* Note for the opening time: 6:15pm door open / 6:30pm start
* Feel free to circulate this invitation to friends or colleagues.

Dialogue with Former US Prisoners of War in Japan

Dear friends, we are happy to invite you a special event with several former American prisoners of war who are visiting Japan at the invitation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of a dialogue program. We are honored to be able to host them again for two consecutive years.

Date: Monday, October 15, 2012
Time: Door open: 6:15p.m. Talk start: 6:30p.m.
Venue: Temple University, Japan Campus, Mita 5F
(access: http://www.tuj.ac.jp/maps/tokyo.html)
Speakers: Former US prisoners of war. Please see their profiles below.
Moderator: Robert Dujarric, ICAS Director
Admission: Free (Open to general public)
Language: English
RSVP: icas@tuj.temple.edu
*If you RSVP you are automatically registered. If possible, we ask you to RSVP but we always welcome participants even you do not RSVP.

Overview
The invitation program by the Ministry, entitled “2012 The Japanese/POW Friendship Program”, aims for the promotion of mutual understanding of the people between Japan and the United States through encouraging reconciliation minds by inviting former American POWs, their spouses and their descendants to Japan, who hold special feelings toward Japan due to the experience during the World War II. The program started in 2010.

Speakers' Profile

Douglas Northam, born in 1919 and raised in rural Texas, enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1940. After being stationed in China he did patrol duty on USS Oahu in Manila Bay, Philippines until it was sunk shortly after the fall of Bataan, Northam was then assigned to Corregidor, where he was captured in May, 1942.
Following internments at prison camps at Bilbid in Manila and later Cabanatuan, he was sent to Japan on the “hell ship” Nagata Maru in November, 1942. Held at Umeda Bunsho in Osaka, he performed forced labor at a Mitsubishi railroad yard and other locations in the Osaka area, primarily in Suita. The concluding months of the war he spent in Tsuruga. Remaining in the Navy until 1948, Northam later worked as research technician for the Shell oil company from 1951 until his retirement in 1977. He has been married for 64 years, has two children, and enjoys gardening, horse racing, and cooking.
George R. Summers, Jr. was born in 1922 in Manila, Philippines. Shortly after joining the Marine Corps Reserve in 1940, he was stationed in Guam, and was captured by Japanese.He was sent to Shikoku on the “hell ship” Argentina Maru and held at several internment camps, including Zentsuji, Tanagawa, Umeda Bunsho, and Fushiki, before being liberated by the end of the war. Hospitalized for several long months upon his return to the United States, Summers later joined the U.S. Merchant Marine and would visit Japan during the Korean War. Settling down in Southern California, he spent a combined 18 years working for a telephone company and the City of Anaheim before retiring to a life of carp collecting, bird collecting, and farming.

David G. Farquhar, Jr. was born in 1922 in San Bernadino, California. During the final months of the war, he was detained as a “special prisoner” in the horse-stall cells at the Japanese Kempeitai (military
police) headquarters in Tokyo. On August 15, 1945, two weeks before his liberation, he was transferred to the Omori internment camp on the edge of Tokyo Bay. After returning to the United States, Farquhar married, completed degrees at San Diego State College and later the University of Redlands, and worked for the Redlands Unified School District for more than 40 years. Now retired, he spends time with his children and grandchildren and attending corporate and social meetings. He is returning to Japan for the first time since his captivity.

Randall Stokes Edwards was born in 1918. Having just completed high school in Ruskin, Nebraska, he joined the U.S. Navy in 1935. Stationed in the Philippines during the war, he was captured on Corregidor, sent to a prison camp in Mukden, Manchuria (present-day Shenyang), and forced to work at the MKK (満州工作機械
株式会社) machine tool factory. Edwards remained with the Navy after the war’s end and was sent to Japan in 1948. Retiring from the service in 1955, he went on to receive an engineering degree from the University of Florida and perform fusion research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for 24 years before retiring in 1982. He is married, has one son, and enjoys golf and gardening.

Born in 1922, John Leroy Mims was stationed in the Philippines in 1941 as a member of the U.S. Army’s 31st Infantry Regiment. He is a Bataan Death March survivor, and spent as a prisoner of war in Yamaguchi, Japan. Liberated at the war’s end, Mims promptly reenlisted and returned to the Philippines and later Japan, where he headed the Army quartermaster depot in Tokyo. Retiring in 1963 from military service, he went on to a career in real estate.

Born in Oakland, California in 1923, Robert (Bob) Ehrhart was sent to the Philippines shortly after joining the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve in 1940.
Following his capture in May, 1942 on Corregidor and 16 months of captivity there, he was transferred to Japan on a “hell ship” and performed 19 months of forced labor in Osaka as a riveter and 4 months at Akenobe as a stope driller in a Mitsubishi copper mine. Liberated at the conclusion of the war, Ehrhart spent some time in a hospital in the United States before going on to pursue an engineering degree at the University of California, Berkeley. After working for some companies, he worked for the California Department of Water Resources until his retirement in 1983. His wife of 44 years passed away in 2001. Ever the outdoorsman, Ehrhart has engaged in skiing, swimming, backpacking, and fly fishing over the years and remains an active photographer and traveler.

Born in 1922, John Manuel Real, raised in Ojai, California, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces (predecessor to today’s U.S. Air Force) in 1941 at the age of 19. Stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, his service as an aerial photographer terminated when his plane was lost the first day of the war. He was among U.S. forces that retreated to the Bataan Peninsula, holding out there for six months before eventually being captured by the advancing Japanese. As a prisoner of war, Real spent another year and a half in the Philippines and two years at Camp 5B in Niigata, Japan, where he was forced to work at the Rinko coal yard. Following the war, he earned degrees from the University of California at Santa Barbara and Thunderbird before entering a career in pharmaceutical sales. While pursuing graduate studies in Arizona, he met his wife. Her recent passing followed 49 years of marriage. While being retired Real worked as a docent at the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Getty Villa in Malibu and he is a member of the Museum of Ventura County. He roots for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and also he enjoys art and history.

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Robert Dujarric
Director
Kyle Cleveland
Associate Director
Eriko Kawaguchi
Coordinator
Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies
Temple University, Japan Campus
http://www.tuj.ac.jp/icas/