Looking behind his plane, first class airman Shigenori Nishikaichi sees his Japanese Zero fighter plane has a bullet hole in the gas tank. As gasoline pours from his aircraft fresh off the second wave of attacks on Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, he realizes he must crash land to avoid falling into the ocean.
Shigenori desperately guides his fighter plane to the designated crash landing spot on the island of Niihau, which is believed to be uninhabited. He is knocked unconscious landing on the forbidden island. Not knowing about the attack on Pearl Harbor that morning, the Hawaiians who inhabit Niihau and found Shigenori, host a luau for the pilot.
Over the next five days, the pilot takes the island hostage waiting for rescue from a Japanese submarine. What becomes of the interaction between Nishikaichi and the Hawaiians in the second battle of WWII on American soil?
The story is one of many in the history of the island that has made Niihau into "The forbidden island."