Gender

Male

Birth date

1918-11-1

Place of birth

Sunnyvale CA, U.S.A.

Inducted

1942-1-1, Moffett Field CA

Enlistment type

Volunteer

Service branch

Army

Service type

War

Unit type

Support

Units served

US Army Air Corp and US Army Counterintelligence Corp.

Discharged one month after original enlistment in January 1942 as an Aviation Cadet at King City, US Army Air Corp Training Detachment, CA.

Drafted at Bufffalo, NY, Dec. 1944 and discharged Nov. 1947 at Fort Lawton, WA.

Military specialty

Army Air Corp Cadet and CIC Special Agent

Stationed

US and Japan.

Separated

King City CA

Most vivid memory of military experience

Being released from service in the Army Air Corps, within a month of enlistment in 1942, due to Japanese ancestry. (Was inducted into service via the draft almost three years later, in December of 1944.)

Additional information

Excerpts from local newspapers in 1941: George Aihara, 22, San Jose State College senior flying student, became the first Japanese in the United States to get a federal flight instructor's rating. Holding both a student pilot's license and a commercial license, Aihara, with 450 hours of solo flying to his credit successfully passed his instructor's flying test. Aihara will remain at the local airport as instructor of the San Jose State College flying clubs.