Gender

Male

Birth date

1922-5-9

Place of birth

Ventura CA, U.S.A.

Enlistment type

Draftee

Service branch

Army

Service type

War

Unit type

Combat

Units served

442nd Regimental Combat Team, 100th Battalion, Company D

Military specialty

Infantryman

Additional information

With the death of John, there is only one brother left of the four Ventura brothers, Katsumi Leonard, George Joji, John Hiroshi and Knox Haruo Takasugi, who served in Europe during World War II with the US Army's famed Japanese American unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The Takasugis came out of an internment camp in Gila, AZ to fight for flag and country as their parents, brothers and sisters remained in the camp, behind barbed wire and under the rifles of Army guards.

Leonard was the first Takasugi brother to die. He was killed in action on April 5, 1945, as his outfit, the 100th Battalion (part of the 442nd RCT), moved against the German's heavily fortified Gothic Line in northern Italy.

John, of Oxnard, retired in 1983 after 30 years at the Point Mugu Pacific Missile Range and died at age 75 on May 21, 1999.

Knox, a resident of Ojai, died in 1996. George, of Gardena, is the last surviving family veteran of the 442nd.

George and John entered the Army in the summer of 1944 and Knox joined after them. Leonard, however, had been selected in the first peacetime draft in 1941 and was in the Army when Pearl Harbor was bombed. By 1945 all brothers were in different companies of the 442nd, but they fought in the same battles. George was wounded the same day Leonard was killed.