Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor

Douglas Wada was born in Hawaii to Japanese immigrant parents. His father is a Shinto shrine builder, and his mother tends a shop on their family plot in a Japanese-dominated area of Honolulu. His older brother dies in a tragic accident at age 14, leaving Wada and his two sisters with grieving parents. He is fascinated with American culture, especially baseball, Boy Scouts, and cars. This worries his traditionalist parents, and his mother hatches a scheme to get Wada back to Japan. In 1928, he returns with his mother and attends school, playing baseball and earning accolades for his athletic talent. In 1931, the Japanese Imperial Army invades Manchuria, and many of Wada’s friends are drafted. Fearful that his American citizenship will not save him from military service, Wada escapes an increasingly militarized Japan and returns to Hawaii.

Wada returns to Hawaii without his official travel documents after five years in Japan and is stuck in detention explaining how he fled the Imperial Army leaving his passport behind. Back on Kama Lane, Wada finds a new Shinto shrine beside the family’s plot. Their deep family connection to Shinto spans oceans, and has its roots in the temples of Japan. Upon reunification, Wada’s father finds that their ploy to connect their son to his family’s culture, language, and heritage has worked. Wada is fluent in Japanese and understands the religion and culture.

Douglas Wada plays baseball in the Americans of Japanese Ancestry (AJA) league. He also plays for the University of Hawaii while studying business. He will graduate in May and is unsure what to do afterwards.

Ensign Takeo Yoshikawa views war with America as inevitable. He is a promising soldier sidelined by illness and retired from the Imperial Army. He nearly dies by suicide, but then in 1936 he is offered a position in intelligence, studying the US Pacific Fleet.

At the University of Hawaii, Douglas Wada excels in his Japanese language classes and is soon recruited by Professor Uyehara to be his assistant. An older, married classmate named Ken Ringle asks him about the militarization of Japanese youth in Hawaii, and soon Wada learns that two FBI agents are asking about him. He thinks Ringle might be the reason. Soon, the US Navy calls and offers an interview. When he arrives, Ringle is revealed to be Lieutenant Commander K. D. Ringle, of Naval intelligence, who has been recruiting from the university. They need someone who understands Japanese culture, language, and custom. Wada is offered a job as a language specialist and accepts. They ask him to find a job in the Japanese community and to report back frequently.

Wada has found work at the Nippu Jiji, an English-language Japanese newspaper, where he interviews prominent Nisei (American-born Japanese). His first undercover assignment is to interview Chikaki Honda, an American-born baseball player living in Japan who is leaning more toward Japanese loyalty, though he fears military conscription. Wada turns in his reports. Working clandestinely for the US Navy, Wada begins to see his world in a new, frightening way.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Shivers arrives in Honolulu to set up an FBI office to monitor the Japanese and Japanese American population of the island. He must work with the Navy, as he has only a two-man staff to monitor 160,000 people. Shivers understands that the Navy, Army, local police, and FBI must have a coordinated plan in the event of war, a plan that includes the detention of blacklisted individuals. His primary target will be the 300+ Japanese consular agents in Hawaii, who frequently recruit from the Japanese language centers. Like the other intelligence agencies, Shivers believes these schools, and the Shinto shrines, to be extensions of the Japanese Empire. Shivers is advised to meet with Shigeo Yoshida, a professor and writer. Together, the pair plan to help steer the Japanese community away from Japan’s militarization and toward Americanism. In a bid to understand Japanese culture, Shivers has a Japanese exchange student named Sue live with him and his wife Connie.

Germany invades Poland on September 1, 1939. France and the UK declare war on Germany soon after, and the Japanese realize that the Europeans’ colonial holdings in South-East Asia will be largely unprotected. Japan can secure rubber and oil, fortifying its power in the region with much-needed resources. The only threat in the region remains the United States.

In 1938, Wada becomes the first AJA commissioned lieutenant in the ONI. Wada’s cover job is as a customs agent for Shore Patrol. When a high-profile Japanese Navy group visits Hawaii, Wada is tasked with surveying the ships and their crew. The training cruise lasts five days, and Wada is exhausted when they finally depart.

Lieutenant Commander Ken D. Ringle summons Wada to the Black Room to translate classified documents. These visits make Wada realize the gap between himself and his community, a gap that increases the more he gains the trust of the Navy. For their part, Wada is essential, and they cannot risk him on undercover assignments when he is needed in the building as a translator.

Masaji Marumoto is an influential local attorney and director of the Prince Fushimi Memorial Scholarship. He is also chairman of the Young Men’s Buddhist Association, and a prime target on the FBI’s detention list, as are many in his circle. Marumoto calls Wada to testify, and Wada is forced to reveal he works in counterintelligence. Surprising everyone, Marumoto keeps this a secret, and FBI agent Shivers believes they can turn Marumoto into a sympathetic ally.

Wada marries Helen Fusayo Ota in a ceremony at the shrine and finds a better balance between his nationalism and his patriotism. Although his father is still a Shinto shrine builder, and thus lumped in with what his employers would deem “Imperialists,” Wada finds a way to live in both worlds, and he and his young wife buy a home near his family on Kama Lane.

Ringle is meanwhile reassigned to California and his replacement, Lieutenant Commander Denzel Carr, continues to use Wada’s skillset. When Wada reads his wedding announcement in the newspaper, however, he finds himself unmasked. The secret about his work as a Naval intelligence officer is in the open.

US Army Colonel Thomas Green is in Hawaii to define “martial law” for the US Army. It is a vague concept, largely unused at the federal level since the end of the Civil War. Green concludes that in the context of the Hawaiian population during wartime, martial law means whatever the Army wants. His plan envisions a military governorship of Hawaii in the event of war.

In the autumn of 1940 FBI SAC (Special Agent in Charge) Robert Shivers asks the Roosevelt administration to arrest every single Japanese consular agent in Hawaii, some 234 people. The request is unpopular in the Army, where General Walter Short is currently working to integrate Japanese recruits. In Washington, the General’s word has more weight, and Shivers’s request is denied.