go to home page

... the most recent messages are on top !




De : L PR
Envoyé : mardi 30 avril 2013 10:47
À : 程龙 (Peking University)
Cc : Janette & home ; Mary Previte
Objet : Fw: From Long

Dear Long,

This website, -- non commercial and free access to all -- started as an experiment, 13 years ago with just 6 painting reproductions of the Weihsien compound ... painted by a Belgian Roman Catholic missionary. I had, at the time, absolutely no knowledge of the Internet and about computing. I was just newly retired from work and I learned it all by myself. The hard way!

The main purpose of the website is and must be: Weihsien ... from March 1943 to October 1945.



Everything in these pages are scans of original documents. What are not pure facts is not included.

My sister and I chose not to mention our personal lives before and after the Weihsien episode, and our generation’s parents are long gone! I was too young to remember and all I know about Weihsien is thanks to my website. I have no personal memories.

However ...
If you are interested in personal experiences, may I suggest you explore the “BOOKS” chapter. Father Hanquet wrote his “memoirs” and gave me his permission to reproduce his book (translated into English for our English speaking friends). Also Joyce Bradbury’s book ... “Forgiven but not Forgotten” ... I recopied it from cover to cover with Joyce’s permission. Many other interesting books too that you should read ... providing you have enough time to do so. Also there are many personal stories that have been assembled in “The Children of WeiHsien” http://weihsien-paintings.org/I_Remember/ALBUM/p_Book.htm . All the chapters in the website are interesting and I expect that you will find much to explain the Second World War and the civilian concentration camps in China. I wish you all the best in your research and I very much hope that your work will be shared by many.

You know, ... even out here in Europe, people seem to ignore – or have forgotten -- that there was a war going on in Asia between 1931 and 1945!

Best regards,
Leopold





De : 程龙
Envoyé : dimanche 28 avril 2013 02:54
À : tapol@skynet.be
Objet : From Long

Hi Leopold:

I am happy to get your respond. The website is wonderful and very useful to my research.Thank you for setting up such a great website for us to remember the history.

I notice you have upload your collections on the website.But I didn't find any of your or your parents's stories or memoirs about the stay in China and the camp. Would you like to tell me how/why your parents came to China? How were you captured and transported to the camp? What can you remember or learned about the camp?What happened to you after 1945 when you were back to Belgium? Do you upload the images of all you have collected about the camp?

Thanks for your time and patient!

Best regards and good health!
Long





De : tapol_(Skynet)
Envoyé : samedi 27 avril 2013 15:18
À : weihsien@topica.com
Objet : Re: Chinese Professor call for help

Dear Mr. Long Cheng

I have assembled about 3200 pages of paintings, photos, sketches, documents, books, ... about the two and a half years we tried to live in the Weihsien-Concentration-Camp between 1943 and 1945. This website is free access to all.

http://www.weihsien-paintings.org

Let me know if you have a problem to open this URL.

Best regards,
Leopold
(Belgium)
ex-prisoner in Weihsien and 4 years old in 1945 !!





De : Natasha Petersen
Envoyé : samedi 27 avril 2013 14:35
À : Previte, Mary ; weihsien
Objet : Fw: Eulogy for Tad Nagaki.

----- Original Message -----

From: Mary Previte
To: Natasha Petersen
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 8:07 PM
Subject: Eulogy for Tad Nagaki.

Natasha, please forward to Weihsien Topica network.
Mary

Tad Nagaki, an American hero
A eulogy
By Mary Taylor Previte

Today, we lay to rest an American hero.

The first time I saw Tad Nagaki – oh, who could forget that day?
August 17, 1945.

I was 12 years old, a child prisoner in the Japanese-held Weihsien concentration camp in China.

They were spilling from the belly of a low-flying B-24 bomber -- six American heroes, dangling from silk parachutes, dropping into the fields beyond those concentration camp barrier walls. Separated from our parents, we children had been prisoners of the Japanese interned with 1,500 prisoners for almost three years, and now the Americans had come. America’s angels. Dropping from a wind-blown sky, they had come to liberate us.

