I had the honor of meeting Mr. Miyamura at a Veteran's day event in NM and have been across his namesake overpass many times. RIP great soldier.
Many years ago I also enjoyed meeting a fine Japanese American family that had a very successful nursery business along Baseline in Phoenix and remember their having told me about older members of their family having been interred at the Gila River camp. When we lived up in Parker we often saw the still existent buildings of the internment camp down near Poston, AZ and those later became the site of a Job Corps site in the 1960s.
Thanks for posting this account Leighton.
Wow, that's very cool that you had the opportunity to actually meet the man, Paul. I've been honored to meet several 442nd vets in years past, and to a man they were the most humble, kind and patriotic fellows anyone could meet. Sadly, there are very few left.
The Gila River internment camp you mention is where my paternal family was imprisoned during the war. My Grandma, Grandpa, aunts Aya and Sachi and my dad were there from May of '42 to November of '45. My old man at 85 is the last surviving member of my family that was in the camps.
Here he is in '44 I think, at Gila, when he was 6 or 7.
Original 442RCT patch sent to Aya by her betrothed. He never made it home and was killed in combat in Italy in '43.
Couple of notes from my aunt's keepsake/diary from friends.
I have a ton of this kind of stuff I inherited. Someday I'll probably donate anything they might want to the JANM. It's but a very small part of our American history, but not an unimportant one, I don't think.
Thanks to all for chiming in.