O.C. Fair Board approves new honorary plaques for Heroes Hall

The Orange County Fair Board voted Thursday to add three new plaques to the Medal of Honor Plaza at the Heroes Hall veterans museum at the fairgrounds in Costa Mesa.

The additional plaques will honor Vincent Okamoto, the most highly decorated Japanese American serviceman to survive the Vietnam War; Kazuo Masuda,who posthumously received the Distinguished Service Cross; and the Marine and Air Force crew members who died after their plane crashed shortly after takeoff from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in 1965.

The board approved the new plaques on an 8-0 vote, with member Newton Pham absent.

“As we continue to identify veterans, we will be adding new memorial plaques honoring Orange County veterans — making them part of this very special memorial,” according to a staff report prepared for the Fair Board.

Okamoto received the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry and Purple Heart for his Army service in Vietnam.

He now is a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. He spoke at the dedication of Heroes Hall in November.

Masuda, a member of the Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II, was killed by enemy fire in Italy in 1944 while fighting to give his compatriots time to retreat. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest military award given in the Army.

The third new plaque will bear the names of the 84 men killed when their C-135 Stratolifter, bound for Okinawa, crashed into Loma Ridge, less than five miles from the El Toro base, on June 25, 1965.

The Medal of Honor Plaza, at the entrance to Heroes Hall, is home to several plaques paying tribute to distinguished Orange County veterans. It also contains pillars commemorating area service members and residents who died in World War I, World War II and the Korean, Vietnam and Iraq wars.

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