I speak today for those 1,500 Allied prisoners. Tad Nagaki and that liberation team changed our lives forever. For many of us, there has never, ever, ever been another day like it. Is it any wonder that America calls them “the greatest generation”?

Weihsien went mad that day. Emaciated with hunger and delirious with joy, prisoners rushed the gates. We wept. We danced. We hugged. We punched at the sky. We pounded the ground with our fists. In waves of hysteria, men rushed through the gates past armed Japanese guards into the fields beyond the camp -- a mad welcoming committee. We were free.

Let me give tribute by naming them all: Team leader, Major Stanley Staiger; Ensign Jim Moore, 1st. Lt. James Hannon, Sgt. Tad Nagaki, Sgt. Raymond Hanchulak, T/5Pete Orlich, and Chinese interpreter Eddie Wang.

They were gorgeous, sun-bronzed, American gods with meat on their bones. They took over the concentration camp from the Japanese and started arranging for our evacuation.

We children followed these heroes everywhere. We wanted their autographs. We wanted their insignia. We wanted their buttons – pieces of parachute. For souvenirs, some cut off pieces of their hair. We wanted to sit on their laps. We wanted them to sing to us the songs of America. They taught us to sing “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.” After almost 70 years, I can sing it still.

Sgt. Tad Nagaki was an instant favorite with us children and teens in the camp. He was not just a super-star softball player. He made time for us. If you saw Sgt. Nagaki walking around the camp, you saw children trailing after him. We trailed him everywhere. When the Americans prisoners played the British, Tad was the short stop. Well, of course, back home in his Nebraska high school, Tad had starred in baseball, football, and track.

With his passing, Tad Nagaki is the last of the six Americans who liberated the Weihsien concentration camp in China.

After I tracked down the members of this team in 1997, I followed with a pilgrimage, criss-crossing America in a pilgrimage to say thank you to each man face to face. I called Tad a hero, an angel -- he had risked his life to rescue people he didn’t even know.

He was almost embarrassed with my fuss. “I’m not a hero,” he said. “I only did what any American would have done.”

The saga of this humble, Nebraska farmer deserves to be in America’s history books. His parents came to America from Japan. Born in Nebraska, Tad was American. With war brewing across the ocean, Tad was drafted into the Army in November, 1941. He would defend America. He was the first of the Nagaki brothers to go. It was a simple equation: You love your country, you must be willing to fight for it.

But for Japanese-Americans, it was much more than that. Military service would prove their patriotism. His mother posted a proud blue star in the farmhouse window. She had a boy serving America.

Any American who was alive on December 7, 1941, can tell you where he was when he heard the news. If Japan’s sneak arrack at Pearl Harbor shook Americans with anger, Japanese-Americans felt instant terror.

Tad didn’t notice any change of people’s attitude towards him at first – not until his training buddies in the signal corps were shipped out and he was not. Like everyone else, he was itching for action. He passed the physical and got all the recommendations to become an air cadet. Then came the personal letter from the commander; they could not accept him because he was Japanese-American. Shipped to Ft. Campbell Kentucky, he found himself in a barracks with about 40 other Japanese-Americans. Other America boys were doing important stuff – going to war, fighting for America. Tad and his Nisei buddies were assigned to pruning trees, loading food onto trains and landscaping the grounds. Years of stupid stuff! What kind of job was that for a gung-ho American soldier when a war was going on?

By now the United States was evacuating people of Japanese decent from its coastal areas, interning them.

Yet in more than ten years of my digging Tad Nagaki’s memory to learn the story of his heroism, I have heard not one word of criticizing America. Tad keeps his message simple. “I am American.”

After years of frustration, in 1943, Tad saw an announcement on the camp bulletin board. Nisei volunteers were needed for “highly secret” intelligence work. “More hazardous than combat,” some of them were told, “a one way ticket.”

From hundreds of Nisei who volunteered, Tad was one of only thirteen chosen for the Office of Strategic Services Detachment 101 – it was to be espionage behind Japanese lines in Asia. Every one of them knew when he volunteered that it was much more dangerous for them as Japanese-Americans than for others. What atrocities would the Japanese do if they captured a Japanese-American?

