George Healiʻi Kāhea Beckley (; born George Healiʻi Beckley Kāhea; May 5, 1886 – April 15, 1921) was a Native Hawaiian soldier who served in the British Army during World War I and later in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. A sailor before the war, he enlisted in Britain under the surname Beckley and served in France, Belgium and the Balkans, including with the Liverpool Rifles. He was wounded several times and received the Military Medal for his actions near Festubert during the Battle of the Lys in April 1918, where he helped repel German bombing attacks and carried a request for reinforcements under heavy fire while his battalion was isolated. His Military Medal was personally presented to him by King George V, whom Beckley later recalled had told him that he was the first Hawaiian the king had ever met. After the armistice, he reenlisted in the Royal Fusiliers for service in North Russia. He returned to Hawaii in December 1919, where he was publicly recognized for his wartime service. He worked as an engineer in Honolulu until his accidental electrocution in 1921.
Early life and family Beckley was born at Honuakaha in Kakaʻako, Honolulu, on May 5, 1886, during the Hawaiian Kingdom. Honuakaha was one of the residences of King Kalākaua. His family was of aliʻi descent, tracing ancestry through King Līloa of the island of Hawaii and King Kahekili II of Maui.
His parents were David Kaipeʻelua Kāhea and Maria Beckley Kāhea. Maria served in the Hawaiian royal court and was the first maid of honor and lady-in-waiting to Queen Kapiʻolani after the accession of King Kalākaua. Her grandfathers were Captain George Charles Beckley, an English sea captain and military adviser to Kamehameha I, and the High Chief Hoʻolulu. King Kalākaua bestowed the name Healiʻi on Beckley to commemorate the arrival of an invitation for the king to attend Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, shortly before Beckley's birth. The name means, "the invitation" or "the command", and was later associated with Beckley's response to Britain's call to arms during World War I. In 1893, when Beckley was six, his parents became kahu of the Royal Mausoleum at Mauna ʻAla in Nuʻuanu, where the family lived during his childhood. His siblings included Leander, Violet, Grace, Frederick and Benjamin. Beckley received his early education in the local schools of Honolulu.
In September 1901, Beckley and five other boys were brought before Judge William Luther Wilcox on gambling charges after police alleged that they habitually gambled in the streets around Pauoa Road and Nuuanu Street. Wilcox reprimanded the boys and released them, warning that a subsequent offense would result in heavy sentences. From 1904 to 1906, Beckley served in Company H of the National Guard of Hawaii, receiving his first military training under Captain Benjamin Kanehi as part of the regiment commanded by Colonel John Walter Jones.
Described in a 1915 account as being "of an adventurous nature", Beckley left for the US mainland after finishing school. Before the war, Beckley worked as a seaman aboard freighters of the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company, a major cargo line linking Hawaii and the Pacific Coast with the eastern United States. In the years before 1914 he left a vessel at Acapulco, worked on a ranch and spent about nine months with Mexican revolutionary forces commanded by generals associated with Victoriano Huerta, who later seized the Mexican presidency during the Mexican Revolution. He subsequently returned to sea.
Military service Enlistment and early service The United States remained neutral until it entered World War I in April 1917, although many Americans volunteered for service in foreign armed forces before American entry into the conflict. At the outbreak of World War I, Beckley was serving aboard the steamship Missourian, which sailed from Hawaii with a cargo of sugar, passed through the Panama Canal to New York, where it loaded horses for transport to France. Other Hawaiian sailors were aboard the ship, including his second cousin George Hoapili Beckley Jr., a member of another branch of the Beckley family, although the two men apparently did not know each other at the time. According to reports from 1918, Beckley and Hoapili left the Missourian in France and entered British service. Fourteen other Hawaiians, including Sol Kahanui and Low, both of Honolulu, also left the ship at Marseille to enlist. A January 1915 report described him as possibly the first Hawaiian "on duty" in Europe. In interviews after his return to Hawaii, Beckley gave a different account, saying that the ship returned to New York, where he took his discharge before crossing to Liverpool aboard a British vessel.
In Liverpool, a recruiting officer initially rejected him after interpreting the surname Kāhea as German. Beckley then applied under his maternal family name and told the recruiter that he was a Canadian from British Columbia. He later said that he disclosed that he was Hawaiian and American and had chosen the surname Beckley because of his English ancestry. Beckley attributed his decision to serve under the British flag to his English ancestor Captain Beckley, saying, "I wanted to fight under the British colors because my great grandfather was a Briton and was a soldier of another King George and of Kamehameha I". In a 1919 letter, he also expressed regret that Hawaii's First and Second Infantry regiments had not served in Europe, writing that he had hoped they would have an opportunity to "show what Hawaiians can really do."
