David Akui

David Mekaele Akui (January 16, 1920 – September 15, 1987) was an American soldier who became famous for capturing the first Japanese prisoner of war in World War II. At the time, Akui was a corporal in Company G, 298th Infantry Regiment of the Hawaii National Guard.

Biography

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Of mixed native Hawaiian and Japanese immigrant ancestry, Akui was inducted into federal service on 15 October 1940 and would serve in the Pacific theater until its end.

On December 8, 1941, the morning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Akui and Lieutenant Paul C. Plybon (1918–1996) were walking along Waimanalo Beach when Akui found a Japanese man lying unconscious on the beach. The man awoke to find Akui standing over him with a drawn pistol. Akui took the man into custody and he was identified as Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, commander of a two-man midget submarine that took part in the Pearl Harbor attacks. Ensign Sakamaki's submarine's gyrocompass malfunctioned, causing the submarine to sail in circles at periscope depth. Sakamaki ran aground on a reef, where the United States Navy destroyer USS Helm (DD-388) spotted his submarine and opened fire. The destroyer's gunners missed, but the blasts freed the submarine from the reef and Sakamaki was able to submerge. When he could not repair the gyrocompass, Sakamaki ordered Petty Officer 2nd Class Kiyoshi Inagaki to swim ashore, while he set the demolition charges to destroy the submarine. Sakamaki then abandoned ship himself. Inagaki drowned attempting to swim ashore. Sakamaki succeeded, but passed out from exhaustion. Corporal Akui found him there. Sakamaki's demolition charges failed to explode and his submarine also washed ashore where it was found by U.S. Air Force 1Lt. Jean K. Lambert (1914–1995) and 1Lt. James T. Lewis. It was salvaged and is now in the Admiral Nimitz Museum at Fredericksburg, Texas.

Akui served through the remainder of the war in the Pacific Theater and was a member of the famed "Merrill's Marauders", who fought the Japanese in the jungles of Burma. He retired from the United States Army as a master sergeant and spent the rest of his life in Hawaii. He died in Kaneohe, Honolulu in 1987 at the age of 67.