Edward Yoshio Ikuma

Headquarters Company, 100th Infantry Battalion

Edward Yoshio Ikuma was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1919. When the second pre-war draft was instituted, he was inducted into the U.S. Army on March 25, 1941. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he was serving in A Company, 3rd Combat Engineers, 24th Infantry Division. That Sunday morning, he happened to be home in Honolulu on weekend leave.

When news of the attack broke, he immediately reported to his temporary duty station at Kaneohe Naval Air Station. Later that day, he and other soldiers were trucked to Schofield Barracks.

That evening, his company commander, First Lieutenant Frasier, assembled the entire company. Ikuma recalled thinking that he and others might be disarmed and become prisoners of war. Instead, Lieutenant Frasier addressed the troops, telling them, “I want the Nisei soldiers to be treated as Americans, just like all of the rest of you,” or words to that effect.

Ikuma always remembered those orders his company commander gave that evening. He spent that night guarding the officers’ quarters at Schofield Barracks.

An original member of the 100th Infantry Battalion, Ikuma served as the noncommissioned officer (NCO) in charge of the message center within the Communications Section of Headquarters Company. He participated in every battle action of the 100th. He recalled having the task of receiving the message relieving LTC Farrant Turner of command and delivering it to him.

When the war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945, the 100th was at an airfield in northern Italy. He and a few other 100th soldiers embarked on a unique path back to the U.S. They boarded a B-17 bomber and flew to North Africa, then to Dakar, Senegal in West Africa. From there they flew to Recife, Brazil and from there on a C-54 transport aircraft, flew on to Jacksonville, Florida. From Jacksonville, they took a train to Ft Sheridan, Illinois, near Chicago. They then took another train to San Francisco, where they boarded a ship to Honolulu.

The ship arrived after sunset, so it anchored offshore for the night. In the morning, it docked at a pier in Honolulu. There was no band, no hula girls, no cheering crowds. So Ikuma returned much like how he departed with the 100th on a ship on June 5, 1942 – quietly and with no fanfare. He simply took a taxi home. The war was over for him.

His service earned him the Combat Infantry Badge, two Bronze Star Medals, and two Purple Heart Medals.

Ikuma was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army on October 1, 1945. The very next day, he began working as an electrician at Fort Shafter in Honolulu. He later became an electrical engineering technician for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Far East Region, in Japan.

In January 1946, he married Hazel Maeda of Maunaloa, Molokai, Hawaii. Together, they raised four children.

Many years later, on July 2, 2014, aboard the French frigate FS Prairial which was visiting Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, a ceremony was held to present the French government’s Order of the Legion of Honor — France’s highest decoration, to several American veterans who had participated in the liberation of France during World War II. Ed Ikuma was one of the two 100th veterans honored for his wartime service, along with three veterans of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and a veteran from Canada who had served in both British and American forces.

On August 21, 1943, the men of the 100th Infantry Battalion were deployed to Oran, Algeria, departing New York aboard the troopship S.S. James Parker. Exactly 79 years later, on August 21, 2022, Edward Ikuma passed away peacefully at the age of 103 (or 105, as his birth was not officially registered until he was two years old). He was the last surviving member of the original soldiers of the 100th Infantry Battalion.