Internment Locations
Arrested: December 1941
Maui County Jail, Wailuku, Maui Island
Sand Island Internment Camp, Honolulu, Oahu Island
A group of 167 Hawaii men (mostly Issei) were sent on the second transfer ship for internment in U.S. Army and Department of Justice camps on the Mainland. Together, the men were sent from camp to camp.
In June 1943, this transfer group was split into two, with this group sent from Camp Livingston to Fort Missoula before being transferred to the Santa Fe Camp.
From there, some internees were paroled to War Relocation Authority camps, where they were reunited with family members. Others were transferred for repatriation to Japan.
Angel Island Detention Facility, California
March 1942 - April 1942
Fort Sill Internment Camp, Oklahoma
April 1942 - May 1942
Camp Livingston Internment Camp, Louisiana
June 1942 - June 1943
Fort Missoula Internment Camp, Montana
June 1943 - April 1944
Santa Fe Internment Camp, New Mexico
April 1944 - October 1945
Returned to Hawaii: November 1945
Arrived in Honolulu with 450 other internees aboard the military troopship the Yarmouth.
In the fall of 1940, Kan Ooka's eldest son, Hideo, left Kahului to attend college in Los Angeles. With the outbreak of war and the imposition of Executive Order 9066, Hideo and his sister Chiyeko, also then in California, were sent to the Poston Concentration Camp in Arizona.
With his father under internment on the Mainland, Hideo joined the U.S. Army from camp and served with the Military Intelligence Service. Brother Stanley Tamotsu Ooka also was an MIS officer.
After the war, the Ookas returned to running the family business, expanding it into what would become the largest privately-owned market on Maui Island, Ooka Supermarket in Wailuku.