British records subsequently identified him with Vancouver: the official announcement of his Military Medal listed him as "201704 Pte. G. Beckley, L'pool R. (Vancouver)", while a War Office casualty list recorded him as "G. Beckley" of Vancouver, Canada. Later records identify him in the 1/5th Battalion, King's (Liverpool Regiment), under service number 4198, before he was renumbered 201704. Beckley served as a rifleman with the Liverpool Rifles and later as a Lewis gunner. Contemporary Hawaiian newspapers sometimes described his unit as the "55th Lancashire" regiment or division, while the official gazette abbreviated his regiment as "L'pool R." He was sent to France in 1915 and recalled serving in the Somme region, around Arras, near Ypres and at Cambrai.
Newspaper accounts reported that Beckley was wounded four times, although they differed on the details of the wounds and dates. His 1919 account placed wounds to his left arm in May 1916, his right ankle near Arras on July 2, 1916, and his right buttock near Ypres in August 1917. He recalled spending 14 days in trenches near Ypres under shell fire and gas attacks and taking part in the offensive of July 31. In February 1917, a letter received by his sister Violet on Molokai reported that Beckley was serving on the Balkan front against Bulgarian forces, where he unexpectedly met his cousin Hoapili at a military camp in Macedonia. Beckley was wounded in the shoulder and leg during the same engagement. He was later wounded while attempting to recover the body of his captain under fire and sent back to England.
After receiving no word from them for more than a year, relatives in Hawaii believed that Beckley and Hoapili might have been killed. At the end of 1918, Beckley's family received a souvenir booklet postmarked in England and signed only "Healii", the first indication in more than a year that he was alive. A letter dated December 22 from Cork, Ireland, to his brother Leander reported that he was in good health, had been wounded four times and was awaiting discharge before returning home. A 1919 account stated that Beckley rose from private to corporal during his service with the King's Liverpool Regiment, although British records list his rank only as private.
His extended family also included several wartime servicemen. His brother Benjamin Pitman Kāhea Beckley enlisted in Canada on April 4, 1918, initially joining an aviation unit before being transferred to ambulance service after reaching England. His cousin Henry Hoʻolulu Pitman Beckley served with the American Red Cross in Siberia as a captain of medical supply trains. Other Native Hawaiians served overseas, including John Rupert Rowe, who was killed in action in France on July 31, 1918, and is regarded as the first Hawaiian combatant killed in the war.
Festubert and Military Medal
During the German spring offensive, Beckley fought with the 55th (West Lancashire) Division in the Givenchy–Festubert sector of the Battle of the Lys. When the German offensive in Flanders began on April 9, 1918, the division held a front extending from the La Bassée Canal to south of Richebourg-l'Avoué, where its line joined that of the Portuguese forces. After German troops broke through the Portuguese positions on its left, the division formed a defensive flank extending through Givenchy and Festubert toward Le Touret and held it through six days of fighting. The 1/5th Battalion of the King's Regiment (Liverpool) was attacked shortly before the 1/7th Battalion on the morning of April 9; amid heavy fog, the outpost line in front of Festubert was overrun by about 10:30 a.m.
Hawaiian newspaper accounts reported that Beckley's battalion became isolated during the fighting and was in danger of being overwhelmed. After two messengers sent across the battlefield to request assistance failed to return, Beckley volunteered to carry another request for reinforcements. He crossed about 400 yards under shell and machine-gun fire, alternately running and crawling, and delivered the message. On the return journey he was struck by shrapnel above the knee and knocked down, but continued back to his unit by limping and crawling. Reinforcements reached the isolated position, allowing the battalion to rejoin the regiment and take part in a counterattack against the German forces.
Beckley received the Military Medal for his actions during the fighting at Festubert. His original recommendation, dated May 10, 1918, credited him with helping repel two bombing attacks and "accounting for many Germans with his rifle" near Festubert from April 9 to 13. Major-General Hugh Jeudwine, commanding the 55th Division, recorded Beckley's gallant conduct at Festubert, while Lieutenant-General Richard Haking, commander of XI Corps, issued an order describing his gallantry and courage under heavy fire. The award was announced in the London Gazette on October 7, 1918, and repeated in the Edinburgh Gazette two days later, where he was listed as "201704 Pte. G. Beckley, L'pool R. (Vancouver)." Hawaiian newspaper accounts stated that King George V personally presented the medal to Beckley, with a 1921 account reporting that the king pinned it to his tunic. At a Hawaiian Civic Club event after his return to Hawaii in 1920, Beckley recounted his meeting with King George V, saying that the king had told him he was the first Hawaiian he had ever met.
In 1918, Beckley's cousin Mary Jane Kekulani Montano composed the mele Na Kamalei o Hawaii in honor of Hawaiians serving in the war. It was published in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa in January 1919 and later reprinted in Paradise of the Pacific with a dedication to Beckley and the men of Hawaii who had served in World War I.
North Russia and return to Hawaii
Although Beckley expected to return home at the end of 1918, after the armistice he obtained permission to reenlist in the Royal Fusiliers for the Allied intervention in North Russia. A contemporary account reported that he was in a hospital when the armistice was signed but volunteered for the expedition. Having risen to corporal during his earlier service, he returned to the rank of private upon reenlisting. By 1919 he was serving with the 46th Royal Fusiliers in the Archangel region under service number GS/131324.