"Mele Kalikimaka" composer's wartime heroics

Robert Alexander Anderson (R. "Alex" Anderson) was a prolific Hawaiʻi composer known for "Haole Hula," "Lovely Hula Hands," and holiday classic, "Mele Kalikimaka." He attended Punahou and, later, Cornell University, where he received a degree in mechanical engineering.

Anderson enlisted in the Army during World War I, and eventually made his way onto the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps. He was training with Americans and the British Royal Air Force when, one day, he found himself facing off against five German Fokker planes.

"I was so busy dodging these guys that I was constantly losing altitude and finally was just above the ground...with room enough to come down and make a pancake landing," Anderson told Warren Nishimoto, director of UH's Center for Oral History. "Before I could get out of the plane, I was surrounded by German soldiers."

​Anderson was placed on a train to Belgium and, eventually, sent to a permanent prison camp. 

"Two Americans who were there ahead of me had found some loose tiles in the roof above the room where they were confined, and said they were going to make an escape," Anderson recounted. "We all climbed through the hole in the roof, and hung by the eaves, and dropped to the ground outside the compound."

The group of escapees fled to Holland, relying on local farmers for food and assistance. "I was the only linguist," Anderson said, half-joking, "I had Punahou French and German. And I became pretty good at that when I talked to these fellows."

Anderson wove his experiences into a series of installments for McClure's magazine, after reaching safe haven. Those writings became the basis for the 1930 film "The Dawn Patrol," starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (later remade with Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, and David Niven in 1938).

Following the war, Anderson worked in Chicago for Westinghouse; then returned to Honolulu, where his passion for music and connections in entertainment gave way to the tunes we know today. He was inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame in 1998.