Members of the Nisei unit were glued together with a brotherhood hell-bent on proving their patriotism. They plunged into work of sabotage, guerrilla warfare, hit-an d-run harassment operations, interrogating prisoners, translating Japanese documents. Tad Nagaki was assigned to Burma and then to China.

As America closed in on Japan in 1945, intelligence reports reached American headquarters in China that Japan planned to kill its prisoners in China, Korea, and Manchuria. Rescue became a top priority. OSS organized eight, seven-man rescue missions. On August 17, 1945, Tad Nagaki parachuted from a B-24 nicknamed “The Armored Angel” to liberate me and 1,500 Allied prisoners from the Weihsien concentration camp in China’s Shandong province.

Some people tell me America has no heroes. They’re wrong. I know their names. Tad Nagaki is an American hero.

#





De : 程龙
Envoyé : samedi 27 avril 2013 03:10
À : weihsien@topica.com
Objet : Chinese Professor call for help

Dear Former Weihsien Internees:

I am Long Cheng, an associate professor of History at Beijing Language and Culture University. I am very interest in the history of the camp and now preparing wrting a book about it, becaust there is no such books in China and few Chinese scholars show the interests. Today, ordinary Chinese barely heard of the camp and the experieces of the people who were interned there for more than two years.

The year after next will be the 70th anniversary of the camp's liberation, I am now in close cooperation with Weifang Government to recover the history so that your stories will not only be circulated here, but to be known by more and more Chinese.

I will be very grateful if you can provide personal experiences, material objects or informations relating with the camp. Anyone's any story will be welcomed. Please feel free to contact me at pkucheng@126.com.

I went to the camp site this week on 22nd, and met the grand-niece of A. P. Cullen, who conducted the memorial service of Eric Liddel when he died in the camp, according to the grand-niece family, who happened to be the site on the same day. They also brought a photo with them showing their grandfather and Eric together in Tianjin(Tientsin),in 1937.

We will probably organize a world tour before 2015 to interview the survivors or those who have close relaion with the camp.

Hope to get your responds soon.

Best
Long CHENG

Associate Professor of History
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Beijing Language and Culture University
No. 15, Xueyuan Rd, Beijing,100083, China
--
程龙
微博:http://weibo.com/pkucheng
于北京




De : Marti Suddarth
Envoyé : samedi 27 avril 2013 00:16
À : weihsien@topica.com
Objet : Re: Tad Nagaki

Mary,

Thank you so much for letting us know. I am so sad. My grand-aunt left the camp as part of a prisoner exchange in 1943, so she probably never met Tad Nagaki, but she would have been impressed with his bravery none-the-less. A few years ago, the children in my first grade class wrote to him, and he was kind enough to write back. He was especially concerned with a boy whose father was stationed in Afghanistan at the time. Tad Nagaki may have insisted that he wasn't a hero, but I say he WAS ... and not just during World War II.

Marti Suddarth
grand-niece of Martha Kramer





De : L PR
Envoyé : vendredi 26 avril 2013 09:43
À : Mary Previte
Objet : Re: picture of Tad Nagaki and Mary Previte, at Tad's 90th birthday celebration, 2010

Dear Mary,

Yes ... this picture is on the website ...
http://weihsien-paintings.org/The7Magnificent/Tad_2010/MaryP/p_90th.htm

... all the best,
Leopold


From: Mary Previte
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2013 1:37 AM
To: Leopold Pander
Subject: picture of Tad Nagaki and Mary Previte, at Tad's 90th birthday celebration, 2010

Leopold,

Do you have this photo on your web site?

Mary Taylor Previte helps celebrate Weihsien liberator Tad Nagaki's 90th birthday in Alliance, Nebraska, 2010.

Grandsons Jason and Ryan Nagaki orchestrated a day-long, community-wide birthday celebration at the Alliance Country Club. The event culminated with a banquet for 80 family members and close friends. Mary flew from New Jersey to honor Tad Nagaki and to tell the Tad Nagaki story. Mary is the author of a magazine story: Tad Nagaki: A Japanese-American Hero Behind Japanese Lines in World War II.

