Charles Okimoto

Able Company, 100th Infantry Battalion

Charles “Charlie” Jitsumi Okimoto was born in 1918 in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, and spent his childhood working alongside his father, farming in the upper Mānoa Valley.

In November 1941, just before the United States entered World War II, Okimoto volunteered for military service, and was inducted into the Army. He became an original member of Company E in the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate), a unit composed largely of American soldiers of Japanese ancestry.

Later transferred to Company A, he served with distinction in Europe. During the fighting in France in 1944, he was severely wounded — an injury that would change the course of his life.

Okimoto spent the next nine years in hospitals undergoing multiple reconstructive surgeries. While recovering at a veterans’ hospital in San Francisco, he met a nurse who would become his wife, marking the beginning of a new chapter.

In 1953, Okimoto returned to Hawaiʻi and founded Nalo Farms on 10 acres in Waimānalo, on the island of Oʻahu. What began as a modest farming operation grew into a successful and respected agricultural business. The farm, later succeeded by his son Dean, has continued as a multi-generational effort dedicated to fresh, locally grown produce.