Company D
In August 2018, Peggy Yamamoto Hong donated several items to the 100th Veterans Club. These items belonged to her late aunt, May Nagaoka, the sister of Hitoshi Nagaoka who was killed in action on June 2, 1944 near Lanuvio while serving with the 100th Infantry Battalion.
Peggy said her aunt May was a devout Christian and had been sent to an internment camp when she was going to school on the mainland. Among her possessions was a bible that her brother Hitoshi had given to her. There was also a childhood photo of Hitoshi and three letters her brother had sent to her while he was a soldier, one addressed to her while she was in the Poston Internment Camp in Arizona and two when she lived in Kansas City. In one of the letters he encouraged her to try and return to Hawaii and said he would “make an allotment” for her so she would have “a good start again.”
Hitoshi’s remains were returned to Hawaii and interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) in Honolulu. May also returned to Hawaii and worked as a phone operator at the YWCA on Richards Street. Peggy said that the American flag that was given to the Nagaoka family was flown over the YWCA for ten years.
More information about his army service can be found at: https://www.100thbattalion.org/wp-content/uploads/Nagaoka-Hitoshi.pdf
