Group Media & Photos

Santa Fe Internment Camp. Bottom Row (L-R): Katsuichi Kawamoto (1st), Ryuichi Moribe (2nd), Uyemon Inokuchi (3rd), Koichi Iida (4th), Shuntaro Ikezawa (5th), Hatsuichi Toishigawa (6th), Yasutaro Soga (7th), Daizo Sumida (8th), Ryoichi Tanaka (9th), Mannosuke Komu (10th). 2nd Row: Heiji Yamagata (1st), Gihei Tanada (2nd), Totaro Matsui (3rd), Kumaji Furuya (4th), Osuke Shigemoto (5th), Rev. Ninryo Nago (6th), Tokuji Onodera (7th), Minoru Murakami (8th), Kanji Tanaka (9th), Shigeo Shigenaga (10th), Shujiro Takakuwa (11th), Yukihide Kohatsu (12th), Mankichi Goto (13th). 3rd Row: Tetsuji Kurokawa (1st), Eita Sato (2nd), Hirouemon Yamamoto (3rd), Hyotaro Nakami (4th), Sadato Morifuji (5th), Ryuichi Murata (6th), Kakujiro Nishiki (7th), Sawajiro Ozaki (8th), Soichi Obata (9th), Masaichi Kobayashi (10th), Kango Hamada (11th), Takasuke Isomura (12th), Katsukichi Wakimoto (13th). Top Row: Yojiro Osaki (1st), Hego Fuchino (2nd), Teiichiro Maehara (3rd), Kinzo Sayegusa (4th), Yuichi Nakaichi (5th), Yoshihisa Tamura (6th), Tsuneichi Yamamoto (7th), Muneo Kimura (8th), Hideo Tanaka (9th), Toraichi Kurakake (10th), Tamasaku Watanabe (11th), Mankichi Miura (12th), Riuichi Ipponsugi (13th). JCCH/Riuichi Ipponsugi Archival Collection.

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Internment Locations

Arrested: December 1941

Sand Island Internment Camp, Honolulu, Oahu Island

Third Transfer Group: May 1942

This internee was among 109 men (mostly Issei) who were sent on the third transfer ship 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

June 1942

Fort Sam Houston Internment Camp, Texas

June 1942

Lordsburg Internment Camp, New Mexico

June 1942 - June 1943

Santa Fe Internment Camp, New Mexico

June 1943 - October 1945

Returned to Hawaii: November 1945

Arrived in Honolulu with 450 other internees aboard the military troopship the Yarmouth.

Heiji Yamagata was the son of pioneering Issei coffee grower Naotaro Yamagata, who settled in Kealakekua, Kona at the turn of the twentieth century. Heiji Yamagata himself became a prominent coffee farmer and innovator. He developed the first mechanical coffee dryer in Kona and worked with the University of Hawaii to create a mechanical coffee picker. 

Two of Heiji Yamagata's sons, Naoji and Shigeji, served with the U.S. military at the time of their father's captivity. Naoji Yamagata was a member of Hawaii's 100th Infantry Battalion.