Group Media & Photos
Nippu Jiji editor Shoichi Asami and wife, Shizu. Honolulu, ca. 1920. JCCH/Asami Family Collection
Internment Locations
Arrested: December 1941
Sand Island Internment Camp, Honolulu, Oahu Island
This internee was in the first group of 172 men (mostly Issei) who were sent aboard the military transport ship U.S. Grant for internment in U.S. Army and Justice Department camps on the Mainland. The internees were sent together from camp to camp, with some paroled to War Relocation Authority camps to reunite with family or transferred for repatriation to Japan.
Angel Island Detention Facility, California
March 1942
Camp McCoy Internment Camp, Wisconsin
March 1942 - May 1942
Camp Forrest Internment Camp, Tennessee
May 1942 - June 1942
Camp Livingston Internment Camp, Louisiana
June 1942 - March 1943
Crystal City Family Internment Camp, Texas
March 1943 - September 1943
Left for Japan: September 1943
Included among the repatriates who left from New York on the M.S. Gripsholm were 72 Hawaii internees and their families.
Singapore
This internee was among a small group of Hawaii repatriates who disembarked at the Japanese-held territory of Singapore.
Died: April 1945
Sinking of the Awa Maru
Shortly before midnight April 1, 1945, the hospital ship Awa Maru, bound for Japan, was torpedoed and sunk by an American submarine. More than two thousand passengers and crew were killed, including Hawaii internees Shoichi Asami, his son Harold Ryozo Asami, and Rev. Jikyo Masaki and his son Takashi Masaki. Removed from the ship at the last minute to make room for Japanese military personnel were Rev. Ryoshin Okano and his son Thomas Ryoju Okano. Their lives were spared.