Category Archives: World War II

World War II

Dad Would Have Been 101 Today

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My last picture of Dad a month before he passed, flanked by my two youngest kids. 2018 Los Angeles.

As Dad passed away less than two years ago at 99 years of age, he would have turned 101 today if he were still around.  I truly believed he would be the first Kanemoto to live to be 100.  Unfortunately, he just quietly passed away after eating a good lunch – eating was his pastime.

When I was in elementary school, I remember being at Belvedere Park in East Los Angeles. I might have been maybe eight years old. It was a breezy day and he had bought us brand new kites.  A wind gust pushed the kite and therefore, the spool got pulled out of my hand.  The kite took off – as did my Dad chasing after it.  To this day, I thought to myself, “Darn.  Dad can run fast.”  I didn’t know until just a little over six years ago he was a high school track star in Hiroshima.

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Dad trying to teach me how to ride a bike.  East Los Angeles, 1962.

Anyways, I thought of him today and his high school yearbook.

A link to his 1937 Hiroshima high school story is here.

I hope you are playing jump-frog with your favorite brother at Zenshouji, Dad, and eating loads of odango.

Happy birthday!

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Dad at bottom left then (clockwise): younger sister Mieko, my Grandma Kono, older sister Shiz and younger brother Suetaro who was killed as a Japanese soldier in 1944. King and Maynard Streets, Seattle, WA.  Circa 1925.
World War II

Iwo Jima

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The horrific battle for Iwo Jima would start in a few days 75 years ago. The iconic flag raising would be one week from now.

A story I wrote in 2013 about Iwo Jima and a little known fact that 50 Japanese-Americans US Army soldiers also fought there.

Masako and Spam Musubi

DC My two smallest kids had the honor to see the memorial first hand in June 2010.

Life has been quite unpredictable for me for the past six weeks or so – as well as tiring.  I am quite behind in reading many of your fine blogs and that is on my priority to-do list.  But it is a hollow descriptive for me to say I am tired.

I am still alive.

Twenty-nine thousand are not.

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The battle for Iwo Jima began 68 years ago on February 19, 1945.

Sixty-eight years ago.  Just yesterday for many.

Sixty-eight years ago, about 29,000 young men met horrible deaths on that demonic volcanic island – 22,000 Japanese soldiers and 7,000 Marines.  That unforgiving island still has not given up all of her dead to this day…  American and Japanese.

Kan Japanese Prime Minister Kan in blue visited Iwo Jima (now renamed Iwo To) in…

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World War II

Operation Detachment – The Battle for Iwo Jima

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Iwo Jima was 75 years ago this month… God bless the Corps.

Fix Bayonets!

Note: So much has been written about the Battle of Iwo Jima, by individuals far more qualified than myself, some of whom participated in it, all of whom conducted extensive research on this iconic battle, that I have avoided the effort for years.  But the Battle of Iwo Jima has called out to me to write something in tribute to the men who served there.  What follows is my unworthy summary an event that traumatized its survivors for the balance of their lives.    

Iwo Jima 001American successes in the Pacific campaign forced the Japanese war machine to reevaluate their situation.  By the end of the Marshal Islands campaign, senior Japanese naval and army officers realized the truth of what Admiral Yamamoto had predicted three years earlier.  Japan had awoken a sleeping giant.

It was always Japan’s intention to create an inner perimeter defense of its home…

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World War II

Hilarious Impersonations by an 8th Grader!

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This is kid was phenomenal! Performed at his graduation, he imitates President Trump, President Obama, Cruz, Bernie and Hillary. (ps I cannot figure out how to show a screen preview. It is just a link.)

https://www.npr.org/2016/06/16/482344060/watch-8th-grader-impersonates-trump-clinton-sanders?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160616&fbclid=IwAR3sRdY62_0MO4kq38WjdS7qcdybLs6pUnVoRyTNkSQmaDuf8xYeajppNR8