After Long Wait For Combat, Tad Nagaki Became POW Liberator
Sixteen million men and women served in uniform during World War II. Today, 1.2 million are still alive, but hundreds of those vets are dying every day. In honor of Memorial Day, NPR's All Things Considered is remembering some of the veterans who have died this year.
"Tad Nagaki was a gentle, quiet farmer," says Mary Previte, a retired New Jersey legislator and former captive of the Japanese during World War II. That quiet farmer, who did extraordinary things, died in April at the age of 93 at his grandson's Colorado home.
With her siblings and separated from her missionary parents, Previte spent nearly three years in the harsh conditions of a prison camp in China during the war.
Tadashi "Tad" Nagaki was among her rescuers. Previte was 12 at the time and never forgot him. More than a half-century after the war, she tracked Nagaki down and learned more about his life.
Nagaki, a Japanese-American, grew up on a family farm in Alliance, Neb. After the war, he went back to Alliance to farm corn, beans and sugar beets.
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