Aram Kadehjian was Killed in Action (KIA) when flying as a navigator on a mission on 3 March 1945. His B-24 42-51247 collided with another aircraft and crashed near Osterburg on a mission to Magdeburg, Germany.



He had graduated from Watertown High School in 1941. According to his enlistment record he worked as a foreman in Middlesex county, MA before the war and was married. He is listed as 'Japanese, citizen'.



In fact his father, George Avadis Kadehjian, was born on 25 December 1891 in Armenia and left in 1917, probably fleeing an Ottoman state which was persecuting Armenian Christians at the time. He first travelled to Japan and left Yokohama, Japan on 19 June 1917 on the ‘Sado Maru’, arriving in Seattle, WA on 6 July 1917. For more about journeys made by Armenians to Japan and then on to the USA see http://dianaapcar.org/



George was a resident of Massachusetts from 24 May 1918. At various times his trade is listed as a ‘packer’ and ‘meat cutter’. His Petition for Nationalisation lists him as a soldier serving in the 34th Company, 9th Battalion of the Depot Brigade at Camp Devens.



Aram’s mother, Beatrice, came from the same place as his father, Aintab, Armenia (now in Turkey). She was a decade his junior though, born 17 July 1902. She emigrated from Marseilles, France to the USA on 10 October 1922, arriving at Providence, RI on 1 November 1922. Her Petition for Naturalisation, submitted in 1926, records that she had a son living in Boston called Hiriare (born 14 February 1924) and Aram is not listed.



The family were living in Boston, MA in 1935 and then in Watertown, MA by 1940. George worked as storekeeper and lived with his wife, Beatrice, his son Aram and his daughter Mary.

Later in life George and Beatrice moved to Albany, New York. George died in 1963, Beatrice in 1991.

Aram’s sister, Mary Khahadourian, died in 2011.