Thomas Taro Higa (September 22, 1916 – February 11, 1985) was a wartime hero both in the United States and Okinawa. He earned a Purple Heart and Silver Star. In 2015, NHK produced the docudrama in Higa's memory. Early life Thomas Taro Higa was born on September 22, 1916, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to immigrant parents Kana and Kamezo Higa. He was the third child of twelve children. During the early 1900s, many people from Okinawa and western Japan would immigrate to Hawaii in hopes of creating a lifestyle as "immigrant laborers." Their goal was to work hard and return to home with honor. Higa's parents did not have time to rear their children, so they sent the children that were born in Hawaii back to Okinawa entrusted by close relatives. Higa was sent with his older brother and older sister to their ancestral home in Shimabukuro, Kitanakagusuku, Nakagami-gun, Okinawa-Ken and was raised by his grandparents until he was 9 years old. Career After childhood, Thomas Higa went with his cousin and his cousin's wife and children to Osaka to fulfill his cousin's dream of living in a new land. Higa's first job was at a store called the Daimaru Shoten in Nomura-cho, which was owned by someone from Wakayama Prefecture. Higa then left to work as a "live-in" apprentice at a wholesale cosmetics store called Horikoshi Kotetsu Sha which was owned by an Imperial University graduate from Toyama Prefecture. He was also employed at Fuji Denro Kogyo Ltd. under Yasutaro Goto, which manufactured iron hardening kilns for military use. Back in Hawaii, Higa's father had a large farm and needed more help. Higa returned to Hawaii when he was old enough to help. Invention Thomas Higa first became interested in electricity when he first read about it at the Horikoshi Kotetsu Sha. When he came back to Hawaii, he wanted to replace the kerosene lamps with an electric generator. He created this generator by utilizing the water from the stream by his house to power it. He used waste materials and an abandoned car to create a generator for his house. Word spread and Professor Tadaoki Yamamoto, the Department Chairman of the Faculty of Science & Engineering at the Waseda University, came to meet Higa and asked him to come to Japan and study. Since then, he completed 15 other inventions and applied for several patents at the Patent Bureau