ARMY PHOTO Masashi Kokuryo was all smiles after receiving yet another lei yesterday at Honolulu Airport. Masashi is one of four orphans visiting Hawaii as guests of the 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division (Light), from Schofield Barracks.

 

Isle troops
maintain ties to
Japanese orphans

Four children visit Hawaii
as part of the continuing
dedication of the 27th Infantry

By Rosemarie Bernardo
rbernardo@starbulletin.com

At one time during the Korean War, a company lieutenant and two noncommissioned officers crawled from foxhole to foxhole under fire to collect donations for a dilapidated orphanage in Osaka, Japan.

Fifty-four years later, the 27th Infantry Regimental Combat Team, nicknamed the Wolfhounds, continues the dedication to the orphanage that it adopted.

"I don't think you can emphasize enough about the greatness in these men," said Hugh O'Reilly, 88, who originated the idea of helping the orphans.

Four orphans from the Holy Family Home were greeted at Honolulu Airport yesterday with many leis from the Wolfhounds and their family members. The children -- two boys and two girls -- will spend two weeks with host families and plan to visit places such as the Dole Plantation, Polynesian Cultural Center and Waikiki Aquarium.

The relationship sprouted because of the hundreds of children in Japan who were homeless after they lost their parents in World War II.

The Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul had taken care of the homeless children and received permission to use three run-down wooden barracks to shelter more than 140 children.

The Wolfhounds learned of the Holy Family Home after they accompanied an American Red Cross representative to a Christmas party there in 1949, according to Holy Family Home.

After the visit, the 27th Infantry Division took up a collection and donated $143 to Holy Family, the orphanage's history says. For six months the soldiers spent their spare time repairing the orphanage. Clothes for the children were made out of jackets and blankets, O'Reilly said. Meanwhile, soldiers continued to donate to the orphanage on a monthly basis.

The relationship between the soldiers and orphans was depicted in the 1955 film "Three Stripes in the Sun."

In 1957 the first two children from the Holy Family Home visited the soldiers and their families stationed in Hawaii.

A year later the soldiers visited the orphanage during Christmas to act as Father Christmas.

Trips to the islands have also been made possible through Akio Aoyama, a steel company executive based in Japan and longtime supporter of the Wolfhounds.

Mililani resident Floro Rivera, 71, recalled how each soldier donated a dollar a month from his pay to support the orphanage.

"When I first saw the orphanage, I felt really sorry for them. I wanted them to have a better life," Rivera said. "I'm glad the Wolfhounds continue to help."

Soldiers continue to donate to the orphanage periodically, said Lt. Col. Scott Leith, of the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Division.

Leith said he gets "choked up" over how the division went beyond their military duties to support the orphans.

"It's amazing how long they continued this," said Japan's Consul General Masatoshi Muto, who also greeted the orphans yesterday. "The government of Japan is grateful for what the Wolfhounds are doing."

Through an interpreter, one of the visiting orphans, 11-year-old Sawako Noguchi, thanked the 27th Infantry Regiment and said, "The thing I look forward to the most is going to the ocean and going to the beach."