Frank Haruo Yamagata (Poston
325-8-C), was born to Japanese immigrants, Tomoichi and Hisae Yamagata. Following
the signing of Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, people of Japanese
ancestry living in the Western states were forced to relocate. For the Yamagata
family, Mr. & Mrs.Tomoichi Yamagata and their children: Mary Kikuye, Tamae, Giichi, George Yoshio,
Frank Haruo, Isaac, and Lilly, were transported by military guard from
Reedley California, out to the Arizona desert to a place known as the Poston,
Arizona concentration camp 3.
They arrived at Poston in early August 1942, when the desert
temperatures were soaring well past 120 degrees. While in the camp, Frank Yamagata
and his brothers awed the crowds with their basketball abilities playing on the
dirt courts.
Frank's brother, T/5. Giichi Yamagata, left the camp
and served with the all nisei 442nd RCT in Europe, while Mary and Frank left
Poston in the spring of 1944 to work in Cleveland, Ohio. Brother George left Poston in
the summer and went to Chicago, while Isaac followed his siblings to Cleveland
later in the fall. His sister, Lily, accompanied their parents back to Reedley in early
spring of 1945.
Frank Yamagata, a farmer, married and raised a family with
four children in Reedley, California. He died January 13, 2014 in Fresno,
California at the age of 88.
