Kenji Hino
Army colonel
Kenji Hino, 97, a decorated Army colonel and veteran of three wars, died March 30 at his home in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
The cause was arteriosclerotic heart disease, said a daughter, Christina Hino.
Col. Hino, the son of Japanese immigrants, joined the ROTC as a college undergraduate and initially served in the Army from 1938 to 1942. He rose to the rank of second lieutenant but was forced to resign his commission soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, his family said.
In 1943, he was able to reenlist, at the rank of private, in the Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a unit almost entirely made up of soldiers of Japanese descent. They served in France and Italy and were among the most heavily decorated units of the American forces during the war. The then-private, who served in the infantry, received a battlefield commission near the end of the war, elevating his rank to second lieutenant.
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He spent the majority of his career in the Army Signal Corps and was a veteran of the wars in Korea and Vietnam. He retired from active duty in 1971, then spent seven years as a telecommunications executive with the government contractor TAI. He moved from Falls Church to California in 2003.
Share this articleShareKenji Hino was a Chicago native and a 1938 electrical engineering graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1951 and also graduated from the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., among other military training schools.
His decorations included three awards of the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart and the Army Commendation Medal. In 2011, he was among the surviving veterans of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team who received the Congressional Gold Medal — one of the highest civilian awards — for their wartime service.
His wife, Elsbeth Meyer, whom he married in 1947, died in 1973.
Survivors include five children, Peter Hino of Seaside Heights, N.J., Henry Hino of Richland Center, Wis., Elsbeth Hino of Wellfleet, Mass., and Matsu Sklarenko and Christina Hino, both of San Luis Obispo; and seven grandchildren.
— Adam Bernstein
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