A new street in Honolulu, Hawaii, has been named Asher Court after Arcadia resident and World War II Veteran Fred Asher who saved the USS Blue at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Ninety-three year old fighter pilot Edward J. Lopez publishes "flight of a Hell Hawk," his memoir. He is a World War II veteran and purple heart recipient.
Interview with author Brad Pearson who wrote the book The Eagles of Heart Mountain. He tackles the injustice of Japanese-American incarceration through the exploits of a World War II camp football team. Article mentions many evacuees were detained at Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia before being shipped out.
A new exhibit at the Ruth and Charles Gilb Arcadia Historical Museum is about the Santa Anita Assembly Center, a temporary facility at Santa Anita Park that held Japanese Americans before they were sent to more permanent internment camps during World War II. The opening reception will feature speakers Osamu Miyamoto, Akkiko Nomura and others. Dana Dunn is the curator.
Paul Graf, 90, of New Albany, Indiana, came back to Arcadia to see Santa Anita Park again. He had been based there as a United States Army staff sergeant during World War II, when the track was turned over to the Army Ordnance Corps for training purposes and was officially renamed Camp Santa Anita. Graf said he used to run for exercise on the Anita Chiquita training track, which was eliminated when the Santa Anita Fashion Park was built in the 1970s. Graf had arrived at Camp Santa Anita around November 1942, after the site had already been used as the Japanese Assembly Center. Photo shows Graf holding an issue of Man O' War, a newspaper issued by army personnel at Camp Santa Anita.
John M. Huston, a World War I private in the Air Services Signal Corps unit that was here in Arcadia at the Balloon School, gives an account of those experiences.
A new magazine called "Atomic Ranch" will be dedicated to the boxy tract homes built after World War II and found in Arcadia, Duarte and Hastings Ranch and east Pasadena.
Former Arcadia resident, Chris Wachter, who is an Air Force captain and served in the Iraq War, met with Temple city resident Vernon Isgrig who trained pilots during World War II. Isgrig encouraged Wachter to become a pilot.
Arcadia Vietnam War Monument placed in Arcadia County Park. It is 22,000 pounds. From 1966-1972, 14 U.S. servicemen from Arcadia became casualties of the war in Vietnam. There are 4 plaques on the monument honoring veterans from World War I, World War II, the wars in Korean, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. See also Arcadia Weekly, p. 1, 17, June 2, 2016.
Honorary degrees were awarded to Japanese-American former Pasadena City College students who had their educations cut short by internment during World War II. Japanese-American "nisei" students at what was then Pasadena Junior College never got the chance to graduate with the Class of 1942. One honorary graduate, Fusae Hamane (died in 1997), born and raised in Pasadena, was told to report to Santa Anita Park race track before being sent to a camp in Gila Bend, AZ. The graduation came 68 years later.
Writer Charles Cooper continues his series of articles called "Memories of Arcadia" with a history and description of the U.S. Army Balloon School that was at Camp Ross (or Ross Field) in Arcadia during World War I. The balloon school was located on the current site of Arcadia County Park.
Charles Norm Stevens is a World War II veteran and former bombadier who shares his experiences flying in the Army Air Corps and Air Force in his two books, "The Innocent Cadet" and "An Innocent at Polebrook." Stevens, a resident of Monterey Park, signed books at a Friends of the Arcadia Public Library event last week.
Students at Holy Angels School in Arcadia welcomed a returning Persian Gulf War veteran who had been the recipient of a letter written and addressed to "Any Soldier, Desert Storm."
Ed Inouye of West Covina, whose family was sent to the internment camp at Santa Anita Park during World War II, died on February 19th. He was instrumental in getting the government to pay reparations to some of the imprisoned families.