Practice Blackout Notice for May 20, 1941.

Practice blackouts were staged in Hawai`i in 1939, 1940, and 1941. People were notified of these events by handouts like this one, which is printed in English, Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, and Filipino. In 1940, Army officials announced their displeasure that Honolulu residents had watched that year’s blackout from vantage points above the city, which they thought was not treating the exercise with proper seriousness. Therefore, this 1941 notice states that this kind of sightseeing should not occur again. When the war actually began about 6 months later, all of Hawai`i was put under what was possibly the strictest blackout in the entire world for several years.

Collection: Orlo and Lucille Peugh Collection
Call Number: MS Group 342, folder 5
Accession Number: 1992.366
Location: Bishop Museum Archives