Glance over at the number just below the capital “D” in the word “PARADE” in the masthead of the 100th Infantry Battalion Veterans Puka Puka Parade newsletter this year, and you’ll see that this is Volume 80 of the Puka Puka Parade (PPP). In other words, this marks the 80th year since the 100th Infantry Battalion veterans club began publishing its Puka Puka Parade newsletter. Volume 1 was published in April 1946, following the December 1945 incorporation of Club 100 in the then-Territory of Hawai‘i — four years after the AJA boys left their island home to begin training at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, as the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate), and less than three years after they became the first group of Americans of Japanese ancestry (AJA) to enter combat at Salerno, Italy.
These dates are important because they demonstrate how the three-plus years that the 100th soldiers trained and fought side-by-side with each other bonded them forever. That was evident within months of their arrival at Camp McCoy in June of 1942 to begin training for war. The One Puka Puka soldiers were giving up $2 from their monthly pay toward the dream of a future 100th Infantry Battalion clubhouse that over three hundred men never lived to see.
“As the years rolled by and the battalion moved farther and farther away from Hawai‘i, the clubhouse became more than a dream. We planned it and talked about it and saved for it,” Sam Sakamoto (100th Inf Bn, Co. A) wrote in the club’s first newsletter in 1946.
With the 100th Battalion constantly on the move in Europe, the decision was made to send the funds to Charles R. Hemenway for safekeeping until the men returned from the war. Hemenway was a prominent business and community leader. The Vermont native and Yale grad arrived in Hawai‘i in 1899 to teach at Punahou School. He was a longtime member of the University of Hawai‘i Board of Regents and an ardent supporter of the AJA soldiers and the Japanese American community. Charles Hemenway was also among the 100th’s first three honorary members, elected in September 1944, while the battalion was near Naples, Italy, before moving into France.
Sam Sakamoto wrote that most of the 100th veterans had contributed approximately $60 of their pay to the clubhouse by the time they returned home. Their dream was to build a clubhouse — not a “boys only” clubhouse — but one where the One Puka Puka veterans could bring their families for chapter and club activities and celebrations. The men envisioned building “a clubhouse with a bar, a bowling alley, dancing pavilion, ping-pong tables, a cozy room for bull sessions and a nice soft bed to lie on after a hard night.” The bowling alley never came to pass, but the Turner Hall floor in the current Kamoku Street clubhouse was smooth enough for ballroom dancing. The clubhouse was completed in 1952 and dedicated by the 100th veterans to their comrades who lost their lives in the war.
The club’s inaugural newsletter issue, dated April 1, 1946, was an aspirational one, full of dreams for their clubhouse and for future monthly newsletters that, according to Sakamoto, the club members hoped to follow up “with bigger and better issues.”
The newsletter was searching for a name at the time. But not for long. The club’s executive council voted to award a prize of $10 to the club member submitting the winning name for the newsletter. Sakamoto said Headquarters Chapter member Keichi Kimura, who studied art at the University of Hawai‘i and in New York City, would be asked to design the newsletter’s masthead. With photos, Sakamoto wrote, “it is hoped a dressy bulletin will make a regular appearance.”
Two months later, a panel of judges selected Puka Puka Parade as newsletter’s name. Charlie Company veteran Arthur Itsuo Shinyama from Maui had suggested “Puka Puka,” derived from Club 100’s “One Puka Puka” moniker. The judges felt that “Puka Puka” was incomplete so they considered several additions to complete the name, including, “Peeps,” “Bulletin,” “News” and “Monthly,” before finally settling on “Parade” because of its military connotation. And thus was born Puka Puka Parade (PPP), or “club organ,” as some refer to the newsletter.
It was hoped that each “chapter” — “company” during the war — would share a few paragraphs about their activities and their members every month. “Let us know who’s getting married or who’s passing out cigars,” wrote Sakamoto. “And if you’re going into business, we certainly will be able to give you some free publicity in these columns.” He also noted that Dog Chapter member Spark Matsunaga planned to submit information about surplus property and that Kenichi Suehiro (100th Inf Bn, HQ Co.), who worked for the Veterans Administration, would write a monthly column about veterans affairs and benefits.