#





De : Natasha Petersen
Envoyé : mercredi 24 avril 2013 23:40
À : weihsien
Objet : Fw: Tad Nagaki died yesterday, April 22.

----- Original Message -----

From: Mary Previte
To: Natasha Petersen
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 8:11 PM
Subject: Tad Nagaki died yesterday, April 22.

Natasha,

Please forward this story to the Weihsien Topica network.
Mary

Tad Nagaki died yesterday (April 22) at the home of his grandson in near Denver, Colorado. He was 93.

Tad was the last living member of the World War II, 7-man American rescue team that liberated 1,500 Allied prisoners in the Japanese-held Weihsien concentration Camp in China, August 17, 1945.

America has lost a true hero.

Who can forget that day? Angels dropping from the sky on a windy August day -- parachuting from the belly of that B-24 bomber outside those barrier walls. Remember, remember, remember? Weihsien went mad. Emaciated prisoners weeping, dancing, pounding the sky with their fists. Prisoners climbing the walls. Hysterical with joy, we rushed the gate to welcome these American gods. No matter how many guns the Japanese had! Yes, sun-bronzed American gods with meat on their bones.

The Tad Nagaki story is an important chapter of American history. As an American-born, Japanese-American enlisted man, after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Tad Nagaki was sidelined with other Nisei, doing menial labor in Ft. Campbell, KY, stupid stuff, Tad said -- like pruning trees and loading trains. Tad wanted to fight in the real war like every red-blooded American, but because he was Nisei, a personal letter from his commander denied Tad's request to become an air cadet. Then in 1943, Tad Nagaki volunteered to be part of an elite team of Nisei spies. It was an experiment: Could Japanese-Americans be trusted to fight the Japanese? But the United States desperately needed men in intelligence service who understood Japanese. This team was highly trained in communications and survival skills.

Now Tad Nagaki was a member of this Office of Strategic Services's (OSS) 15-member Nisei unit that infiltrated behind Japanese lines in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations. Serving first with OSS 101 in Burma with Kachin tribesmen, when the war wound down in Burma, he trucked over "The Hump" to China. When Allied intelligence warned that the Japanese planned to execute their Allied prisoners in China and Manchuria, Tad volunteered for the rescue team called the "Duck Mission" that liberated Weihsien. He served as the team's Japanese-language interpreter. For his heroism, he was awarded the Soldier's Medal. Team leader, Major Stanley Staiger promoted him to sergeant.

In 1997, I tracked down these liberators in a successful national search and visited each one face-to-face to say thank you. Tad, a widower whose sons had died, still farmed corn, and beans, and sugar beets in Alliance, Nebraska.

Tad always insisted to me, "I am not a hero." He said he only did what any American would have done. When I used to ask him what it felt like to be trailed all over Weihsien by a non-stop throng of children, he said, "It felt like being on a pedestal." That's the understatement of the century. We made them gods. Remember?

Like children following the Pied Piper, we children -- crowds of us in Weihsien -- followed these heroes everywhere. My 12-year-old heart turned summersaults over every one of them. I know yours did , too. I remember in the evenings outside the commandant's office where the team of American's now stayed. We wanted to sit on their laps, to touch their cheeks. We begged for their insignia, begged for their buttons, begged for their autographs. Tad told me that one girl cut off a piece of his hair for a souvenir. When we begged these heroes to sing the songs of America, they taught us 'You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.' Bless my soul! I can sing it still.

When American support personnel arrived to take over the evacuation of Weihsien, in late September, liberators Major Stanley Staiger, Ensign Jimmie Moore, Tad Nagaki, and Raymond Hanchulak moved to Tsingtao to set up an OSS base there.

In 2010, when grandsons Jason and Ryan Nagaki celebrated Mr. Nagaki's 90th birthday with a town-wide open house in at the Alliance Country Club, letters from around the world poured in from us former Weihsien internees -- from United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, and the United States.

