Fort Ritchie is known for the work performed there during World War II by the German Jewish ex-patriots known as the Ritchie Boys, who served as translators and interrogators of prisoners and military intelligence. What isn’t as well known is that a unit of Japanese Nisei (second-generation Japanese American citizens) was stationed at the fort and helped in a similar way as the Ritchie Boys.
In 1998, while the Pen-Mar Development Corporation was working on restoring what is believed to have been a documents library while the fort was open, a mural painted most likely by a Japanese soldier was discovered…