Group Media & Photos
Sixth Territorial Young Men's Buddhist Association convention. Lihue, Kauai, August 1935. Rev. Kyojo Naitoh (1st row, 8th from R); Rev. Ryoshin Okano (4th row, center, dark suit); Rev. Kanmo Imamura (5th row, far R, lei, light suit); Rev. Gijo Ozawa (top row, far L). JCCH/Gladys Naitoh Archival Collection.
Buddhist ministers from Hawaii. Santa Fe Internment Camp. Bottom Row (L-R): Daishin Ikejiri, Kogan Yoshizumi, Zenkai Kokuzo, Ninryo Nago, Yoshio Kitajima, Nozaki (not from Hawaii), Shunjo Shiratori, Teizen Imamura. Middle Row: Tetsuo Tanaka, Ikeda, Shoyu Kitajima, Shuzui Hino, Taigaku Ueshima, Gijo Ozawa, Ryuko Tachibana, Gyokuei Matsuura. Top Row: Kenko Yamashita (not from Hawaii), [Mitsuomi] Yamane, Kozan Nishizawa, Tetsuei Katoda, Ryudo Kubota, [Tessui] Hanada, Koetsu Morita. JCCH/Joan Oya Collection.
Internees from Kauai. Santa Fe Camp Internment Camp, taken between June 1943 and March 1944. Bottom row, kneeling and seated (L-R): Shinjiro Matayoshi (1st), Kenji Yoshiura (2nd), Ryozo Izutsu (3rd), Kaetsu Furuya (4th), Yukiyasu Sodetani (5th), Koshi Tatsuhara (6th), Tsuruzo Hasegawa (7th), Rev. Hironori Nishii (9th, on chair). 2nd Row, seated: Mankichi Miura (2nd, without tie), Takeo Seike (3rd), Kameo Tahara, Rev. Kakichi Okamoto (5th), Rev. Hiseki Miyasaki (6th), Rev. Ichiro Uyeda (7th), Yozaemon Yamamoto (8th), Zenzo Kisada (9th), Masaji Toyofuku (10th/4th fr R), Chiyomatsu Hamamura (11th/3rd fr R), Kazuto Yokota (13th/1st fr R). 3rd Row: Zenkichi Morita (1st), Sukenoshin Nakano (2nd), Kazuto Taketa (3rd), Rev. Shoyu Kitajima (4th), Rev. Gijo Ozawa (5th), Rev. Chiko Odate (6th), Rev. Kakuho Asaoka (7th, wearing hat), Isuke Horikawa (8th/3rd fr R), Enichi Saiki (9th/2nd fr R), Kyoichi Uyeda (10th/1st fr R). Top Row: Kyushichi Hayashi (2nd), Kenichi Hataishi (4th), Rev. Kyojo Naitoh (5th), Kokichi Tsuji (6th), Katsutaro Yamasaki (7th), Meijiro Hayashi (8th/3rd fr R), Sunao Fujii (9th/2nd fr R), Isamu Ueoka (10th/1st fr R). JCCH/Sunao Fujii Archival Collection.
Santa Fe Internment Camp, ca. 1944. Left Row 1 (L-R): Takejiro Nakagawa (1st), Yasutaro Soga (2nd). Right Row 1: Rev. Shoyu Kitajima (1st); Row 2: Yoshio Koike (1st), Yuichi Nakamura (2nd), Nekketsu Takei (4th); Row 3: Rev. Gijo Ozawa (2nd, glasses). Center, Back: Rev. Kyodo Fujihana (seated), Rev. Ninryo Nago (standing, beard). JCCH/Anonymous donor.
Internment Locations
Arrested: December 1941
Sand Island Internment Camp, Honolulu, Oahu Island
This internee was among 166 men (mostly Issei) who were sent on the second transfer ship for internment in U.S. Army and Justice Department camps on the Mainland. These men 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 - April 1942
Fort Sill Internment Camp, Oklahoma
April 1942 - May 1942
Camp Livingston Internment Camp, Louisiana
June 1942 - June 1943
Santa Fe Internment Camp, New Mexico
June 1943 - March 1944
Jerome Concentration Camp, Arkansas
March 1944 - May 1944
Tule Lake Segregation Center, California
May 1944 - November 1945
Returned to Hawaii: December 1945
Arrived in Honolulu with about 775 other internees aboard the military troopship the Shawnee.
Gijo Ozawa came to the islands as a Buddhist missionary in the early 1930s. He served as the minister of the Soto Zenshuji Temple in Wahiawa, Kauai, where he and his wife also ran the temple's Japanese language school. The Ozawa family spent the war years under internment on the Mainland, returning to Kauai in 1945. Ozawa later served as resident minister of the Taiyoji Temple in Waipahu on Oahu Island until his retirement.
A son, Walter Michio, was born in Tule Lake. Walter Ozawa would grow up to become a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and serve in a number of administrative positions in Hawaii, including director of the Honolulu city and county Department of Parks and Recreation and director of the state Office of Veterans Services.