Arrested: November 1942
Sand Island Internment Camp, Honolulu, Oahu Island
Forty-two Issei men were sent in the eighth transfer group for internment in U.S. Army and Department of Justice camps on the Mainland. The internees were sent together from camp to camp. Some were paroled to War Relocation Authority camps and reunited with family members, others were transferred for repatriation to Japan.
Sharp Park Detention Station, California
March 1943 - August 1943
Santa Fe Internment Camp, New Mexico
August 1943 - October 1945
Returned to Hawaii: November 1945
Arrived in Honolulu with 450 other internees aboard the military troopship the Yarmouth.
As Sawaichi Nakagawa was being sent into internment on the Mainland, his daughter Kozue married a son of fellow Big Island resident Shotaro Awaya, who also would be shortly incarcerated.
Awaya's son, Susumu Awaya, would serve as a staff sergeant with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and would be decorated for his fighting in Italy.