents of missionaries stationed there that their sons and daughters were safe.
Of course many things had changed in the Mission. There was a strict evening curfew, and no meetings of the Saints, no teaching of investigators, no tracting could occur in the evening. Missionaries, with the encouragement of mission leaders, were finding new ways to be of service – helping members and non-members to put in gardens; making repairs to homes and chapels before manpower was completely diverted into wartime needs; finding alternative sites for the Saints to worship when the government requisitioned buildings that belonged to the Church. With the permission of Roscoe C. Cox, mission president, some elders had taken part-time work with the government – they paired with soldiers to patrol streets at night, watching for anything suspicious; some manned radio listening posts, taking down war news and messages for individuals, both civilian and military. The regulations for some such government assignments required that the elders be paid; they took the pay, and bought war bonds, or contributed it to charitable causes.
For the time being, at least, missionaries stayed for the full term of their missions, and often longer because transportation could take months to arrange. As soon as an elder’s term was up, the mission registered him for transportation either by ship or by Clipper (air travel with the mail plane). Since planes could take only a handful of passengers, and because most ships had been diverted from civilian to military use and traveled at irregular and unannounced intervals, the date of travel was entirely unpredictable, and the traveler had only a few hours to present himself at the point of departure, or someone behind him on the registration lists would take his place. For that reason, missionaries awaiting release were transferred to Honolulu, where they continued to do mission work but could be ready instantly when notified that a berth on a ship or a seat on an airplane was available. The Church, through a travel agency in San Francisco, guaranteed in advance the payment of all fares so that no one would miss his opportunity to return home because of a shortage of available funds.
In June, 1942, there were still about 60 missionaries in Hawaii, a dozen of them waiting for passage home and the rest still within the term of their mission calls. To answer the frequent calls for information by the parents of his missionaries, President Cox addressed a letter to their families:
1560 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, T.H.
June 2, 1942To Parents of Missionaries Now Serving in the Hawaiian Mission
Dear Parents:
All of you probably are concerned about your sons and daughters now laboring in the Hawaiian Islands. For this I can not blame you, and yet I feel you have little cause to worry. We can be sure that our country has no intention of permitting this important territory to fall into the hands of our enemies. I think we can trust implicitly in the judgment and the preparations of our military leaders. I have no doubt whatever that everything possible is being done for the safety and protection of the people in the Islands. Add to that the record of protection enjoyed by our missionaries in the past, and I feel all of us can be confident that the same Divine guidance and protection will be granted in the present situation.
I am sure the missionaries themselves are not worried. They are busy in good works and this means they are happy. Time speeds by and for some of them the time rapidly approaches when the usual term of service will be ended. Some have already reached and passed that time. We have some six elders, two lady missionaries, and the Cox family ((Eldred Waldron had been called to succeed Roscoe C. Cox, but the Cox family, like individual missionaries, could not return to the mainland until their names rose to the top of the departure list.)) of five now in Honolulu awaiting transportation home. How long we will have to wait, no one can say. It may be a week or two and it may be many months. As soon as the present group of elders secures transportation home, a new group will be brought in from the other Islands. But we want to leave them out in their districts as long as possible because there they can be busy all the time in doing good for others. Here in Honolulu their programs would not be so full or so uninterrupted. Everything possible will be done to get them home as nearly as possible to he time you are expecting them.
But due to the uncertainties of transportation, let me urge you not to expect the return of your missionaries until you know they are on the mainland. In the meantime do not stop sending them mail or expense money. Let us remember that the big task before all of us right now is to win this war. We should accept cheerfully any inconvenience that might be caused us due to diverting ships from traffic between here and the mainland to areas where those ships are more urgently needed to deal crushing blows to the forces of evil. We down here will do all we can to look after the welfare of the missionaries, to keep them well, busy and happy. May we ask that you continue to encourage them and to sustain them in their callings? Write nothing that would tend to discourage them in their work, cause them to worry, or cause dissatisfaction among those scheduled to return home or to be transferred to another mission. They will be patient and will keep up their spirits if you will continue to do your parts, which I am sure you will.
