Kenneth Kengo Otagaki

Headquarters Company and Medics, 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate)

Kenneth Kengo “Ken” Otagaki was born in 1917 to Japanese immigrant parents in the small community of Laupahoehoe on Hawai‘i Island, growing up amid the hardships and strict hierarchies of plantation life. He was the second son in a family with traditional Japanese values, in which the first-born son inherited everything. His father worked as a clerk in a small dry goods store, and his mother was a picture bride. Soon after Otagaki was born, his father lost his job and took a job as a day laborer at Hamakua Plantation. Otagaki worked to help support his family, delivering groceries and goods by mules to workers on the plantation.

At fourteen, armed with only five dollars and an unshakable belief that opportunity lay elsewhere, he left home for Honolulu. There he supported himself by working long hours in produce shops and as a houseboy while attending McKinley High School. These early years — marked by frugality, determination, and kindness from unexpected mentors — formed the foundation of his character.

Developing contacts at the University of Hawaiʻi (UH) through his work picking up produce from farmers, Otagaki enrolled in the School of Agriculture. There, in 1936, he met Janet Shigeko Maruhashi, a home economics major, who would later become his wife. Although Janet was initially uninterested, his persistence won her over.

After graduating, Otagaki became a farm manager at Molokaʻi Ranch and, for the first time, had a stable living. His plans, however, were soon overtaken by world events.

Drafted in March 1941, he was assigned to the 65th Combat Engineers. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he would be assigned to the Hawaiian Provisional Infantry Battalion in May 1942, joining the original contingent of the famed 100th Infantry Battalion. He was assigned to Headquarters Company in the 100th.

Once the 100th entered combat in Italy, and casualties among litter bearers and medics mounted, Otagaki was selected as a replacement. With just a canteen of water, Red Cross armband, and a medication bag, he and the other litter bearers in the 100th risked their lives to bring back the wounded. As a litter bearer, Otagaki helped evacuate an injured Dr. Isaac “Doc” Kawasaki (Medics) and Spark Matsunaga (Co. D), among many others.

In the hills of Cassino in January 1944, Otagaki was among a group of litter bearers sent out on a snowy night to aid soldiers at the front. As they moved forward, a barrage of mortar fire struck, and one shell exploded just feet away, killing several men and leaving Otagaki gravely wounded. It took nearly 20 hours before he was evacuated. The battle cost him a leg, two fingers, and the sight in one eye.

Given last rites in a Naples hospital as bombs fell overhead, he nevertheless survived. The promise he made to himself during that harrowing night — that if he lived, he would make something meaningful of his life — would shape everything that followed.

During his long recovery at Walter Reed Hospital, he received an invitation to visit the White House as a 4-H veteran, a surreal moment that reaffirmed his will to go forward.

After the war, he returned to Hawaiʻi and married Janet in December 1944. Otagaki had proposed to her before being sent overseas, but the two decided to marry upon his return. After he was wounded, he wrote to Janet describing his injuries and releasing her from her promise; undeterred, she remained committed to him.

Otagaki’s injuries ended his plans to become a medical doctor, and he was also told he could not pursue veterinary medicine, either. Instead, with support from the GI Bill, he attended graduate school, earning his master’s degree at Iowa State and later completing his PhD in animal sciences at UC Berkeley and UC Davis. Janet raised their five children while he pursued his work.

The family returned to Hawaiʻi, where Otagaki became a professor and researcher at the University of Hawaiʻi, where his work on cattle nutrition, local feed sources, and agricultural systems expanded the scientific foundation of the state’s livestock industry.

In 1963 Governor John Burns appointed him Chairman of the State Department of Agriculture, launching him into a decade of vigorous and often courageous public service. He championed independent dairymen, strengthened consumer protections, promoted early seed-corn research that would become a major industry, and navigated intense political controversy with steady conviction. Though not all initiatives succeeded, he approached every challenge with integrity and a deep belief in improving the lives of Hawai‘i’s farmers. He was an active member of Club 100, helping preserve the memory of those who did not return while staying closely connected to his fellow veterans.

Dr. Kenneth Otagaki passed away in 2009 at the age of 91. His courage, persistence, and generosity of spirit that left an enduring mark on Hawai‘i’s agricultural landscape and on all who knew him.

Read Dr. Kenneth Otagaki’s Memoir

Dr. Kenneth Otagaki and Dr. Isaac Kawasaki share their memories in “Taking Care of the Boys” (Hawaii Herald article, June 19, 1992) here.

Click here to read an article about Dr. Kenneth Otagaki by Hawaiʻi author Thelma Chang.