The Department of Accounting and General Services (DAGS) is now the custodian of a significant series of letters that document a key piece of Hawaiʻi’s role in World War II.

On Friday, the 100th Infantry Battalion Veterans Educations Center, also known as Club 100, donated a packet of correspondence to the DAGS division Hawaiʻi State Archives.

They are all letters written to Lt. Colonel Farrant L. Turner, the first commanding officer of the 100th Infantry Battalion, from officers and enlisted men of the battalion he formed and led, comprising almost entirely Hawaiʻi-born men of Japanese ancestry.

There are 111 of these so-called Turner Letters written between 1944 and 1945.  They spell out in great detail the conditions of the war, the impact on the solders and the race relations of the time.

Many of the letters thank Lt. Colonel Turner for his belief and loyalty to these Nisei — second-generation Japanese — at a time when Japanese-Americans faced huge prejudice for the color of their skin. He corrected anyone who disparaged “his boys,” as he affectionately called the troop.

To read the transcriptions of the letters, go to: https://www.100thbattalion.org/archives/letters/turner-letters/. Archives plans to digitize the letters and post them to its website.

 

Photo credit: Hawaiʻi Department of Accounting and General Services