The History of Hawai‘i From Our Files: “Honolulu Never Forgets Memorial Day”

A parade, speeches and performances by the Kamehameha Glee Clubs were featured at ceremonies held across town in 1915.

July 30, 2020

Robbie Dingeman,

For more than 100 years, HONOLULU Magazine has kept its readers and advertisers at the vanguard of fashion, insight and fun. Starting out as Paradise of the Pacific in 1888 with a commission from King Kalākaua, we’re the oldest continually publishing magazine west of the Mississippi. Here is a look into our archives from 1915.

Paradise devoted four pages to Memorial Day coverage. “Honolulu never forgets Memorial Day, or Decoration Day, as it is more commonly referred to. There are the floral riches of the semi-tropics to be drawn on for the fulfillment of the gentle offices of memory, and the graves of the soldier dead and of all those departed ones, whose loving friends yet tarry here a while, are remembered with fair blossoms from Hawai‘i’s hills and valleys.”

The ceremonies particularly honored 21 crew members who had recently died aboard the USS F-4 submarine. “The F-4 went down about a mile outside Honolulu harbor, during practice, in the morning of March 25.” A parade, speeches, and performances by the Kamehameha Glee Club and the Kamehameha Girls’ Glee Club were featured at ceremonies held across town.

These days, the largest Memorial Day services are usually held at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl.