"I did my best under trying circumstances with my parents in the camps." (Video Interview, Part 2, 14:51)

Yukio Kawamoto

Yukio Kawamoto, Camp Robinson, Arkansas, 1942. War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Army Unit: 37th Infantry Division Headquarters Service Location: Camp Robinson, Arkansas; Camp Crowder, Missouri; Savage-Snelling, Minnesota; Angel Island, San Francisco, California; New Caledonia; Bougainville Island (Solomon Islands); Luzon (Philippines) Rank: Staff Sergeant Place of Birth: CA

While most Americans were celebrating VJ Day in August 1945, Yukio Kawamoto had more urgent family matters to attend to. His parents had been interned in a Utah relocation camp for the duration of the war, while he served with the Army's Military Intelligence Service in the Pacific, translating documents and interrogating prisoners. When the relocation camps began closing in the spring of 1945, he was given an early release from the Army to help his parents move back to their former hometown of Berkeley, California.