After a LONG break with no new episodes due to work, I am finally back... with one new episode before I leave for another extended work trip. Regardless, I wanted to get one new story in before I had to leave again. This week is all about eight guys named Nakada - seven of whom are brothers and the last of whom gets a separate story because he is neither related to, nor connected to any of the others.
Captain Pershing Nakada (pictured center above) was the highest ranking Nisei officer in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He commanded the 323nd Combat Engineer Company. All of his lieutenants were also Nisei making it the only all-Nisei outfit in the 442nd.
Naked after General John J. Pershing with whom his father served in World War I, Nakada survived the war though not much is know about his post-war career. He did retire as a lieutenant colonel and when he died in 1993 at the age of 75, he was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 68, Grave 4146.
You may be familiar with the Sullivan Brothers from Waterloo, Iowa - all five served on the light cruiser USS Juneau and all were killed when that ship was sunk during the Guadalcanal campaign in 1943. The Sullivan family had the unenvious distinction of being the family with the most sons killed during the war, but there was a family who sent more sons off to war. The Nakada family from Southern California sent seven brothers off to war while the rest of the family was interned in a concentration camp. There are a few sources that say all nine Nakada boys went off to war but looking at birthdates - by my math the youngest two would have been much too young to serve. Five served in the Military Intelligence Service and two in the 442nd.
Unlike with the Sullivans, all seven Nakadas survived the war and like Captain Pershing Nakada, not much is know about them. I wasn't even able to find photos and the ranks of most of them, but I did learn that when one of the brothers, Technician Fifth Grade Minoru Paul Nakada died in 2001 at the age of 80, he was cremated and his remains were installed at Arlington National Cemetery in Columbarium 5, Section N2, Row13, Niche 5.
