Haluto
Moriguchi

Tribute by Bob Moriguchi

I wish to pay tribute to my cousin, Haluto Moriguchi, only son of Torao and Yae Moriguchi. He was born in San Francisco and was attending Commerce High School when WWII began. Our family lived on Buchanan Street, near Bush St. Haluto and his sister, June, and their parents lived on Clay St., about 5 blocks away. When I was 9 and 10 years old, I used to walk to Haluto’s home to play ping-pong (table tennis) with him. He also let me read his comic books. Although he was a teenager (about 14–15 years old), I looked up to him like an older brother, and he didn’t treat me like some other teenager might treat someone 5 years younger. In fact, Haluto took me to my first professional baseball game, the San Francisco Seals at Seals Stadium of the old Pacific Coast League. What a treat it was for me. I had my first taste of Dr. Pepper. I don’t recall any details of the game, or even if we had hotdogs.

In the summer of 1942, our families joined up together at the Amache Concentration Camp in Colorado. Although we only stayed in the “camp” about a year, Haluto won the first camp ping-pong tournament. Participants competed in their own”block” to determine the block champion, then there was an elimination play-off. Haluto was the last man standing.

Our families left Amache in 1943, first to Spanish Fork, Utah, to farm, then in 1944 to American Fork, Utah. On May 29, 1944, Haluto enlisted in the army at Ft. Douglas in Salt Lake City at age 19. He had his basic training at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. When he came home on furlough before shipping overseas, he came to speak at our (his sister June and my) junior high class because we were being taunted and rocks thrown at us by some of our classmates.

When we returned to San Francisco in September 1945 after the end of the war, I enrolled in Commerce High School because Haluto had gone there, while my other relatives went to either Washington High School or Lowell High School.

Haluto arrived at Menton, France, in November 1944 as a replacement in the 100th Bn., Co. C, 442nd RCT. They patrolled the southern border of France. In late March 1945, their unit shipped out to Italy to crack the impregnable German Gothic Line, a series of defensive mountains in northern Italy. On April 5, 1945, as they attacked up Georgia Hill, Pfc Haluto Moriguchi, a walkie-talkie carrier for Company Commander, Lt. Walter Johnston, was hit by mortar fragments and was killed instantly. Miles M. Hamada related to me about 10 years ago that he witnessed Haluto being hit as he was advancing up behind Haluto. He was well liked by his fellow soldiers, and was called junior, because he was short and was younger than most of his comrades

HALUTO MORIGUCHI
Feb. 24, 1925 – April 5, 1945