"Bayonets in Paradise recounts the extraordinary story of how the army imposed rigid and absolute control on the total population of Hawaiʻi during World War II. Declared immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack, martial law was all-inclusive, bringing under army rule every aspect of the Territory of Hawaiʻi's laws and government institutions. Even the judiciary was placed under direct subservience to the military authorities. The result was a protracted crisis in civil liberties, as the army subjected more than 400,000 civilians--citizens and alien residents alike--to sweeping, intrusive social and economic regulations and to enforcement of army orders in provost courts with no semblance of due process. In addition, the army enforced special regulations against Hawaiʻi's large population of Japanese ancestry; thousands of Japanese Americans were investigated, hundreds were arrested, and some 2,000 were incarcerated. In marked contrast to the well-known policy of the mass removals on the West Coast, however, Hawaiʻi's policy was one of "selective," albeit preventive, detention. Army rule in Hawaiʻi lasted until late 1944--making it the longest period in which an American civilian population has ever been governed under martial law. The army brass invoked the imperatives of security and "military necessity" to perpetuate its regime of censorship, curfews, forced work assignments, and arbitrary "justice" in the military courts. Broadly accepted at first, these policies led in time to dramatic clashes over the wisdom and constitutionality of martial law, involving the president, his top cabinet officials, and the military. The authors also provide a rich analysis of the legal challenges to martial law that culminated in Duncan v. Kahanamoku, a remarkable case in which the U.S. Supreme Court finally heard argument on the martial law regime--and ruled in 1946 that provost court justice and the military's usurpation of the civilian government had been illegal. Based largely on archival sources, this comprehensive, authoritative study places the long-neglected and largely unknown history of martial law in Hawaiʻi in the larger context of America's ongoing struggle between the defense of constitutional liberties and the exercise of emergency powers."--Jacket.

Introduction : wartime emergency powers and martial law -- Part I. Martial law and military government. Prelude to martial law : security and the "Japanese problem" -- Final war planning for Hawaiʻi, 1939-1941 : martial law and selective internment -- Implementation of martial law and military government -- Part II. Civilians under army rule : "the iron grasp of martial law." Life under general orders -- Control of labor -- "Drum-head justice"? : the military courts and the suspension of Habeas Corpus -- Part III. Japanese Americans under martial law. "An extreme degree of fear" -- Selective detention and removal -- Determining loyalty : review boards, questionnaires, and racial profiling -- The fate of the detainees -- Part IV. Political challenges. Alarms and responses -- "Delineation" and restoration, 1942-1943 -- Part V. Legal challenges. The Habeas Corpus cases : internment on trial -- New Habeas cases : the provost courts on trial -- Part VI. The end of martial law. Rising protests -- The termination of martial law -- Part VII. The Supreme Court rules. The Duncan and White cases -- War's aftermath and the courts -- Conclusion -- Afterword.