The project that would become the Hawaii War Records Depository (HWRD) was conceived in 1943 by members of the faculty of the University of Hawaii. Dr. Ralph S. Kuykendall of the university’s history department, having written an account of Hawaii’s role in the First World War (Hawaii in the World War) strongly urged president of the university, Gregg Sinclair, to consider establishing a repository for war information before the conflict was over in order to facilitate the eventual compilation of a history. In a memo to Sinclair, Kuykendall wrote:

"Having directed and in large part performed the work of preparing the history of Hawaii’s part in the first World War, I am in position to testify that the work was greatly handicapped by the delay of more than four years in beginning the collection of documents and other materials needed for it…it is important that steps be taken without further delay to collect the materials relating to Hawaii’s part in the present war."

Sensitive to Kuykendall’s argument, Sinclair appointed a sixteen-member Committee on the Collection of War Documents (later called the “Hawaii War Records Committee”) made up of university faculty, which met for the first time on 1943 April 9. At that first meeting, the committee decided to seek the backing of the territorial legislature for their war records collection project. In that same month, the Hawaii Territorial Legislature held its first session after the United States' entrance into World War II. Sinclair presented the subject of the war records project to them at that session, prompting the passage of a joint resolution designating the University of Hawaii "the official depository of material, documents, photographs, and other data relating to Hawaii's part in the war between the United States and Germany, Japan, and Italy." $10,000 was appropriated for the project.

In May of 1943, the Committee on the Collection of War Documents formally adopted the name “Hawaii War Records Depository” for the collection and appointed an executive committee to direct it. Space was designated within the library (which was located in what is today George Hall on the University of Hawaii campus) to house the collection. For the first crucial years of the depository’s existence, Kuykendall served as chairman of the Hawaii War Records Committee and its executive committee and played a large role in shaping the depository’s goals and structure. Other original members of the executive committee were Andrew Lind of the University of Hawaii sociology department and Carl Stroven, university librarian.

The limited initial budget of the repository allowed the executive committee to hire one full-time stenographer for the project and one part-time archivist. Catherine Field was the first appointed archivist for the project, hired in August of 1943. Field, in addition to actively soliciting donations for the collection from all corners of the territory, assisted Kuykendall in compiling the list of 72 subject headings under which to classify the materials in the repository. That list, while altered to accommodate additional headings, remains in use in the HWRD today.

Once the depository was established, the committee needed to determine what was to be collected. Seven main categories of materials were established in an early planning document: 1. Governmental Records – Rather than seeking the formal records of governmental departments, the depository sought other materials distributed to the public including reports, statements, instructions, circulars, questionnaires, forms, certificates, identification cards, and posters. 2. Records of Non-Governmental Organizations, Institutions, and Establishments – The depository was to collect the same sorts of materials for both permanent organizations and temporary ones established to aid the war effort that it collected from governmental departments. 3. Newspapers and Periodicals – The depository sought to compile a complete collection of local newspapers from all the islands (including military service periodicals) for the entire duration of the war, beginning in 1939. 4. Books, Pamphlets, and Miscellaneous Printed Material – Books in the collection could come from either private individuals or professional publishers. 5. Personal Papers – The HWRD sought letters, diaries, etc. of people in the military, government, or civilian life detailing their experience of the war. 6. Photographs, Motion Pictures, Posters, etc. – The Hawaii War Records Committee wanted to assemble “a complete pictorial record of Hawaii’s participation in the war.” 7. Scripts of Radio Broadcasts – The depository sought scripts from radio programs related to the war effort as well as any propaganda or discussion of local problems or conditions caused by the war.

The Hawaii War Records Depository has remained largely faithful to these collecting categories throughout its existence, and today the bulk of the collection falls into the first two categories: Governmental Records and Records of Non-Governmental Organizations, Institutions, and Establishments. Given the bulk of local newspapers and periodicals produced on the islands, both from military and civilian sources, it was not possible to assemble a complete collection spanning the entire duration of the war. Nonetheless, the collection does contain a large number of periodicals and newspapers from a variety of sources. Later in its collecting history (1945, to be exact), the HWRD expanded its collecting goals for periodicals and newspapers to include materials published outside the territory concerning Hawaii in wartime. Personal papers make up what is perhaps the smallest portion of materials, and internal records from the war period reinforce the point that it was far easier to get official records and publications from organizations or the government than it was to get ordinary citizens to contribute diaries or letters to the depository.

As it was based at the library of the University of Hawaii in Manoa, the work of the Hawaii War Records Committee and its archivist was largely focused on Oahu – more specifically on the city of Honolulu. To correct this imbalance, committees were established on neighbor islands and (later) on rural Oahu. These neighbor island committees were established in late 1943 and headed by Elsie Wilcox on Kauai, Franklyn E. Skinner on Maui, and Ernest de Silva on Hawaii. Chairmen of the neighbor island committees were not paid, but served as liaisons for the depository with members of their local communities, encouraging donations of materials from people and organizations not based in Honolulu.

Collection of materials in the depository went smoothly for a period of eight months, led largely by the collecting efforts of Kuykendall and Field. Due to ill health, however, Catherine Field resigned her position at the end of March 1944. At this time, the executive committee took advantage of the necessary change in personnel to request an additional $9,105 from the governor in order to fund four full-time positions for the depository through the end of fiscal year 1945. This additional sum was granted, and hiring began.

