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Minoura, Halley

Biography:


Halley Minoura was born on March 19, 1923, in Cupertino, California, to Hiroshima-born farmers Shikataro and Tamayo Minoura. His family spent his younger years living and working in Cupertino, California. In 1937, the Minoura family moved to nearby Sunnyvale, where Minoura attended and graduated from Fremont Union High School in 1941. In his free time, he enjoyed fishing, playing basketball, and practicing photography. When the forced relocation was ordered, Halley’s family reported to the Pomona Assembly Center on May 29, 1942, Halley was studying business management and accounting at San Jose State College. As he was the sole child of aging parents, Halley lived with Shikataro and Tamayo both while in Pomona and later at Heart Mountain. They lived in apartment 14-7-F. On the 1943 loyalty questionnaire, Minoura answered No to Question 27, and gave a qualified Yes to Question 28. His original answer to 28 specified that his own loyalty was contingent on clarification of his citizenship and rights. However, when Minoura discovered leave clearance would be withheld due to his answer to 28, he requested to change his answer to an unqualified Yes, claiming that peer pressure kept him answering honestly the first time around. Heart Mountain administrative officials accepted his requested change to his answers and allowed him to work in Powell from September 1943 to April 1944. Minoura failed to report for his pre-induction physical in March 1944 and was arrested on April 7, 1944. He was tried and convicted in June 1944 for violating the Selective Service Act and sentenced to three years in the federal prison at McNeil Island, Washington. Minoura was released in July 1946 and pardoned by President Harry Truman on December 24, 1947. 

He married Suyeko Katayama on November 8, 1953, and worked as a gardener in Mountain  View, California. Halley Minoura died in 2014 and is buried in Palo Alto, California.