Following the year-end publication of Reflections of Honor: The Untold Story of a Nisei Spy in December of 2013, the project team that created the book spent 2014 doing outreach in the community. The book, a biography of World War II veteran Arthur Komori, was an unusual project for CRDG that came about when a group of his fellow veterans requested our help to make sure that his story was not forgotten. A team from within CRDG brought their expertise in researching, writing, editing, design and layout, and mapmaking to the project. Yoshinobu Oshiro, a Nisei and veteran, former public school principal, and former CRDG partner served as a consultant and co-author. Together, the team was able to record and publish this story of heroism in World War II that was on the verge of being lost to history. While none of the team within CRDG had any expertise in biography, all felt a sense of obligation to record this story while we still could. And the response from the community in 2014 validated that sense of importance and urgency.
The previous year had wrapped up with a series of events to introduce the book, including a presentation of the book to the Kaua‘i MIS veterans group that had initially requested our help to record the story. On Veteran’s Day, co-authors Lori Ward and Yoshinobu Oshiro appeared on Sunrise, the morning show on Hawai‘i News Now to talk about Komori’s story in particular, but more generally, about the importance of capturing these stories before they are lost to us.
Throughout 2014, Oshiro, who is very involved in the veteran’s community in Hawai‘i, visited a range of clubs and groups to present the book and tell the story of its publication. In April, Ward, Oshiro, and CRDG’s Morris Lai were invited to do a presentation on the book’s development and publication at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s Center for Biographical Research (CBR) as part of an ongoing series the CBR has presented on the stories of World War II.