Seventy-five years ago today Americans were stunned at the news of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Most lighthouse keepers shared the news in their logbooks and noted the immediate effects of this event at their station.


Submitted by Candace Clifford, Historian, U.S. Lighthouse Society, December 7, 2016
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Candace was the US Lighthouse Society historian from 2016 until she passed away in August 2018. For 30 years, her work involved lighthouse history. She worked with the National Park Service and the Council of American Maritime Museums. She was a noted author and was considered the most knowledgable person on lighthouse information at the National Archives. Books by Candace Clifford include: Women who Kept the Lights: a History of Thirty-eight Female Lighthouse Keepers , Mind the Light Katie, and Maine Lighthouses, Documentation of their Past.
Thank you for this timely and most interesting post. Really enjoyed it.
Blacked out lighthouses must have affected navigation even if they helped prevent attacks on our coasts. How did ships get around in the dark?
By WWII, there were other forms of navigation being used besides lighthouses. Radio Navigation, also known as the “flying beam” was an important advancement during this time: Before the war, radio navigation could only provide a course or a bearing to a station. The invention of timekeeping technologies, such as the crystal oscillator, led to a new era of systems that could fix position accurately and were easier to use. Each system of radio navigation uses time in a slightly different way and each requires its own type of navigational charting.
By World War II, a web of air navigation radio stations and beacons connected by “airways” began to cover the globe. When war broke out, new military equipment revolutionized air navigation. This allowed less experienced users to achieve the same results as highly trained celestial navigators and eventually decreased the need for professional navigators.
What is the archive/citation information for the Makapu’u Lighthouse logbooks?
This story was posted by the late Candace Clifford, who was the historian for the USLHS at the time. I believe the citation would be, “Record Group 26: Records of the U.S. Coast Guard, 1785-2005. Series: Logbooks of Lighthouses, 1872-1944.”
Thanks for the response. NARA A1 (Downtown D.C.) claims to only have the Makapu’u logbooks for 1942 and they say there are no logbooks for Makapu’u at NARA A2 (College Park). This blog indicates the logs for 1941 were located somewhere. I would like to locate the Makapu’u logs for the rest of the war and finding the source for the 1941 logs might be helpful in that. Any further help by the current historian would be appreciated. Thanks!
We’ll see if we can track this information down. Thanks!
Thanks!
Hi Anthony – This is Jeremy D’Entremont, current historian for the USLHS. I can tell you that nobody knew NARA’s lighthouse holdings like Candace did.
Tom Tag of the USLHS suggests: “The Lighthouse Station Logs go from 1872-1947 and can be found mostly under Record Group 26 Entry 80 (NC-31) they are arranged alphabetically by station name and then by year. They are housed in banker’s boxes with several years per box. It is often found that they are not in their correct boxes and thus all boxes for that station should be searched. Remember that Hawaii was a territory in 1941 and that may cause the boxes to have to be located through the territory heading (I don’t know). Note also that the books for the years 1942 and up are stored in a slightly different way under Entry 159 (NC-31) – the NARA should know. There are also Unit War Diaries for 1942 to 1945 under Entry 186 (A-1) that may have some information. The best bet is to go to the Archives Main Location and request a pull for all years for Makapu’u Point.”