In another article titled, “Keep Businesses in the 100th,” Kenichi Suehiro urged the members to patronize their fellow veterans’ businesses. “Do you know that you can get practically all services to make life bearable — from a haircut to buying a car or home and their upkeep and insurance for them — and still contact only members of the 100th Club?” he wrote. Since returning from the war, the members had found careers in a variety of fields, including construction, automotive businesses, insurance and retailing. “We’d like to keep a business index so as to know what businesses all the fellows are in. Perhaps we can throw a little business your way every now and then,” Suehiro added.
In a few paragraphs every month, the veteran “reporters” summed up the goings-on in their respective chapters. They reported on who had attended the chapter meeting and the snacks they had enjoyed; along with graduations, weddings, births, other achievements and vacations. And, as the years passed, they said goodbye to their wartime brothers in arms in the pages of the Puka Puka Parade.
Puka Puka Parade collating day in the early 2000s.
In a July 6, 2012, Hawai‘i Herald feature story, Susan Muroshige Omura [daughter of Kenneth Muroshige (100th Inf Bn, Co. B)], who has overseen the club’s Education Center website (https://www.100thbattalion.org/) for many years, noted that the Puka Puka Parade editions contain valuable historical information about the battalion and its postwar years as Club 100, much of it written by the veterans themselves.
“The PPPs are primary source material, so they are important to preserve for researchers,” said Omura, who had used grant monies to digitize the issues that were in the Education Center collection so that they can be accessed online. The complete collection of Puka Puka Parade issues can be read online through the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s Hamilton Library website: https://hdl.handle.net/10524/11835.
For many years, the Puka Puka Parade was printed as a booklet format, then from 1989, on 8.5 x 14-inch paper using the clubhouse mimeograph machine. The first page was always printed on blue paper. As the years went by, the veterans’ wives and even their children, began contributing to the Puka Puka Parade issues. They also helped to proofread each issue. And, as the veterans began to pass, their wives and family members took their places as chapter reporters.
The blue mimeographed Puka Puka Parade was retired in 2010. But not the newsletter. A commercial printer was contracted to print Club 100’s news on white 11-by-17-inch paper. The flat, unfolded sheets were picked up and brought to the clubhouse, where the veterans, some by then in their 90s, and usually their wives, continued to gather on “collating days” — the fourth Saturday of each month — to manually collate and fold the big sheets. They worked quietly and diligently, using small wooden blocks to crease the folds into 5.5 x 8.5-inch rectangles. Volunteers then attached preprinted adhesive address labels to each newsletter. An efficiency expert would declare the operation “totally inefficient.” But he or she would be totally ignorant of its humanity. “It’s for camaraderie and connecting veterans to new volunteers. A lot of people look forward to it,” said Pauline Sato [daughter of Robert Sato (100th Inf Bn, Co. A)] in the 2012 Hawai‘i Herald story. Collating days came to an end in August 2016.
Puka Puka Parade issues from various decades.
Today’s Puka Puka Parade is a totally digital effort directed by the club’s office manager, Amy Kwong [granddaughter of Eugene Kawakami (100th Inf Bn, Co. A)]. As the newsletter’s volunteer editor, she plans, designs and distributes each month’s issue. And, like most editors do, she chases after the “reporters” — now made up of 100th Infantry Battalion descendants and family whose bylines you see in each issue — with reminder texts that their article is due. When most of the issue has been laid out, she emails the draft layout to a team of proofreaders to help move the production along. When the issue is ready for distribution, Amy emails the issue, usually 16 pages to close to a thousand Club 100 Lifetime members and non-member friends. About 200 printed black and white copies are also mailed to members who prefer to read a paper copy.
From a humble Volume 1 Puka Puka Parade, typed on a clickety-clack manual typewriter, to a silent, totally digital Volume 80 eight decades later … the dedication to keeping the legacy of the 100th Infantry Battalion soldiers who fought for America in World War II lives on in the Puka Puka Parade.
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This article has been reprised from the March 2025 Puka Puka Parade newsletter article, written by Karleen Chinen [daughter of Wally Seiko Chinen (100th Inf Bn, Co. D)]. Back issues of the Puka Puka Parade can be viewed online, courtesy of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa eVols digitial repository — the most recent issues available to the public can be viewed here: https://hdl.handle.net/10524/66742. For more about the 100th Infantry Battalion Veterans Puka Puka Parade, please visit https://www.100thibv.org/post/puka-puka-parade-newsletter.
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