Picked up some uniforms today that belonged to a Navy Chaplain. One of them is named. He was Captain Peter I Ota and he was the first Nisei to become a US Navy Chaplain. A "Nisei" is someone whose parents were both born in Japan. He entered the Navy in 1956, only a decade after the end of WWII and his "first" made the news in Newport News Virginia when he entered Chaplain School.

 

 

 

 

The estate company I got the uniforms from did not have any documents or other items from Capt. Ota, but I was able to find info online from ancestry.com and newspaperarchive.com, paid services.

 

He served with the Marines in the late 50's and I also found a reference to him from a 1960's cruise book.

 

He was from Salt Lake City and it looks like his father was also a clergyman. I have not found any info on whether the family was rounded up and dent to a camp during WWII.

 

 

 

 

Here's his mess dress uniform:

 

I found Immigration records showing his parents coming to the US before WWII, but no indication of internment.

 

 

That's just way cool,thanks for sharing!

Nice

Awesome research Bob!

I don't care that this is technically a decade old thread.

 

Capt (Peter) Ota, USN, was my grandfather. He passed away in Nov, 2013 and was buried in San Diego. 

 

Our family was living in Utah at the time and was exempted from EO9066, but my great-grandfather spent WW2 in the Salt Lake County Jail, as he was considered a leader in the small Japanese community in Salt Lake City. Only one of Chaplain Ota's older sisters (my Great-Aunt) went to Manzanar, because she was living in San Francisco at the beginning of 1942.