If you're familiar with Waimea (Kamuela) today, it's hard to imagine what it must have been like at the end of 1943. When December began, Waimea's population was approximately 400 residents, mostly Parker Ranch employees. Within two weeks, its population had swollen to more than 25,000, mostly U.S. Marines, survivors of the Battle of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands.

Without fanfare, truckloads of Marines, sailors and soldiers rolled into Waimea and, with the support of Parker Ranch, set up an enormous tent city on 441 acres of ranch lands. Things happened that way in the middle of World War II.

For rent of $1 per year, Parker Ranch had leased to the U.S. Government 40,000 acres of ranch property for what would become the largest Marine Corps training camp in the Pacific. Before the end of the war, more than 50,000 U.S. military personnel would pass through its main gate.

They named it Camp Tarawa and in the months that followed, the young Marines billeted there healed their wounds, regrouped and began training for the biggest, fiercest battles of the War in the Pacific. Thus it was that Parker Ranch became the temporary home of boys from all over the United States, and Waimea's residents - many of Japanese ancestry - took them into their hearts and homes.

The troops brought with them new ideas, new technology and Mainland skills, introducing electricity where there had been only kerosene lamps, and building reservoirs and roads where there had been none. The Marines even built an ice house where cooks made ice cream for the troops and for the local children who were attending classes in garages and private homes, their school having been requisitioned for military use. Favorite Mainland recipes were introduced to Waimea so the soldiers could have a occasional taste of home. Waimea residents may not have realized it then, but their quiet paniolo community was about to get very busy.

The location and mission of Camp Tarawa were highly classified. Censors literally snipped any hint of their whereabouts from the boys' letters home. Words like "pineapple" and "aloha" presumably found their way into the wastebasket because one small slip could jeopardize the missions that lay ahead. What they had to do promised to be plenty difficult without a security leak.

Looking at the old photos from Camp Tarawa days, it's a shock to see how young they were, these boys from the Mainland. Just kids, most of them looking like they belonged in letter sweaters, not battle fatigues.

The first group of Marines - the Second Division - arrived in December, 1943, back from the Battle of Tarawa. Until they shipped out in the spring of 1944, they trained endlessly for the amphibious landings and assaults that lay ahead, using ranch land and other Big Island locations such as Hapuna Beach for their exercises. In the process, they developed new strategies that would affect the outcome of the war. The skills they honed at Camp Tarawa would serve them later in Saipan, Tinian and Okinawa.

The second group — the Fifth Division — arrived from California in the fall of 1944 and trained until late December, 1944. When they left Camp Tarawa, it was to fight the Battle of Iwo Jima, one of the most decisive and bloodiest battles of World War II. Expected to take a mere three days, the capture of Iwo Jima took thirty-six days. More Marines died there than in any other battle in the Pacific.

For most Americans, the now-famous image of the American flag being raised on Iwo Jima has become an icon of World War II. The Marines who raised that flag trained at Camp Tarawa. And it was to Camp Tarawa that the survivors returned, to heal and rest. The people of Waimea welcomed them with open arms.

In a gesture of their profound appreciation, the Fifth Division presented A. H. Carter, manager of Parker Ranch, with a copy of the famous Iwo Jima photo. On it were the signatures of more than 60 survivors of the Battle of Iwo Jima.

And once again, the Marines began training, this time for the invasion of Japan. Instead, the war ended with Japan's surrender and the men of Camp Tawara shipped out for the last time. Neither they nor the people of Waimea would ever be the same.

There's a memorial now at what was the camp entrance, just outside Kamuela on Highway 190. Dedicated in 1998, it captures the importance of the camp with an evocative narrative about those who trained there.

The building used for the USO - Bob Crosby and the Bobcats played there, Joe DiMaggio came to call - is still around. It's now Parker School.

The old hotel and public school that had been converted to a hospital and nurses' quarters were returned to civilian use as Waimea School.

The ranch owner's home, transformed to Division Headquarters and provisioned as the Officers' Mess, is presently a ranch museum, Pu'u Opelu, and is open to the public.

The signed photo of the Iwo Jima flag-raising is now in the national collection of the U.S. Marine Corps.

What remains of Camp Tarawa today is largely in the mind's eye, images from old black and white photos superimposed on green ranchland. But there are also indelible memories -- of friendships made, of kindness shown by Big Islanders and soldiers alike, and of the enormous sacrifice of all those young men so far away from home with such a terrible job to do.

When you come to think of it, that's quite a lot.

Our thanks for information, countless courtesies and historic photos of Camp Tarawa and its people go to Alice Clark, Chair, Pacific War Memorial Foundation.

For more information on Camp Tarawa and the proposed Iwo Jima Memorial, go to: www.pacificwarmemorial.org

Related sites:
http://www.tarawaontheweb.org
http://www.iwojima.com/
http://starbulletin.com/98/03/23/news/story5.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/warletters/