A plaque honoring the U.S. Navy's Japanese/Oriental Language School, located at the University of Colorado at Boulder during World War II, will be unveiled on Veteran's Day at the campus' University Memorial Center.
Language school graduates and instructors will join CU-Boulder's Navy ROTC team for the ceremony on Monday at 10:30 a.m. in the UMC's newly converted Veterans Lounge.
After an invocation to honor the fallen, language school graduate and emeritus Professor Donald Willis will read the text of the plaque. David Hays of the CU-Boulder Archives will speak, followed by a reading of a recent U.S. Navy citation issued to the school's former instructors.
The program will end just before noon.
From 1942 to 1946, the U.S. Navy located its Japanese/Oriental Language School at CU-Boulder. Selected students from all over the country came to the school for immersion courses taught primarily by Japanese American instructors.
Graduates served in the Pacific as Naval and Marine officer interpreters, interrogators, translators and cryptographers. After the war, many became experts on Japan and Asia for diplomatic, intelligence and academic interests.
CU-Boulder's UMC was built as a memorial to the university's fallen in World War II.