Tad was a quiet man. He never wanted me to make a fuss about him. At that birthday celebration, I discovered that while Tad had lived in Alliance for half a century, very few of Tad's family and friends even knew that he had risked his life liberating 1,500 Allied prisoners from the Weihsien concentration camp. At an evening banquet at the country club for 80 family members and friends, Tad finally let down his guard and let me talk to these, his closest friends and family. I was at the microphone and he was sitting at a table up front so close I could reach over and pat this hero as I told the riveting Tad Nagaki story. I'm so everlastingly grateful I had this opportunity to honor this hero -- and everlastingly pleased that Tad's grandsons videotaped the story.

Grandson Jason told me today he hopes to play that story at some kind of memorial service to be held in Alliance.

And what a story it is! In August 2005, in recognition of the ending of World War II, a United States State Department publication in China published the Tad Nagaki story in Chinese and in living color for distribution to thousands of top-level Chinese decision makers. I had written this story for an obscure military magazine called The Ex-CBI Roundup. (I have no idea how the State Department got hold of my story. The magazine editor told me she wanted the Chinese to know that even in America, some people suffered during the war.) Tad was so reticent to talk about himself that it had taken me at least a year to interview him for this article -- usually by telephone on Sunday nights when my phone rates were cheap, at 5 cents per minute. To find the right questions to ask in our chats, I had to read books and learn all about what Japanese-Americans experienced in this land during World War II. Tad told me that the parents of his fiance were interned in the Poston Internment camp in Arizona.

Goodbye, Tad.

You will understand why I have felt weepy today.

By the way, I'm so very happy that Leopold Pander was inspired in January to send Tad for his birthday Leopold's The Children of Weihsien. What a masterpiece those two volumes are!

Tad died this morning with his grandchildren around him at the home of grandson Ryan Nagaki. I'll follow when I learn more details and when I think of a lovely way to honor his memory.

Mary Taylor Previte





De : L PR
Envoyé : mercredi 24 avril 2013 17:50
À : Amy Nagaki ; Lisa Nagaki
Objet : Re: Tad Nagaki, Liberator of Weihsien died today

To Tad’s family,

Please accept our condolences for the loss of Tad.

Though I don’t remember him – I was just four years old in 1945 – I have heard quite a lot of his story these last few years. America can be proud of him.

Best regards,
Leopold, ... and Janette (my sister who was also in Weihsien-concentration-camp)


From: Mary Previte
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 5:05 PM
To: Leopold Pander ; Amy Nagaki ; Lisa Nagaki
Subject: Re: Tad Nagaki, Liberator of Weihsien died today

Do forward your condolences to: ryan_nagaki@yahoo.com and jasonlisan@yahoo.com

Were you successful in getting my announcement out to the weihsientopica network?

Thank you.
Mary





De : kim smith
Envoyé : mercredi 24 avril 2013 15:12
À : Tapol
Objet : Re: Tad Nagaki, Liberator of Weihsien died today

Hi again, Leopold!

I'm changing my Email to pascin727@gmail.com.
Can you change this so I don't miss anything?

I'll also try on the Weihsien site.

Best to you!
Kim





De : A. Knuppe
Envoyé : mercredi 24 avril 2013 11:38
À : weihsien@topica.com
Objet : Tad Nagaki

Dear Mary,

Your In Memoriam for Tad Nagaki really impressed me. The whole story of our liberation on Aug. 17th by these 7 brave men brought back all the memories of my camp life. I am so glad you were able to manifest this story during the celebration of his 90th birthday and let the guests know what a courageous O.S.S. member he had been. Now they have all passed away, but our gratitude will always remain as long as we live.

