Biography
Tokuji Onodera was an Issei Honolulu resident, Hawaii Hochi newspaper reporter and prewar executive officer of the Honolulu Japanese Chamber of Commerce. JCCH records his birth year as 1878. His individual record documents June 1942 arrest, Immigration Station June-July 1942, Sand Island July-August 1942, mainland transfer and Angel Island August 1942, Lordsburg August 1942-June 1943, Santa Fe June-August 1943, Ellis Island August-September 1943 and Santa Fe September 1943-November 1945. He returned to Hawaii aboard Yarmouth in November 1945. JCCH states he was removed at the last minute from the Japan-bound Gripsholm and returned to Santa Fe; actual repatriation to Japan is not asserted. This was administrative US wartime civilian detention in the context of Japanese ancestry. No individual criminal conviction, imposed judicial sentence or exact arrest or release day is established. Source: https://incarceration.jcchawaii.org/internees/onodera-tokuji
