Beginning on November 1, which is the date of my mother’s first letter from her Hawaii trip 84 years ago, I am serializing day by day, the book, Cecilia King’s Extraordinary Senior Trip, which you can obtain from Amazon in either Kindle or paperback.

I hope you enjoy the upcoming nine-months in Hawaii 1940-41.

Cecilia either did not write a letter on November 23, or it has been lost. We’ll take this day, instead, to look at one of the venues that continued to play a role throughout her Hawaiian adventure – Fort DeRussy. At the time Cecilia was in Honolulu (1940-41) Fort DeRussy was a military installation constructed in 1906 on Waikiki Beach near the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. The “fort” was originally intended to house coastal artillery Battery Dudley with two six-inch guns and Battery Randolph with two 14-inch guns, but in 1940-41, it also had recreational facilities for military personnel and their families.

Figure 1 - A 14-inch gun at Battery Randolph (https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/endicott-taft/one-of-battery-randolphs-14-inch-m1907m1-guns-on-its-disappearing-carriage-coastdefensejournal/)

As a relative of Col. King, Cecilia had full access to the Fort DeRussy facilities, including those reserved for officers, which were the nearest military recreational facilities to her home at the King residence, only 4 miles and a half hour bus ride away. The social life of the young military officer set in the “Pineapple Army”  revolved around officers’ cubs at the various installations, including Fort DeRussy, Hickam Field, Fort Shafter, Schofield Barracks and Wheeler Field. Fort Shafter is where Cecilia’s Uncle Ed had his office, and Fort DeRussy, the most frequented, was mainly a recreation center on Waikiki Beach. That had beach access as well as a bar, restaurant and tennis courts.

On November 15, 1940, Cecilia wrote:

Nearly everyone at DeRussy wears, for play & swimming, print skirt shorts & bra tops. But Aunt Susan says I must be different & startling – so her choice of shorts is a white sharkskin one piece with navy zipper and navy belt – pleated shorts & really grand looking –- but heaven help me, it’s a practically two months allowance. A second choice was green chartreuse crepe with pleated skirt all over making grand looking sport dress. My choice was light blue burlap shorts with wide big cuffs turned up of blue navy linen – short loose zip jacket with fringed pockets, $13.00, $20.00, $6.00 (it had been worn in style show) as they come.

The guns at the Fort DeRussy batteries were capable of hitting a 20-foot target from six miles away. With the end of World War II came the realization that the fort was no longer capable of meeting the needs of the US military in Hawaiʻi. The giant guns were cut up and sold for scrap, having never fired a shot in anger or defense. Battery Dudley was razed to the ground; Battery Randolph was eventually abandoned and briefly became a warehouse storage facility.  In 1976, the Army designated Battery Randolph home of the US Army Museum of Hawaiʻi.

Today, Fort DeRussy Armed Forces Recreation Center is the home of the Hale Koa Hotel (House of the Warrior,) an 817-room, world–class resort hotel and continued favorite R&R destination for our country’s military personnel and the US Army Museum of Hawaiʻi.

Figure 2 - Fort DeRussy Beach today

Figure 3 - Former Battery Randolph, now a museum.