Following and after the Japanese occupation of Hawaii, the Japanese never bother to occupy Kauai as they believed it to be of no strategic importance. The Japanese paid for this oversight: American forces secretly built a hidden runway in Kauai which became strategic landing site for American B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators that came from the American mainland and provided the bombers aerial bombardment superiority over the Japanese when the U.S. liberated Hawaii in 1943.