Group Media & Photos
Gin'ushisha (Silver Rain Poetry Society). Hilo, Hawaii Island, 1925. Row 1 (l-r): David (Shugaku) Marutani (1st), Tadasuke (Koryu) Nakabayashi (2nd). Row 2, middle: Minoru (Koran) Murakami. Row 3: Otokichi (Muin) Ozaki (1st), Eikichi (Seiyu) Ochiai (2nd), Haruto (Fuyo) Saito (3rd, patterned tie). Row 4: Zenichi (Kenpu) Kawazoe (center, bow tie). JCCH/Otokichi Ozaki Archival Collection.
Internment Locations
Arrested: December 1941
Kilauea Military Camp, Hawaii 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.
Haruto Saito was a member of one of the many dynamic Japanese poetry societies that gave Hawaii Island the name "Poetry Island" in the years before the war. With the internment of so many Big Island poets, like Rentaro Shito Degawa, Shoichi Gessho Koide, Minoru Koran Murakami, David Shugaku Marutani, Tadasuke Koryu Nakabayashi, Eikichi Seiyu Ochiai, Otokichi Muin Ozaki, Shigezo Kasetsu Shigekane, and Haruto Fuyo Saito, the Hilo societies fell silent, although many of the interned members continued to write throughout their captivity.
A son, Harold Takashi Saito, served during the war as a member of the U.S. Army's Military Intelligence Service.