KAHULUI — David Kahookele was on his way to the naval base at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, when a projectile struck his car, killing him and three others.

The young man from Nahiku was just 23 years old and had transferred to Pearl Harbor from Maui that same year with his uncle, Joseph McCabe, who was also in the car along with John Adams and his father, Joseph Adams.

They were among the thousands who lost their lives 77 years ago today in the early-morning attack on Pearl Harbor that killed a total of 2,008 U.S. Navy personnel, 218 Army personnel and 109 Marines, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command. There were 68 civilian casualties.

“I want to share this not only for me, but for everybody,” said Kumu Kamalu Kahookele, who drove from East Maui to Kahului on Wednesday to tell the story of her uncle. “When I think about everything that has happened, I want to bring peace and humbleness to those who have served.

“If we keep their legacy, their history alive, that’s a blessing.”

Kamalu Kahookele, a historian, kumu hula, family genealogist and the founder and president of the Lower Nahiku Community Association, displayed a collection of photographs and copies of World War II-era newspapers on a table, priceless artifacts and stories that keep memories, though tragic, of her fallen relatives from being forgotten.

According to an article and photograph of the wrecked vehicle that was published in The Honolulu Advertiser in 1941, authorities said the vehicle that the four men were in was hit by a dud anti-aircraft shell around 1 p.m. on Judd Street, nearly three hours after the Japanese strike appeared to have ceased.

All four men worked at the harbor, Kamalu Kahookele said. She carries grief for her grandmother, Mary Kaohelani Adams Kahookele, who not only lost her firstborn son, David, during the explosion, but also her brother, nephew and cousin.

Kamalu Kahookele explained how her Uncle David was also from the small village of Nahiku and had joined the Civilian Conservation Corps in Keanae at what is now a YMCA camp. He worked in Keanae and at the old Olinda Prison for a time before being transferred to Oahu to work at Pearl Harbor as a rigger in 1941 with McCabe.

David Kahookele never married or had a child before he died at age 23, she said. Two of his sisters worked at local hospitals on Oahu during the war, helping those who were injured and ill, she added.

During the surprise attack just before 8 a.m. on Dec. 7, Japanese torpedo planes struck Ford Island’s row of battleships first. The USS Arizona was hit multiple times within minutes of the attack, with one bomb hitting the front section of the ship where ammunition was held, causing a massive explosion that killed 1,177 sailors and Marines on board, according to Pearl Harbor’s National Memorial Park Services.

By the end of the attack, 19 U.S. Navy ships, including eight battleships, were destroyed or damaged.

Planes dive-bombed and destroyed hangars, buildings and parked aircraft at Hickam Field and on Ford Island. Military bases all over Oahu were simultaneously attacked, including Wheeler Field, which was the main Army Air Corps field in Hawaii during the 1920s and early 1930s, as well as the Naval Air Station at Kaneohe Bay, Bellows Field and Marine Corps Air Station Ewa.

The USS Arizona still sits at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and after the war ended on Sept. 2, 1945, the Pearl Harbor National Memorial was built there in 1962 to honor the many lives lost and to mark the resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors and Marines who were killed in the explosion.

Kamalu Kahookele continues to remember and pay tribute to her relatives who fell victim to World War II, as well as veterans and all the fallen soldiers who have fought in battles around the world.

“I want to let them know they are never forgotten,” she said with tears in her eyes. “He was taken, unfortunately, but he wasn’t the only one, of course. To me, this is a tribute, to pay him respect and compassion, aloha, to those who cared enough to fight the war.”

Over seven decades later, the pain remains for many Maui families who lost loved ones in battle. But the honor and love Kamalu Kahookele has for her family lineage and the soldiers who fought is still just as strong. By sharing stories, traditions and artifacts from the past, she hopes that “it would bring them back good memories, maybe it will help heal their heart, maybe it will help take away that pain that they lived with all their life.”

A self-described “World War II baby,” Kamalu Kahookele was raised by her grandparents in East Maui and has seven children. As the oldest grandchild, she said she became interested in family genealogy and ancient Hawaiian customs in grammar school. Over the years, she inherited photographs, newspaper clippings and other artifacts.

Her grandfather, David Kanaloa Kahookele Jr., passed down items from his time as a teacher, fisherman, canoe craftsman, minister and community leader, she said.

In the 1970s, Kamalu Kahookele stepped into the role as the family’s genealogist, preserving historical items, such as memories from Pearl Harbor.

Although a lot of the attention was on the fallen battleships and the initial attacks on Oahu, her sister Della Honokaupu said Wednesday that many Maui families also lost loved ones throughout the war.

Honokaupu said she is “very proud” of her sister for keeping their families’ memories alive and teaching the next generation about WWII and ancient Hawaiian culture.

“It’s just a tribute that I feel my grandmother and grandfather deserve, and many of those that were like them, that have suffered the same drama, hurt, the same pain and loss, and to let them know they are not alone,” she said. “There are many of us that are still alive that understand and they should all be praised for being a big part of Hawaii Nei — those born, raised, lived, loved, died in Hawaii.”

A total of 36,777 Hawaii residents were either drafted or otherwise enlisted during WWII. Of those, 658 died in battle and 138 died noncombat-related deaths during the war, not including Pearl Harbor, according to the “Hawaiian Journal of History” at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

According to the U.S. Army Center of Military History, more than 2,000 of the soldiers were Native Hawaiians, and another 1,434 were drafted through 1946. Of all men drafted from the state, an estimated 12 percent were listed as full or part-Hawaiian.

Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945, Kamalu Kahookele’s mother wrote a commentary piece for The Maui News in April 1946.

“Because of my brother’s death, my five brothers went to war. Some in three wars and some in two,” Edna Kahahalei Kahookele Calhau wrote. “We watched our mother cry for 30 years until she passed away. She did not hate, only compassion and forgiveness to the enemy for hurting and brought her sadness for the remainder of her life.

“She had to be strong like a soldier because her five sons were fighting in the war and the millions of sons, husbands and boyfriends across the nation so that no enemy will ever come to our shores to hurt us anymore.”

To all the soldiers that served in WWII, whether stationed in Hawaii or on the Mainland, Kamalu Kahookele said, “I believe with all my heart that they deserve recognition.”

“See those men right there?” she said, pointing to family photos and those who served in the military. “They’re my heroes, they raised me.”

* Dakota Grossman can be reached at dgrossman@mauinews.com.