COSTA MESA The Heroes Hall veterans museum will add three memorial plaques to honor Vincent H. Okamoto, Kazuo Masuda and the Marines and airmen who died in the 1965 El Toro Marine Air Station plane…
COSTA MESA The Heroes Hall veterans museum will add three memorial plaques to honor Vincent H. Okamoto, Kazuo Masuda and the Marines and airmen who died in the 1965 El Toro Marine Air Station plane crash.
The OC Fair & Event Center board voted 8-0, with one member absent, on May 25 to place the plaques in the Medal of Honor Courtyard, which sits just outside the museum.
“We are adding three plaques that tell amazing and important stories about Orange County’s heroes that most of us are unaware of, ” said Bolton Colburn, Heroes Hall curator.
The courtyard is adorned with 23 plaques dedicated to Orange County veterans, including 11 who earned the Medal of Honor and the rest to recipients of other awards, such as the Navy Cross and Distinguished Service Cross.
Other plaques honor those who served in World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam, with another for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the way.
Okamoto, 73, is the most highly decorated Japanese American of the Vietnam War, according to a staff report.
His family was taken from their Costa Mesa home and brought to an internment camp in Arizona, where he was born.
While serving as an Army lieutenant in 1968, Okamoto was wounded during an attack by enemy forces, during which he moved under heavy fire to provide suppression fire.
He refused first aid and kept fighting, the report said. During the battle, he crawled to within a few feet of North Vietnamese soldiers and threw grenades.
He received a commendation from President Ronald Reagan and later became a Los Angeles Superior Court judge.
His awards include the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.
Masuda died while serving with the Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II. Masuda, who grew up in Tustin and Fountain Valley, was on foot patrol with two other men in Italy in 1944 when they came across enemy fire, a Smithsonian Institution biography said.
He ordered the men to retreat while he advanced to fight and was killed minutes later.
His family had been placed in an internment camp during the war. Before they left, locals threatened them not to come back after the war, the staff report said.
Despite the intimidation, the family moved back to California.
Masuda’s family was presented the Distinguished Service Cross after his death.
Masuda (Kazuo) Middle School in Fountain Valley bears his name.
On June 25,1965, a C-135 Stratolifter carrying 72 Marines and 12 Airmen took off from El Toro Marine Corps Air Station bound for Okinawa, Japan via Hawaii and en route to the Vietnam War. At 1: 46 a.m., the plane crashed four miles away into Loma Ridge, killing the 84 on board.
The new additions will bring guests together to think about the sacrifices made by those who served, said Bobby McDonald, chair of the Orange County Veterans Advisory Council.
“This is fantastic, ” McDonald said. “To have a place at the fairgrounds where it’s easy access… people can come and think and talk about this.”
“It’s a huge addition to the narrative of our community, ” Colburn said.
No date has been set for when the plaques will be installed, said Fair & Event Center Communications Director Terry Moore. The plaques are being manufactured but may not be ready prior to the OC Fair, which opens July 14, Moore said.