And let me express my own personal thanks and the appreciation of the Hawaiian Mission to all of you for sending us such fine sons and daughters to labor in this Mission. I have often said, and sincerely too, that it seems to me the Church has sent the cream of the crop to labor in Hawaii. We have a grand group of missionaries. They have been doing, and are doing, a splendid work in furthering the cause of truth. They will continue in this splendid work until they are released unless they are discouraged by failure to receive letters and funds from home or by receiving the wrong kind of material in the letters. Unless other instructions are received from the First Presidency, no missionary will be released until transportation is available. Please do not plan on or expect their release until you receive definite information that they are on the coast. No advance notices could be given even if we had information needed to give them.
If any of you have difficulty in providing funds to maintain your missionary son or daughter beyond the expected period, please take the matter up with your Bishop and with me, and I am certain something can be done to help in the situation.
Again let me assure you that your sons and daughters are doing splendid work in this Mission. May the sacrifices you are making in their behalf be answered with an abundance of blessings unto you and yours.
Very sincerely yours,
ROSCOE C. COX
Mission President
References to “the Clipper” would have meant the Pan Am Clipper, the only passenger air service between the mainland and Hawaii at the time. Pan Am began the service in 1936, flying first the Martin M-130 and later the Boeing 314. Both were “flying boats”–their hulls were built for landing in the water, which would have put the lie to the flight attendants’ “In the unlikely event of a water landing . . .”
Space for passengers was limited, especially on the Martin M-130, and ticket prices were high. I’m surprised that the missionaries could even consider traveling by the Clipper.
Another interesting thing about the letter: the date. As Pres. Cox was writing the letter, US naval forces were steaming towards Midway, where between June 4 and June 7 they effectively turned the tide of the naval war in the Pacific–sinking all four of the Japanese aircraft carriers that participated in the battle. So, by the time the parents of the missionaries received the letter, they probably had heard that the threat of Japanese attack on or invasion of the Hawaiian Islands had been lessened considerably.
Pres. Cox also said that “I think we can trust implicitly in the judgment and the preparations of our military leaders.” How quickly he seems to have forgotten the events of December 7! (I know–circumstances had changed, the US was not actually at war before the Pearl Harbor attack, etc., etc. Still, military leaders’ “judgment and … preparations” probably only deserve our implicit trust after we have seen that they worked.)
Mark B — Don’t forget that “the judgement and the preparations” by the military leaders hinge on the orders they have been given by the Secretary of Defense, the Congress, and the White House. Believe this crusty old veteran who spent his whole career on command bases that sometimes those “orders from above” can be . . . intriguing. Even challenging. Military leaders are often blamed when the orders from above are the actual problem.
All I can add to Mark’s great summary is that in March 1942, ship rates from Honolulu to San Francisco were $128.00 plus $6.25 tax, and Clipper service was $278 plus tax. It also took much longer (months) to get air service than surface transport so I don’t know whether any missionaries actually flew from Hawaii. (Some did, returning from South American missions, and Joseph Fielding Smith flew by Clipper between the UK and Scandinavia while he was arranging for missionary evacuation from Europe.)
I also see a March 1942 note that the Navy transport service had taken over the Pan American Clipper service, as, probably, an essential war resource, the way so many other private properties were requisitioned by the government.
Those prices, like Crazy Eddie’s, are insane! I have no idea what missionary monthly costs were in Hawaii, but I have hazy recollections that my parents’ monthly costs in eastern Canada six years later were well under $50/month. So those travel-by-sea costs would have been the same as three or four months’ support, and the airfare more than double that.
It does make me wonder how my grandparents supported my uncle in the British Mission a few years before that. Actually, it makes me even more amazed at their sacrifice.
And, a dumb question: did the Church pay any of the costs of missionary travel back then?
The Church did pay the return fare of missionaries who were honorably released (they sometimes took the IOU of dishonorably released elders just to get them out of the mission field).
Mission presidents paid the fare of returning missionaries out of the “maintenance” or “contingency” accounts (the accounting systems changed several times in the first half of the century, which is all I’m really familiar with), and when they had several missionaries returning at once, it sometimes put a strain on the mission budget until the accounts could be replenished from Salt Lake. I think that was probably the chief reason for the Church’s guaranty of paying fares at this time in Hawaii — if the mission funds were low due to unexpected expenses, or if there were a delay in sending funds due to wartime conditions, so that the Hawaiian Mission didn’t have the fares on hand, the travel companies could be assured of payment from Salt Lake regardless of conditions at Honolulu.