The committee sought to hire (in addition to the stenographer already employed) a director to spearhead the collecting efforts of the depository, a full-time archivist to replace Mrs. Field, and a full-time librarian to take charge of organizing and cataloging the information collected. The process was a slow one, however, and the four positions were not all filled until September of 1944.

The first permanent full-time staff of the depository was made up of: • Janey Suzukawa, Stenographer, appointed in January of 1944 • Retired Major V.M. Culver, Director, appointed in June of 1944 • Kathryn Stidham, Archivist, appointed in September of 1944 • Beth Bonham, Library Assistant, appointed in September of 1944

Major Culver and Kathryn Stidham married in November 1944 (Kathryn Stidham is referred to by both her married and maiden names throughout the collection), and in order to avoid the conflict of having two members of the same family working in the same department, he resigned as director of the depository in December. The position of director was not filled, and the chairman of the Hawaii War Records Committee fulfilled the duties of the director after Major Culver’s departure. In May of 1945, Beth Bonham resigned as librarian. Adele Culver, sister-in-law to Kathryn Culver, was hired as librarian for the collection in May 1946.

As it was for Field, the title of archivist was somewhat of a misnomer for Stidham, as she acted more as a records collector, pursuing leads and cultivating relationships to find new and important papers for the depository. Under Stidham’s direction, the HWRD actively campaigned for materials, placing placards on public buses as well as smaller posters in public buildings throughout the state urging people to “Tell us your story – for the history of Hawaii in World War II.” Newspapers printed ads soliciting donations and radio stations donated time for announcements. A large portion of the collection was donated by government departments, the armed forces, civilian war agencies, and large corporations rather than by individual citizens. In some cases, departments and agencies wrote reports of their wartime activities specifically to send to the Hawaii War Records Depository, and such reports can be found at various points throughout the collection.

It fell to the librarian to do the work of keeping an accession list for materials; classifying incoming materials according to subject; choosing and clipping newspaper articles from the Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin relevant to Hawaii and the war; maintaining the growing casualty files and photograph collections; supervising the microfilming of material that needed to be returned to its source; and maintaining the alphabetical card file that provided access to the entire collection. In this, the librarian was assisted at any given time by several student assistants and the secretary or stenographer (who was also responsible for transcribing interviews).

In the spring of 1946, Kuykendall went on sabbatical on the mainland, and (although he remained involved in the work of the HWRD) he was replaced as chairman of the Hawaii War Records Committee by Thomas D. Murphy, a newcomer to the University of Hawaii history department and former head of the War Records Department at the University of Connecticut.

The budget approved by the legislature for the financial period 1945-1947 was $30,000, a significant increase from the $19,105 granted for the first two years of the depository’s existence. Nevertheless, Murphy and the rest of the War Records Committee maintained that additional time and funding was required to fulfill the task that they felt was implicit in the legislature’s establishment of the depository: to write and publish a history of Hawaii’s role in the war. On the recommendation of the executive committee, the University of Hawaii Board of Regents approved a plan to produce several volumes using the materials in the HWRD. Once again, the territorial government backed the university’s plan. On 1947 May 16, Governor Stainback signed Senate Bill 157 (Act 136), which stated: "The Board of Regents of the University of Hawaii shall have prepared and published in separate volumes… a) A history of the Territory of Hawaii’s part in the war just concluded between the United States of America, and Germany, Japan and Italy. b) A memorial containing the names, pictures and biographical accounts of persons born or domiciled in the Territory of Hawaii who died in the service of the United States during the war. c) A series of monographic studies of such aspects of Hawaii’s part in the war as are believed by the Board of Regents to be important enough to warrant their being undertaken." A sum of $10,000 was given to this second phase of the project.

Formal collecting efforts of the HWRD ended in June of 1947. The collecting staff of the depository (including Kathryn Stidham and Adele Culver) was let go, and only the secretary, Kasumi Murakami remained to catalog any last-minute additions to the collection. (It appears that Murakami left the position only in 1949.) Later in the summer of 1947, Murphy spearheaded the hiring of two new researchers for the depository. One, Lloyd Lee, would research and compile the memorial volume, eventually titled In Freedom’s Cause and published by the University of Hawaii Press in 1949. The other, Gwenfread Allen, would research and write the history of Hawaii’s part in the war, later titled Hawaii’s War Years and published (also by the University of Hawaii Press) in 1950. The records of the HWRD do not hint that further monographs were produced as the bill suggests.

While Stidham and her colleagues had begun the work of collecting information of Hawaii’s war casualties during their time at the HWRD, a significant task awaited the researcher Lloyd Lee in his compilation of the memorial volume. Formal questionnaires and letters signed by Murphy were sent to the families of deceased soldiers in order to obtain the necessary biographical information and photographs that were eventually included in the finished volume. Material used in the compilation of this volume remains a part of the Hawaii War Records Depository. Gwenfread Allen, too, was tasked with doing any supplemental collection of materials deemed essential to her project. While the HWRD no longer employed an archivist as a records collector, the collection continued to grow.

In June of 1949, the staff of the Hawaii War Records Depository officially disbanded, and the remaining work to be done for the publication of Hawaii’s War Years was left to the university’s Office of Publication and Information. While the Hawaii War Records Depository is still an open collection and continues to accept sporadic donations in accordance with Hawaii Revised Statutes, the university no longer employs a full staff to actively manage the collection, and there is no longer an official Hawaii War Records Committee at the university.