Friendship Between Two Churches, Physicians

Thanks to Teresa Watanabe for her excellent story, “Churches Relive a Victory Over Hate” (Aug. 13), about the enduring friendship between the members of two churches in Hollywood, one a Japanese congregation, following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The career of Dr. James Yamazaki, the special speaker for the moving joint service, is every bit as incredible as the story of the friendship between these two congregations. I first met Yamazaki in 1951, when I came to Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles as an intern; he was on the staff.

Our lives had many parallels. He had been a medical officer in the U.S. Army, was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge and spent the rest of the war in a German prison camp while his parents were behind barbed wire in a U.S. internment camp.

I was also a POW, having been captured by the Germans when our B-24 was shot down over Hamburg. Although I am a first-generation American, the son of German parents, my family was not sent away.

I am proud to be a personal friend and colleague of Yamazaki’s and a member of Mt. Hollywood Congregational Church, which continues in the tradition of seeking to do what is right but not always popular.

Richard Koch MD

Los Angeles