Over 6,000 Japanese Americans worked for the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) during World War II. Japanese Americans were recruited from the 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team as well as from America’s internment camps. The primary venue for training was at the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) at the Presidio in San Francisco, although other branches existed at Camp Savage and Fort Snelling, Minnesota. The MISLS graduates were dispatched to every combat theater during World War II and are credited with shortening the war by virtue of the intelligence their translations afforded the army.

Following World War II seven MIS veterans—Masaji Marumoto, Walter Mihata, Yoshio Hanao, Tadao Ito, Dan Nishimura, Warren Sakuma and Kiyoshi Yoshimura—met at the Nuuanu Y.M.C.A. to organize a veterans’ club in Hawaii. Known as the Military Intelligence Service Language Associates, the club was formed in June 1946, with Masaji Marumoto as its first president. Later it was renamed the Military Intelligence Service Veterans.

The stated aims of the organization are: (1) to maintain fellowship among the M.I.S. veterans and their families and provide mutual assistance, and (2) to participate in community service.

The club’s objectives also include the following: “ … to uphold and defend the United States of America and maintain representative government, to preserve and strengthen the democratic principles for which it stands; to promote goodwill and better understanding among all races and creeds; to sponsor and promote activities and programs by and among our members and general public in order to attain the aforementioned objectives and advance the interests of this organization in every way consistent with public good and to do such other things as properly come within the scope of this or similar organizations.”

The organization has been involved in a variety of philanthropic activities ranging from attending the statehood hearings in Washington, D.C., in 1954 and participating in American Red Cross fund drives. The MIS Veterans Oral History Project Collection represents the organization’s current efforts to document the diverse military experiences of its veterans.

Sources: Hawaii Nikkei History Editorial Board, Japanese Eyes, American Heart: Personal Reflections of Hawaii’s World War II Nisei Soldiers, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998).

“History of the MIS Veteran of Hawaii,” Anniversaries: MIS Veterans Club, Hawaii, Ted Tsukiyama Papers, Archives and Manuscripts Department, University of Hawaii at Manoa Library.