[Pair of YEAR'S FLIGHT Yearbooks from Butte High School, Gila River Internment Camp, All Owned by and Inscribed to Student Ben Mura]

Rivers, AZ, 1944. 1) 1943 Year's Flight. Rivers, Az.: Associated Students of Butte High School, 1943. [122]pp., profusely illustrated. Quarto. Original padded tan buckram decoratively stamped in blue. Moderate edge wear and soiling. Hinges tender but stable, minor dampstaining along upper margin, rear endpaper detached but present. Good condition.

2) 1944 Year's Flight. Rivers, Az.: Associated Students of Butte High School, 1944. [148]pp., profusely illustrated. Quarto. Original padded cream buckram decoratively stamped in black. Minor edge wear and dust-soiling. Very good. A nice pair of annotated yearbooks documenting the high school years of Japanese American students attending Butte High School in Rivers, Arizona, during their internment at the Gila River Internment Center. Year's Flight is among the scarcest Japanese internment camp yearbooks in the market. Butte High School was located in one of two camps at Gila River, located on the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. Internees began to arrive at Butte Camp on August 21, 1942. The population of 8,301 was at its peak on March 21, 1943. The majority of internees were from central Los Angeles and the southern coastal regions of California.

This pair of the first two yearbooks issued at Gila River belonged to young Ben Mura, a 1944 graduate of Butte High School, who has signed his name to the top of each free endpaper. In addition, his name is stenciled in gilt on the front cover of the 1943 yearbook. Mura was possibly the son of Shigeko Mura, a Japanese immigrant from California who was interned at Gila River. Ben Mura contributed a poem entitled "Clouds" to his school's p[ublication, Cactus Blossoms 1945, where he reflected on his desire to escape confinement. The present yearbooks are profusely signed and/or inscribed to Mura by some faculty and staff members, as well as legions of his fellow students. The signatures and inscriptions appear on the rear endpapers and some interior pages of each book. Interestingly, Mura's fellow students have inscribed messages to him in both English and Japanese. While the majority of the inscriptions celebrate Mura's success or reflect on his friendship, some also share the sombre tone of his poem. One example: "Best of luck in the future as you deserve it. I hope you will someday be able to relocate and maybe graduate from some college with high honors, Always, Hideo Itabashi."

High school yearbooks are a vital primary source on life inside the various Japanese-American internment camps throughout the Second World War. Photographs in the yearbook show typical student portraits and activities such as taking part in a school play and a variety of sports, as well as Armistice Day. Amidst the student portraits and images of classroom and school functions, sport & club activities, and other extracurricular pursuits are glimpses of housing blocks, wire fences, and the desolate landscapes faced by internees and which defined the existence of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans relocated and incarcerated during World War II. The yearbooks were edited and published by the students themselves.

One or more editions of Year's Flight reside in only nine institutions according to OCLC. A rare opportunity to acquire a pair of them, both owned by the same interned student.