Four More Photos Identified

Kinhachi George Shibuya
Co-op Packing Shed Manager

The total rose to eight this week as four more photographs stashed away in an abandoned file at the Lompoc Police Department since 1942 were identified.

This week's new names include Kinhachi George Shibuya, manager of the Lompoc Co-op Packing Shed, and farmers Jintaro Fukawa, Akita Hasegawa,and Yasohachi Nakashima.

Farmer Jintaro Fukwa

Identified earlier were storekeeper Nobujiro Inouye, farm leader Masokichi Iwamoto, restaurant owner Genzo Murakami, and independent farmer Gitaro Kitaguchi.

Storekeeper Nobujiro Inouye
Identified earlier

                                                                                                                            
Shibuya's identification is particularly significant because it confirms that these photos do not date from the FBI arrests in February 1942. Shibuya was not picked up at that time. Nor was Gitaro Kitaguchi who was identified earlier. Neither had reason to be at the police station until, perhaps, when their familes were incarcerated in April 1942. The photos most likely date from mid-December 1941 when all Lompoc Issei were asked to report to the Lompoc PD and turn in cameras, radios, and firearms.

Farmer Yasohachi Nakashima

Farmer Akita Hasegawa

                                                                                   

                                                                                                                       

The photos, unlabelled, turned up in an unused file drawer several weeks ago. Some thirty other photos remain unidentified. They will all be posted here in coming weeks.

First Foto Identifications Beginning to Come In



Masakichi Iwamoto




The first four identifications have been  made of the forty photographs from seven decades ago uncovered by the Lompoc police recently.

In addition five more faces have been tentatively named.

The first four to be identified by their families are merchant Nobujiro Inouye, owner of the Hinode Store, farmer Masokichi Iwamoto, president of the Lompoc Farmers Association, independent asparagus farmer Gitaro Kitaguchi, and restaurant owner Genzo Murakami, owner of the New China Cafe.

Their photographs will appear here soon..

Tentative ID's, which may still turn out to be false, have been made for farmers Akita Hasegawa and Yasohachi Nakashima,  fisherman Kinsaburo Tsuyuki, and farming cousins Jintaro Fukawa and Inosuke Fukawa, both representatives to the regional Farmers Association. The photographs of these five will appear soon on the Photographs page of this website.



If you have confirmation for any of these five, or if you are convinced tentative ID is incorrect, please e-mail lompocwriter@gmail.com to share your thoughts.

The photographs appear to be a random selection of a larger group of shots probably taken in December of 1941 when the police asked all Lompoc Issei to turn in cameras, radios and firearms. The shots are no longer believed to have been taken at the time of FBI arrests made in February 1942 since Gitaro Kitaguchi is included. Kitaguchi was not picked up in February but remained with his family until the entire Nikkei community was incarcerated in April 1942.

Genzo Murakami	Gitaro Kitaguchi

Lompoc PD Finds Priceless Photos from 1942

The Lompoc Police Department has made a breathtaking discovery. Last week a detective found a photographic treasure chest-- thirty-one mug shots which appear to be the Issei community leaders arrested by the FBI and LPD in Lompoc in February 1942.

Until now only 28 arrestees had been identified, and some of them without confirmation

Detective Milt Baldwin was rummaging through his desk last week as his retirement approached, and happened upon the unnamed images, now 69 years old. He promptly went on-line to find someone knowledgeable about the time period and the community. He contacted Chris Komai of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles who forwarded his note to us here in Lompoc. Here is his letter..

Sir,

Going through old files I found a box of negatives that were marked “Japanese Registration Negatives”.

I believe these were photos taken of some Japanese citizens who lived in Lompoc or the area who were rounded up by the government after Pearl Harbor.  There are approximately 31 negatives and no names are attached to the negatives.   

I found your email address attached to an article about Lompoc and the Japanese American National Museum.

If you are interested in these please contact me and I will see what I can do to have them released to the museum if at all possible.

Respectfully,

Retired Detective Milt Baldwin

Lompoc Police Department

These photographs should be available soon to the families of all those arrested in Lompoc on February 19, 1942. They will almost certainly expand the list published on page 174-5 of Vanished. Police Chief Timothy Dabney has approved their release pending the approval of the Lompoc City Attorney.

Since the photographs are not labelled by name, the participation of family members may be necessary to accurately identify them. Please monitor this website for the latest news.

News from the San Luis Obispo Obon Festival

Thanks to Carolyn Sanwo of the book distributor Heritage Source, John McReynolds got fifteen minutes of speaking time last Saturday in front of more than one hundred listeners. 

First he told the story of the writing of Vanished, and how George Yoshitake had triggered its research. Then he read the following excerpt from the final report of Eric Thomsen, the War Relocation agent for California's Central Coast in 1945. The excerpt comes from a visit Thomsen made to the SLO Sheriff's Department. It is dialogue with a deputy. The questions come from Thomsen, the answers from the deputy.

QUESTION: “Don’t you think these people who own their own homes and were born and raised around here should be allowed to return?”

ANSWER: “No, they ought never to come back here.”

QUESTION: “If any should nevertheless try to exercise their legal right to return, to you anticipate any difficulty?”

ANSWER: “You’re damned right there is going to be trouble. All Japs are disloyal!”

QUESTION: “But don’t you think that the Army whose responsibility it is to determine the loyalty of those who return has screened them pretty well?”

ANSWER: “I have done business with the Japs for years. And they are all disloyal. They all have a double citizenship. You can’t trust any of them!”

QUESTION: “Would you say that this was pretty generally the sentiment of the community?”

ANSWER: “Everybody in this department feels that way.”

In subsequent conversations with the sheriff’s office and with the sheriff himself that proved to be almost uniformly true.

Thomsen's statistics indicated that only 16% of San Luis Obispo's Nikkei retuned to the area after the war. Two visitors to the Heritage Source booth brought similar numbers. One said that only fifteen families returned, and another said that of the forty families in the Pismo-Oceano Vegetable Exchange, just eight returned. These numbers are only marginally better than the two percent of families returning to Lompoc.

McReynolds' next speaking engagement will come on October 15 in San Jose at the Japanese American Museum.

San Luis Obispo Signing; Video from JANM

On Saturday, August 6 John McReynolds will appear at the San Luis Obispo Obon from 1-5 p.m. at the SLO Veterans Building, 801 Grand Avenue. He will speak on stage at 2:15 regarding a special San Luis Obispo insert to Vanished.

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For those of you unable to attend the presentation of Vanished at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles on June 18, a DVD of the event is now available.

Please send $10 to Press Box Productions, 409 South A Street, Lompoc, CA 93436.