Group Media & Photos
Hospital kitchen staff, Jerome Concentration Camp. Kneeling (L-R): Haruto Harold Itoh (1st), Shizuo Yoshikane (2nd). Standing: Masuo Niki (2nd from left). JCCH/Shizuo Yoshikane.
Shizuo Yoshikane. Jerome Concentration Camp, August 1943. JCCH/Shizuo Yoshikane.
Gila River Concentration Camp, Arizona. Row 1 (L-R): Shizuo Yoshikane (7th from L); Kanichi Murata (3rd from R, carrying child). JCCH/Shizuo Yoshikane.
Internment Locations
Arrested: December 1941
Sand Island Internment Camp, Honolulu, Oahu Island
Released: January 1942
Rearrested: June 1942
Sand Island Internment Camp, Honolulu, Oahu Island
Transferred to Mainland: January 1943
Sent aboard the military troopship the Kota Agoeng with more than 260 other Hawaii residents for incarceration in Mainland camps.
Jerome Concentration Camp, Arkansas
February 1943 - May 1944
Tule Lake Segregation Center, California
May 1944 - December 1944
Gila River Concentration Camp, Arizona
December 1944 - October 1945
Returned to Hawaii: November 1945
Arrived in Honolulu with 450 other internees aboard the military troopship the Yarmouth.
In the late 1930s, teenagers Shizuo and Yoshiyuki Yoshikane left their home in the Oshima fishing region of Yamaguchi Prefecture to join their father, a deep sea fisherman in Honolulu.
On December 7, 1941, Shizuo was fishing in his sampan in the waters off of Honolulu when he noticed the approach of airplanes bearing the symbol of the Japanese red sun. He watched as black smoke rose from Pearl Harbor. Not long after, American air craft appeared overhead, firing at Yoshikane and the crew, but ice blocks in the boat, meant to preserve their fresh catch, protected the fishermen from the flying bullets. Unhurt, the men returned to the harbor at Kewalo Basin and were promptly arrested by the FBI.
Shizuo was released from custody in January but was rearrested in June and eventually sent with younger brother Yoshiyuki to the continent for confinement.