Did you know Hawaii used special money during World War II?

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II was a cruel surprise for the United States. Japan only intended to cripple the Pacific Fleet and prevent the U.S. from interfering with Japanese conquests in the Pacific. American decision makers, however, did not know this and were worried that the raid was the first step of a Japanese invasion of the Territory of Hawaii (not a state yet at the time). The preparations taken to defend against such an attack involved printing special money.

The 200 million dollars’ worth of cash in circulation on the islands was a point of concern. Had Japan invaded and occupied Hawaii, they could have seized that money and used it to fuel their war machine by spending it in other countries. In order to prevent this, an emergency order limited individuals and businesses to only possess 200 and 500 dollars at any time, respectively. All the cash was rounded up and replaced with specially printed “Hawaii overprint notes.” These looked like ordinary dollars, but had the word HAWAII printed in large letters on one side, and several other markings on the other. These 1, 5, 10 and 20$ notes no longer counted as legal tender, so a Japanese occupier would have found them worthless.

The problem was not quite solved yet, since all the real money was still on the island in storage. Shipping the cash to the mainland would have been difficult, so it was burned instead. A crematorium was used at first, but it didn’t have nearly enough capacity to do the job in a timely fashion, so the furnaces of the Aiea sugar mill were used to burn most of the money.

Save 10% with our V-E Day promotion

In a week, we will celebrate the 79th anniversary of V-E Day, standing for Victory in Europe Day, the date of the formal surrender of the German armed forces in World War II on May 8, 1945. On this occasion, we are offering all our available tours with a 10% discount if you book and pay in full by May 8, 2024. Note that this offer applies only in case of new bookings, and it can be combined with selected special offers. If you have any questions related to this promotion or our tours, please contact our travel consultants at info@beachesofnormandy.com or by calling our toll-free number: +1 855-473-1999.