Kind regards,
Anne Knüppe (née de Jongh)





De : Ron Bright
Envoyé : mardi 23 avril 2013 19:04
À : weihsien@topica.com
Objet : Re: Tad Nagaki, Liberator of Weihsien died today

Dear Mary,

Thanks for the update and your tribute to Ted Nagaki. . I have been following the story of the Weihsien Camp for years after one of the OSS Liberators, Lt James Hannon, insisted that one of the prisoners held in a secret location was Amelia Earhart. Earhart was flown out earlier before the main populaton. I have never found any corroboration of that claim. Hannon wrote a thinly disguised version of Weihsein in his book "The Secret of Weifang".published in 2004., I regret that I was unable to contact Ted. He was a "true hero"

. Ron Bright
Earhart Historian
Bremerton, Wa





De : tapol_(Skynet)
Envoyé : mercredi 24 avril 2013 09:56
À : weihsien@topica.com
Cc : Janette & home
Objet : Re: Tad Nagaki, Liberator of Weihsien died today

Dear Mary,

If I remember well, Father Hanquet died at approximately the same age. They must now be someplace up there, chatting joyfully about the good old days after our liberation from the Japs !

Could you forward our sincere condolences to Tad’s family. He is indeed a hero just as many hundreds of young Americans of his generation.

Best regards,
Janette, Leopold





De : L PR
Envoyé : mercredi 24 avril 2013 09:50
À : Mary Previte ; altnews@alliancetimes.com
Cc : Janette & home
Objet : Re: Tad Nagaki

Dear Mary,

This is a really sad news. If I remember well, Father Hanquet died at approximately the same age. They must be now, someplace up there chatting joyfully about the good old days after our liberation from the Japs!

For ALT-news, the link to your Tad Nagaki story is:
http://weihsien-paintings.org/Mprevite/pages/page04.htm

May I suggest the journalist to also click on:
http://www.weihsien-paintings.org

and then click on: "The Magnificient Seven" chapter in the left frame on the home page.
.... as well as in the "From: Mary Previte" chapter.

If we are still alive today, it is thanks to those magnificient seven Americans.

... all the best,
Leopold

-----Message d'origine-----

From: Mary Previte
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 11:06 PM
To: Leopold Pander
Subject: Tad Nagaki

Leopold

Did the Weihsien Topica network get my story yesterday that Tad Nagaki died yesterday morning? I've received no response from Natasha Peterson. I've no doubt been dropped again.

I'm having trouble locating my story about Tad Nagaki on your web site. Can you find it for me?

The editor of the newspaper in Nebraska wants to read the article. to save time, please will yyou forward that magazine article to altnews@alliancetimes.com ?

Thank you.
Mary





De : Natasha Petersen
Envoyé : mardi 23 avril 2013 17:06

À : weihsien
Objet : Fw: Tad Nagaki, Liberator of Weihsien died today
----- Original Message -----

From: Mary Previte
To: weihsien@topica.com ; Natasha Petersen ; Swan ; Rich Swingle ; Teddy Pearson
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 12:21 AM
Subject: Tad Nagaki, Liberator of Weihsien died today

Tad Nagaki died today (April 22) at the home of his grandson in near Denver, Colorado. He was 93.

Tad was the last living member of the World War II, 7-man American rescue team that liberated 1,500 Allied prisoners in the Japanese-held Weihsien concentration Camp in China, August 17, 1945.

America has lost a true hero.

Who can forget that day? Angels dropping from the sky on a windy August day -- parachuting from the belly of that B-24 bomber outside those barrier walls. Remember, remember, remember? Weihsien went mad. Emaciated prisoners weeping, dancing, pounding the sky with their fists. Prisoners climbing the walls. Hysterical with joy, we rushed the gate to welcome these American gods. No matter how many guns the Japanese had! Yes, sun-bronzed American gods with meat on their bones.

The Tad Nagaki story is an important chapter of American history. As an American-born, Japanese-American enlisted man, after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Tad Nagaki was sidelined with other Nisei, doing menial labor in Ft. Campbell, KY, stupid stuff, Tad said -- like pruning trees and loading trains. Tad wanted to fight in the real war like every red-blooded American, but because he was Nisei, a personal letter from his commander denied Tad's request to become an air cadet. Then in 1943, Tad Nagaki volunteered to be part of an elite team of Nisei spies. It was an experiment: Could Japanese-Americans be trusted to fight the Japanese? But the United States desperately needed men in intelligence service who understood Japanese. This team was highly trained in communications and survival skills.

