During World War II, the Kauai Volunteers, a local militia formed to supplement the Armed Forces and National Guard in defense of Kauai, conducted maneuvers with the regular Army in which the volunteers would generally impersonate the enemy.
One of its officers, Kekaha-
born Capt. William Harwood Danford (1905-81), a Kekaha Sugar Co. division overseer at the time, was the commanding officer of Company A.
In 1971, Danford recalled training exercises Company A participated in at Kokee against opposing Army units bound for combat duty in the Pacific and noted first of all that he often had difficulty keeping track of his company in dense woodlands.
Capt. Danford’s volunteers would wander off and lose contact with him, and on one occasion, when his commanding officer, Col. R. C. Williamson, asked for the position of his company, he pointed in the direction of nearby Company B, rather than report that he didn’t know.
By doing so, he effectively took credit for the leadership that the CO of Company B had exhibited by maintaining control of his company in difficult terrain, an act that consequently did not endear Danford to Company B’s CO, nor to Col. Williamson.
His relationship with Company B completely deteriorated afterwards when its CO, sleeping in a dry irrigation ditch, was awakened by a stream of water rushing through the ditch.
Perhaps it was the Army that had opened an irrigation gate, but Danford was never able to convince B Company’s CO that he hadn’t done it himself.
Danford also remembered the time his volunteers captured a GI who’d strayed into Company A’s position, after which they disarmed him, and being mindful that the area was thickly infested with prickly lantana bushes, also confiscated his boots and socks.
Later, when Danford’s men reported that GIs had maneuvered under cover of darkness to nearly surrounded Company A, he quickly led his men through the gap in the GI’s positions, and before the night was over, Company A had succeeded in turning the tables on its adversaries by cutting the Kokee Road and isolating them.
safaye@hawaiiantel.net
While the KV’s were challenging the 27th Infantry up Koke’e Ridge, we Boy Scouts from our Waimea pack provided support. My horse carried a small cage of carrier pigeons that sent messages to Signal Corps af Koke’e top. Some pigs were flushed out, and we all went pig hunting. The 27th went on to battle at Tarawa Ayoll.