Company C
Richard M. Honda was born in Honolulu, Oahu, on March 27, 1917. He was the son of Seisaburo and Tsune (Watanabe) Honda. He was educated at Kuhio School and McKinley High School, Oahu. He married Nancy Mitsuko Arizumi, of Honolulu, on May 29, 1942. Before entering the service, he was a farmer.
Honda (SN 30100958) was inducted into the Army at Honolulu on March 24, 1941. He trained at Schofield Barracks, Oahu, Camp McCoy, Wisconsin and Camp Shelby, Mississippi.
He served with the 298th Infantry Regiment and the 100th Infantry Battalion, Company C, in Hawaiian Islands, continental United States, Algeria, Africa and Italy.
He was awarded the Purple Heart, Combat Infantryman Badge, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal. Pfc. Richard M. Honda was killed in action near Cassino, Italy, during the Cassino to Anzio campaign on February 10, 1944.
He is interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Excerpts taken from In Freedom’s Cause: A Record of the Men of Hawaii Who Died in the Second World War (1949) with permission from The University of Hawaii Press.
Russell K. Shoho
Courtesy of Sadie Watanabe