Gender

Male

Birth date

1923-12-07

Place of birth

Los Angeles CA, USA

Inducted

1943-05-26, Camp Shelby MS

Enlistment type

Volunteer

Service branch

Army

Service type

War

Unit type

Combat

Units served

442nd Regimental Combat Team, Company M,

Military specialty

Artist 296

Stationed

USA - Camp Shelby, MS Other Countries: Italy; France; Germany

Separated

Camp Grant IL

Unit responsibility

Heavy machine guns/ Weapons

Personal responsibility

Runner/ Messenger and survival.

Major battles (if served in a war zone)

Hill 140, Italy. Rome-Arno. Rhineland. Central Europe. Wounded 9 July 1944 at Castellina, Italy

Awards, medals, citations (individual or unit)

3 Overseas Service Bars European-African-Middle Eastern Theater Ribbon with 3 Bronze Battle Stars Purple Heart Medal Good Conduct Medal World War II Victory Medal Combat Infantryman Badge American Campaign Medal.

Living conditions

Combat conditions.

Most vivid memory of military experience

Terror.

Missed most whilst in the military

Freedom.

Most important thing, personally, to come from military experience?

Sense of survival and desire for peace.

Additional information

1). Shinikichi Tajiri volunteered from Poston WRA Center, Arizona and was seriously wounded in his left leg at Castellina, known as 'Little Cassino', in Italy. 2). He started his art career in Paris in 1948, studied with Ossip Zadkine and later with Fernand Leger in Montparnasse. 3). He left for Amsterdam in 1956 and then Baarlo where he acquired and began to restore the immense Castle Scheres in 1962. He lives and works there. 4). A painter, sculptor, engraver, publisher, photographer, cine-documentarian, he also revived the daguerreotype process, has photographed the entire Wall of Berlin in 1969-1970, consisting of 600 pictures and then made a video-tape of the Wall from a British Air Force helicopter. 5). Between 1969-1989, he was a multi-media professor in Berlin which he visited twice a month while retaining residence in Holland. 6). He has had numerous international shows and has left his work throughout the world. Among others, he was asked by the Queen of Holland to create a sculpture for the Royal Palace Park in the Hague. 7). In 1992 the Dutch government, in the name of the queen, commissioned him an officer in the Order of the Orange Nassau 'for outstanding competence in science and art and because of your service to the Queen and society.' 8). The artist's Friendship Knot #1, a square knot stands in Little Tokyo. Friendship Knot #2 is a granny knot. 9). A cast iron sculpture, 'Friendship Knot,' a symbol between the people of the French town of Bruyeres and the 100th/442nd RCT, was donated to the citizens of Bruyeres on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bruyeres on October 16, 1994. It signifies the Nisei veterans' appreciation for their show of support for redress in 1988, sending an appeal containing 1,500 signatures to President Reagan to sign the bill.