Quonset Hut 33 Sheds Light on African American Military History in Hawai‘i
Last Remaining Building at Mānana Barracks Reveals Rich History By guest contributor Deloris Guttman, founder and curator of the Obama Hawaiian Africana Museum (formerly known as the African American Diversity Cultural Center Hawaii). Naval Aviation Supply Depot (NASD) Personnel Quonset Hut 33 is a one-story former military building on the grounds in the Urban Garden Center, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources in Pearl City on O‘ahu. There were a 100 Quonset huts constructed in 1944. Quonset Hut 33, the only structure that remains, served as galley storehouse at the segregated housing Manana Barracks for African American military personnel in the Naval Aviation Supply Depot. In the midst of World War II, several factors led to the U.S. Navy’s construction of a segregated encampment between Pearl City and an area known as the Waiawa Gulch. Among them were various racial tensions at housing areas for African American Cargo Handling Units at Pearl Harbor and surrounding areas, the arrival of over a dozen predominantly African American Construction Battalions (CBs or “SeaBees”) to the Fourteenth Naval District in July 1943, and the construction of two supply centers in Waiawa Gulch where many African American navy men worked. Under “Jim Crow” law, black servicemen could not socialize with white servicemen in Hawai‘i. A separate USO facility was setup. The Manana Barracks housed over 1,800 African Americans that worked at the Waiawa Gulch Naval Aviation Supply Deport as stevedores and cargo handlers. The contributions of these men who lived at Manana Barracks provided vital service to World War II war efforts in the Pacific Theater. During World War II, the majority of African American military personnel in Hawai‘i served in the [...]