Monday marks what would have been the 125th birthday of the late Duke Kahanamoku, who during his lifetime was an Olympic swimmer and Hawaiian public official. Kahanamoku is best known today for boosting surfing’s popularity and introducing the sport to many regions around the world.
But Kahanamoku’s prowess with a surfboard is worth remembering for more reasons than mere athletic glory.
And, as TIME reported in 1925, Kahanamoku had a chance to prove that point one day in Laguna Beach, Calif.:
Out through the surf put a gasoline launch, the Thelma, with a fishing party aboard. The beach crowd watched her careen on the breakers, herded to the water’s edge when the boat capsized. Good swimmers ran splashing out, split the first wave with a dive, plowed off to the rescue.
In the lead swam a figure darker than the most deeply sunburned, an Hawaiian duke, Kahanamoku of Olympic fame. Before him, as he swam, he pushed his long surf board.
Five of the capsized fisherman had drowned before the swimmers reached them, but it was no trick at all for Kahanamoku and his followers to buoy up 13 survivors, drag them across their boards, catch a wave and rush their gasping passengers ashore in relays.
In his 1968 obituary, the rescue of the Thelma passengers was credited with helping Kahanamoku recapture the fame of his Olympic days, eventually leading him to his post as sheriff of Honolulu. But, even as he grew older and his role on the shore grew larger, he never stopped surfing. “To the last,” the obituary concluded, “he was a symbol of the islands, surfing, swimming, and appearing as the 50th state’s official greeter.”
Read the full 1925 story, here in the TIME Vault: Duke
Hawaii Melting Pot, 1945
Caption from LIFE. Mary Lou Parker, 4, plays with Letty Mai Pang, 5, a Chinese [schoolmate], in the playground of a polyracial Honolulu school. Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA young girl dances in a hula skirt.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA fishing net hangs out to dry in front of a fisherman's house, while a young child sits underneath.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA plantation worker comes home and washes off his boots after a day's work.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAn elderly Japanese man walks toward his house.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesChildren with an American flag hang out on a front porch.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesJapanese boys jump from a sea wall while playing soldiers in the American army.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA fisherman sits near fishing nets by the sea.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. At dawn Hawaiians put out to sea to pull in their fish nets. By law, their boat flies the American flag at bow.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAn elderly man sits in the sun in Hawaii.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA fisherman with a spear prepares to make a catch.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Clemon Apeahi is Hawaiian. Rated as shiftless husbands, many Hawaiian men remain bachelors.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA portrait of two farmers in Hawaii.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA worker on the Dole plantation carries an armload of pineapples.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA worker on the Dole plantation gathers ripe pineapples.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesPlant sprayers at the Dole Plantation in Hawaii pose for a portrait.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesEight University of Hawaii students are chosen by the student body to serve as Princesses and Queen in the annual May Day ceremony held at the University.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Caucasian-Hawaiian (Portuguese, Irish, Hawaiian) is Barbara Sylva, 20, Hawaii senator's daughter.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesWomen dressed in hula skirts dance onstage.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Asiatic-Caucasian (Korean, Spanish, Engish) is Lava Pak, 23, an Army translator, named for an eruption.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesTwo Hawaiian girls walk together along the shore.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Waikiki tomboys, under a banyon on beach are (from left) Marion Woolsley, 14, Chinese-Hawaiian-English; Patricia Cameron, 16, Portuguese-Scotch-Irish; Beatrice Clarke, 16, Hawaiian-Chinese-German. Canoes are stored under roots.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA couple in Hawaii poses for a portrait against a fake landscape backdrop.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA man and woman dance together at the Rainbow Club U.S.O., Hawaii.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesSeveral pairs dance at the Rainbow Club U.S.O., Hawaii.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Indiana Quaker, Sam Lindley, married a Chinese Quaker and has two fair haired girls, Renie and Renda. He raises goats and works as librarian at the University of Hawaii. He studies Chinese, wants to visit China.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCaption from LIFE. Chinese family includes elder Youngs, 78 and 71, and son, John, a painter. Chinese brought few wives from China because their bound feet were rated useless on plantations. Exclusion Act, which was repealed in 1943, shut out Chinese in 1900.Eliot Elisofon—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
