Sexo

Male

Birth date

1921-05-16

Local de nascimento

Waimea, Kauai HI, USA

Inducted

1943, Heart Mountain Relocation WY

Tipo de alistamento

Volunteer

Ramo das Forças Armadas

Army

Tipo de serviço

War

Tipo de Unidade

Combat/sup

Unidades onde serviu

442nd Regimental Combat Team, Antitank Company C in Italy and France Military Intelligence, G-2 Intelligence AFWP (Armed Forces Western Pacific), Okinawa

Military specialty

Military Intelligence Infantryman

Stationed

USA:Ft. Ord, CA Other Countries: Italy; France; Okinawa

Separated

Ft. Ord CA

Unit responsibility

Anti-tank Infantry, 442nd Regimental Combat Team Infantry Regiment G-2 Intelligence (Prisoner interrogation in Okinawa. AFWP)

Personal responsibility

Varied services for the troops in 442nd (in the Anti-Tank Company), KP, driving the officers, servicing the troops. Served the men with provisions, drove the men to various locations and destinations, including the front line with the 442nd. Drove the company officers to various official destinations.

Major battles (if served in a war zone)

Not in any major battles, but moving in the peripheral of many responsibilities toward the front line.

Awards, medals, citations (individual or unit)

As a unit, citation awards were given to the 442nd infantry regiment in Italy and France. (The anti-tank company was part of the unit).

Living conditions

Our living conditions were varied: Tents, outdoors in vehicles, caves, warehouses, fox holes, trenches, abandoned homes, at times in the open landscape. Meals were scattered and sometimes provided. Entertainment: self created.

Most vivid memory of military experience

Delivering supplies to the front line. Attending to the wounded from the front line with the 442nd.

Missed most whilst in the military

Family members and friends. Affiliation with life at school and time related to any part of education and aspects of life related to personal relationships.

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

Perhaps the most important thing will eventually come to me, later, or maybe never. It doesn't matter. It was a marvelous experience with accents on various aspects of our being, our total being in the realm of humanity. The experience provided happiness, sadness, fulfillment of achievements, joy, success, and probably the most important thing to come out of the military life, was the experience of coming out of it with sound mind and open heart. And I wish for many of the men I met and survived with, much happiness and success in their life with their loved ones and family. They deserve every bit of it and more. And personally, I also wish the same for many of us I spent some time with when our lives were questioned during the outbreak of the war. Some of us decided to join the 442nd from our respective internment camps and nevertheless became part of the hundreds of young men from Hawaii and the United State. I shall always remember the 60 or more who decided to go from Heart Mountain Relocation Camp and a few who I knew personally, who never came back.

Additional information

From birth to 1939, he was known as Sadamitsu Fujita. From 1940 to the present he is known as S. Neil Fujita, father of Kenji, David and Martin, husband to the late Aiko and grandfather to six grandchildren. He was separated in 1945 from the 442nd RCT and in 1947 from AFWP Okinawa. Although he started Chouinard Art Institute (Now Cal Arts)before WW II, he returned there after the war to study full time under the GI Bill and took a graphic design course in his final year. After completing his studies in 1949, he joined NW Ayer in Philadelphia, one of the leading advertising agencies of its day, and began developing his distinctly modernist style. While at Ayer, a particularly prize winning ad for the Container Corp. of America, brought him to the attention of Columbia. When he got to Columbia, there was the beginning of some ideas of album cover art, but it was still just type and maybe a photo of the artist and some shapes arranged in an interesting way. Neil was the first to use painters, photographers and illustrators to do artwork on album covers. He left for good in 1960 to start his own firm. In 1963 he was approached by Ruder & Finn, the public relations firm to form a design subsidiary, Ruder, Finn & Fujita, which evolved into Fujita Design. He taught for many years at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art, Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and the Parsons School of Design in Manhatten. In the mid 1990's he moved to Southold and returned to painting, exhibiting his work locally.