Quarterly 522nd FAB Lunch Meetings
by Chapter President and S&D member Phyllis Hironaka
Photos of Ted Tsukiyama, Mits & Ellen Kunihiro; and of Biggie Nakakura & Harold Ueoka
Boyan Higa and Joe Obayashi passed me the torch in 2015 – I got to watch them in action for about a year as Secretary. They schedule four meetings a year. Our next meeting is our Christmas party, complete with bingo, raffle, and Christmas carols.
About 20 people attend each meeting. The veteran attendees are usually:
Masayuki (“Boyan”) Higa (past Pres.) Masaru (“Biggie”) Nakakura, our Treasurer
Joe Obayashi (past Pres.) George (“Rocky”) Tanna
Ted Tsukiyama Mitsuru Kunihiro
Fred Hirayama Harold Ueoka
Roy Fujii Henry Urada
Flint Yonashiro
Several wives also attend: Nancy Higa, Jane Ueoka, Ellen Kunihiro; and widows Mildred (Mike) Hara, Chiyoko (Don) Shimazu, Laura (Katsugo) Miho, Nancy (Milton) Uchigakiuchi; Hilda (Stanley) Kaneshiro, and Sue (Melvin) Hamamoto. Several sons and daughters usually join in as well.
Photo: The “522 Ladies” Mildred Hara, Hilda Thomas (Millie’s very close friend), Nancy Higa, Chiyo Shimazu
Addendum by 522nd daughter, Juanita Wright Allen:
At our August 2016 meeting, we had a guest speaker, Dr. Tamar Hoffman. Her family fled Germany before the war and settled in Israel, where she was born. She has been a physician in Honolulu for the past 27 years. Dr. Hoffman had one reason for asking to address our meeting — she wanted to meet 522nd veterans in person, to thank them for their part in the liberation of one of the Dachau sub-camps and the rescue of Jewish survivors who were marched from the camp by the retreating Germans. In particular, she had read Light One Candle, the 1995 book by Solly Ganor, one of the survivors, who had been rescued by Clarence Matsumura (photo below) of Hq. Battery, 522nd Field Artillery. Solly was well known among all the veterans at the meeting and after Dr. Hoffman’s brief talk they started to reminisce about the end of the war when they were literally chasing the German army across the countryside and by accident came upon the concentration camp and its survivors. It made for a very interesting meeting and was a reminder of how precious our veterans are and how fortunate we are to have them with us still.
