Hongo, Torakiyo

Torakiyo Hongo arrived in Hawaii from his native Kumamoto Prefecture at the age of seventeen. He worked for ten years as a bookkeeper before opening his own retail store in Hilo, later becoming an insurance agent. 

Two of his sons served in the U.S. military during World War II. Masanori Hongo was a college student in Sacramento when the war broke out. He was sent first to the Marysville Assembly Center, then to the Tule Lake Segregation Camp, and lastly to the Topaz Concentration Camp in central Utah. He was released from Topaz to attend college in Chicago and was then inducted into the army and assigned to the Military Intelligence Service.

Manabu Hongo volunteered in spring 1943 for the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He was wounded in action in France in 1944.