Charles F. Loomis

Chief morale officer during World War II Hawai'i who promoted the loyalty of Japanese Americans and founding partner of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR). ^[1]

Charles Loomis was born on October 26, 1887, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and graduated from the University of Missouri with a B.A. from the Teachers' College. Additionally, Loomis graduated from the St. Louis Training School, the first manual training school in the country and was a manual training expert and later football manager and coach at Missouri University.

From 1911 to 1916, Loomis was the boys' work director for the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Hawai'i. From 1916–19, he was the secretary of the Kauai YMCA and served as the territorial secretary until 1925. In 1919, Loomis helped develop plantation social services, working with the Hawaii Sugar Planters Association and introduced sugar study in schools. This curriculum eventually became the public schools' vocational agricultural program. Additionally, Loomis helped to establish the IPR in 1925 and as its first secretary he traveled to Kyoto, Shanghai, Yosemite, Virginia Beach, Hot Springs, and Mount Tremblant in the course of organized meetings. During the mid-thirties, he was acting secretary-general of the International Secretariat.

Prior to World War II, Loomis was associated with the army through National Guard duties promoting literacy programs and educational work in the Army-Navy YMCA. After the outbreak of war, he became the chief morale officer for the military government working with individuals such as Hung Wai Ching and Shigeo Yoshida to promote interethnic unity among the different groups in Hawai'i including the Japanese. During the war, Loomis often spoke on behalf of the Japanese in the Islands and their loyalty to America. Loomis passed away at Queen's Hospital on October 6, 1957, after an extended illness. He was survived by his wife Edith Woodward Warren Loomis, to whom he was married in September 1952 and three children by a former marriage.