On Dec. 7, 1941, Imperial Japanese Navy cruiser submarines I-1, I-2, and I-3 arrived in the Kaua‘i Channel between O‘ahu and Kaua‘i under orders to conduct reconnaissance and attack ships that sailed from Pearl Harbor during and after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that morning.
Then, on Dec. 27, 1941, I-3, commissioned in 1926 and commanded by Lt. Cdr. Tonozuka Kinzo, received orders to shell Nawiliwili, Kaua‘i. on Dec. 30, 1941.
I-3 arrived off Kaua‘i during daylight on the 30th and conducted a periscope reconnaissance of the Wailua River area.
That night, at around 1:30 a.m., I-3 surfaced offshore of Nawiliwili Bay and fired 20 high-explosive shells from her deck guns toward the breakwater and a building it identified as a warehouse.
Holbrook Goodale and his grandfather, Charles Rice, observed I-3’s attack from Rice’s Kalapaki home, now the site of the Royal Sonesta Resort pool.
Machinist Pat Shannon’s Nawiliwili home, located on the top floor of Shannon’s machine works, situated along the stretch of harbor between what are today the Matson and Young Brothers terminals, was shelled several times.
Fortunately, Shannon and his wife Sophie and daughter Hanna had quickly taken cover in the machine shop downstairs after being awakened by the explosion of the first shell and were unharmed.
Another shell started a cane field fire on the bluff above Nawiliwili Harbor, which Joseph Souza and Kelii Afat were fighting when another shell exploded nearby, prompting them to dive into a ditch for safety.
Yet, most shells were duds.
One of them merely punctured a Shell Oil Company gasoline storage tank, others created water plumes in the bay, and another was run over by a vehicle traveling on the harbor road later that morning.
When the burned cane field was later harvested, the harvesting supervisor discovered a dud shell that he dutifully took to Grove Farm Manager William Patterson Alexander’s house (which still stands, albeit decrepitly, on Nawiliwili Road) and laid it on Alexander’s doorstep.
When Alexander saw it, he was astonished, to say the least.
I-3 was torpedoed and sunk by PT Boat 59 in December 1942.
