"We wanted to have something to go back to if we got through the war," said Tsutomu "Tom" Nagata, 89, of Kahului, Maui. "It was a way to keep in touch."

The Hawai'i troops were transferred to Camp Shelby, Miss., in January 1943 and, on Sept. 2, they shipped out to North Africa, where they were reassigned to the 34th Division. Nagata said they stopped making clubhouse payments when they headed off to war, since they wouldn't be receiving regular paychecks and because it was too hectic on the battlefront.

"We couldn't keep track because a guy could come as a replacement, and the next day he was killed," Nagata said.

From North Africa, the "One-Puka-Puka" would go on to play key roles in some of the war's bloodiest battles, earning its reputation as the Purple Heart Battalion.

Nagata, who is reluctant to talk about his exploits, earned one of the medals in February 1944 when he was shot in the right arm while his squad came under machine-gun fire as they tried to take out a German tank during a pitched assault below a fortified monastery at Cassino, Italy. It was a four-month campaign that has been called one of the most horrendous of the war. The beach at Anzio was next for the 100th.

On June 5, 1944, two years to the day after the original members of the 100th Battalion had shipped out from Hawai'i, the soldiers entered Rome. A few days later they joined up north of the city with replacements from the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, an all-volunteer force made up of Japanese Americans, most from Hawai'i.

Nagata returned to Maui and served at the Army quartermaster's warehouse in Hali'imaile until the war's end, then enjoyed a 27-year career as a postal carrier.

He said the 100th Battalion members who came home were expected to pay the $56 maximum they had committed toward the clubhouses. The O'ahu men used their share of the money to help build the Club 100 Memorial Clubhouse on Kamoku Street near Iolani School. Nagata said the Kaua'i and Big Island clubs pooled their resources with other veterans' groups to build centers on their islands.

But the Maui Chapter of the 100th Infantry Battalion Veterans Club was a little slower in making plans for a clubhouse. In 1960 or thereabouts, $5,000 was given to the Maui group, representing the camp contributions of its members. Nagata, chapter treasurer, said the money rested in a certificate of deposit for the next 40-plus years, with the club using the interest to fund its activities.

Rising real-estate prices kept outpacing the club's nest egg, he said, and buying a piece of land always seemed out of reach. In the meantime, they were able to hold events at a facility in Naska, which had been Naval Air Station Kahului during the war.

Then plans for the Nisei Veterans Memorial Center were announced, and club members, who now range in age from 79 to 90, decided it was time to make good on their vow to support a center for local veterans.

With only 30 active members left from its original roll of nearly 100, the Maui chapter recently cashed in the certificate of deposit and without fanfare sent a check in the mail to the nonprofit memorial center.

"We've received tremendous support from a broad cross-section of the community, and we appreciate every dollar that has come in. But somehow, this donation is special. It represents a promise kept 60 years later," said center executive director Barbara Watanabe.

"We are building a living memorial to honor these patriots who exemplified the rights and duties of citizenship. They fought overseas with uncommon valor, and overcame hatred in their homeland with uncommon dignity."

Construction of the $4.5 million Nisei Veterans Memorial Center started last month on a two-acre site in Kahului. It will include an Intergenerational Center with a preschool and an adult daycare facility. A later phase will include an archive center for documents, oral histories and memorabilia from veterans and their families.

Watanabe said the project still needs to raise $1.1 million.