Over the weekend of May 26-27, 1928, ships making numerous round trips conveyed roughly 3,000 visitors from the dock at Port Allen, Kaua‘i (named in 1909 for Honolulu merchant Samuel Cresson Allen) to the battleship USS Tennessee, moored offshore. On
Over the weekend of May 26-27, 1928, ships making numerous round trips conveyed roughly 3,000 visitors from the dock at Port Allen, Kaua‘i (named in 1909 for Honolulu merchant Samuel Cresson Allen) to the battleship USS Tennessee, moored offshore.
On board, sailors provided their guests with guided tours of the battleship, where features such as her three seaplanes, 12 14-inch guns, antiaircraft guns, machine-guns, torpedoes, anchor chains, each weighing 20 pounds, large kitchen, post office and up-to-date barbershop attracted attention.
Ashore, hundreds of cars were parked dockside, big crowds waited their turns to board the ship, small Japanese and Chinese stores did a thriving business, and sailors dressed in spotless whites and marines in khaki uniforms on liberty could be seen practically all over the Westside of Kaua‘i.
The Kaua‘i Railway Co. furnished a train that took many of them to Lawa‘i Bay for the day. This railroad supplied ‘Ele‘ele’s McBryde Sugar Co., Makaweli’s Hawaiian Sugar Co., Lawa‘i’s Kaua‘i Fruit and Land Co. and Koloa Sugar Co. with rail transportation.
On McBryde’s property, its main track ran from Port Allen to Koloa and included four spurs, one of which extended to a pumping station in Lawa‘i Valley.
Kaua‘i Railway Co. also furnished trucks to take ship’s personnel up to Waimea Canyon, a local welcoming committee drove sailors on sightseeing tours of the Westside in their cars, and the battleship’s officers hosted a Saturday night dance aboard ship.
On Dec. 7, 1941, the Tennessee was extensively damaged during Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Following repairs and modernization, she saw action at Kiska, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, New Ireland, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Anguar, Peleliu, Leyte, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and elsewhere. Tennessee was decommissioned in 1947 and sold for scrap in 1959.
