Is this likely to be a clerical error? I can't for the life of me think of a reason why he would be classified as Hawaiian. Our family is of German/French and Irish ancestry.

The race code for white is "1", while he is listed as Hawaiian, for which the code is "5", so it seems unlikely they entered it into the online database incorrectly.

Any ideas? Is this thing common? He served in the Army Air Corps from 1944-1946 as the flight engineer/top turret gunner on a B-17G in the 305BG/364BS.