Now Tad Nagaki was a member of this Office of Strategic Services's (OSS) 15-member Nisei unit that infiltrated behind Japanese lines in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations. Serving first with OSS 101 in Burma with Kachin tribesmen, when the war wound down in Burma, he trucked over "The Hump" to China. When Allied intelligence warned that the Japanese planned to execute their Allied prisoners in China and Manchuria, Tad volunteered for the rescue team called the "Duck Mission" that liberated Weihsien. He served as the team's Japanese-language interpreter. For his heroism, he was awarded the Soldier's Medal. Team leader, Major Stanley Staiger promoted him to sergeant.

In 1997, I tracked down these liberators in a successful national search and visited each one face-to-face to say thank you. Tad, a widower whose sons had died, still farmed corn, and beans, and sugar beets in Alliance, Nebraska.

Tad always insisted to me he was not a hero. He said he only did what any American would have done. When I used to ask him what it felt like to be trailed all over Weihsien by a non-stop throng of children, he said, "It felt like being on a pedestal." That's the understatement of the century. We made them gods. Remember?

Like children following the Pied Piper, we children -- crowds of us in Weihsien -- followed these heroes everywhere. My 12-year-old heart turned summersaults over every one of them. I know yours did , too. I remember in the evenings outside the commandant's office where the team of American's now stayed. We wanted to sit on their laps, to touch their cheeks. We begged for their insignia, begged for their buttons, begged for their autographs. Tad told me that one girl cut off a piece of his hair for a souvenir. When we begged these heroes to sing the songs of America, they taught us 'You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.' Bless my soul! I can sing it still.

When American support personnel arrived to take over the evacuation of Weihsien, in late September, liberators Major Stanley Staiger, Ensign Jimmie Moore, Tad Nagaki, and Raymond Hanchulak moved to Tsingtao to set up an OSS base there.

In 2010, when grandsons Jason and Ryan Nagaki celebrated Mr. Nagaki's 90th birthday with a town-wide open house in at the Alliance Country Club, letters from around the world poured in from us former Weihsien internees -- from United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, and the United States.

Tad was a quiet man. He never wanted me to make a fuss about him. At that birthday celebration, I discovered that while Tad had lived in Alliance for half a century, very few of Tad's family and friends even knew that he had risked his life liberating 1,500 Allied prisoners from the Weihsien concentration camp. At an evening banquet at the country club for 80 family members and friends, Tad finally let down his guard and let me talk to these, his closest friends and family. I was at the microphone and he was sitting at a table up front so close I could reach over and pat this hero as I told the riveting Tad Nagaki story. I'm so everlastingly grateful I had this opportunity to honor this hero -- and everlastingly pleased that Tad's grandsons videotaped the story.

Grandson Jason told me today he hopes to play that story at some kind of memorial service to be held in Alliance.

And what a story it is! In August 2005, in recognition of the ending of World War II, a United States State Department publication in China published the Tad Nagaki story in Chinese and in living color for distribution to thousands of top-level Chinese decision makers. I had written this story for an obscure military magazine called the Ex-CBI Roundup. (I have no idea how the State Department got hold of my story. The magazine editor told me she wanted the Chinese to know that even in America, some people suffered during the war.) Tad was so reticent to talk about himself that it had taken me at least a year to interview him for this article -- usually by telephone on Sunday nights when my phone rates were cheap, at 5 cents per minute. To find the right questions to ask in our chats, I had to read books and learn all about what Japanese-Americans experienced in this land during World War II. Tad told mer that the parents of his fiance were interned in the Poston Internment camp in Arizona.

Goodbye, Tad.

You will understand why I have felt weepy today.

By the way, I'm so very happy that Leopold Pander was inspired in January to send Tad for his birthday Leopold's The Children of Weihsien. What a masterpiece those two volumes are!

Tad died this morning with his grandchildren around him at the home of grandson Ryan Nagaki. I'll follow when I learn more details and when I think of a lovely way to honor his memory.

Natasha, please forward this to Weihsien topica network.

Mary Taylor Previte