Dog Company, 100th Infantry Battalion
For Albert and Wallace Teruya, co-founders of Times Super Market, the plaque was more than a memorial — it was a tribute to the younger brother whose dream inspired a business that became one of Hawai‘i’s most enduring family enterprises.
Herman Takeyoshi Teruya was born in 1919, the third son of Ushi and Kame Teruya, Okinawan immigrants who settled on Hawai‘i Island’s Hāmākua Coast. The Teruyas worked hard in the sugar fields before becoming independent growers. Herman’s older brothers, Albert and Wallace, moved to Honolulu first, and by 1933 the entire family had joined them in the Kapi‘olani district.
Even as a teenager, Herman had a knack for business. At 16, while attending McKinley High School, he helped his parents sell vegetables and eggs door-to-door after classes. “He had a goal already,” Wallace recalled. “He liked selling.” Herman delivered newspapers in the mornings and even coached his younger brother on the best corners to sell on. He later worked at Aoki Store in Waikīkī and Star Market — later one of Times’ competitors — as well as the family’s Times Grill restaurant.
Driven and curious, Herman learned every side of the grocery trade, from cutting meat at the Palace Meat Market to studying store operations. His dream was clear: to open his own store with his brothers as partners.
In November 1941, both Herman and Wallace were drafted into the U.S. Army. After the war broke out weeks later, the brothers were eventually assigned to the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate). They were sent with the unit to the mainland for training in June 1942. Even during the long months at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, Herman’s entrepreneurial spirit persisted. While on Army furlough, he visited local markets and often wrote home urging his family not to worry.
In January 1944, Herman’s unit was engaged in one of the fiercest battles of World War II at Monte Cassino, Italy. By then a sergeant, he was directing mortar fire when his position came under heavy German shelling. He was killed on January 25, 1944, just shy of his 25th birthday.
Back home, the news devastated the Teruya family. When Herman’s body was finally returned in 1949, he was laid to rest at Punchbowl National Cemetery. His brothers honored his memory the best way they knew how — by bringing his dream to life.
That same year, Albert and Wallace, along with their cousin Kame Uyehara, opened the first Times Super Market in McCully. In 1956, they opened a second store in Waiʻalae-Kāhala, dedicating it to Herman. “We went into the market business because of him,” Albert later said. “The plaque reminds us he’s still part of it.”
Read “Herman’s Store” Article (The Hawaiʻi Herald, 1992) by Karleen Chinen