With strong belief that his children be educated in Japan, Shinji Okamura's father sent him and his siblings to Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1924. Okamura remained in Japan for six years and returned to the United States at the age of 13.
<br><br>Okamura volunteered to attend Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS). After graduation, he joined the 170th Language Detachment attached to COMSOPAC under Admiral William Halsey. As a lead translator, he worked on captured documents for the Navy. Afterward, Okamura joined the 25th Division in New Caledonia then moved to the Philippines, where he earned a Combat Infantryman's Badge. Later, he and the rest of the group would all receive Bronze Stars.
 
After the Philippines campaign, Okamura left for Japan to work as an interpreter for Gen. Brown in the 25th Assistant Division. Okamura remembers Nagoya being "all flattened out with the bomb. Only one building standing....That's only one left. That's how bad it was, bombed out."
