The Standard Journal

Special program being held for Fielder history on June 8

- From staff reports

A long time ago, Polk County was the native land of a man named Kendall Fielder, who has touched the lives of many down the generation­s through his accomplish­ments on the gridiron and later in helping ensure freedom for Hawaiian resident during a heightened state of fear.

Now his story is set to come back to the forefront of Polk County residents during a special program being put together at the Polk County Historical Society in coming weeks.

Brig. Gen. Kendall J. “Wooch” Fielder was first known for his success on the football field during in the years leading up to the beginning of World War I.

The son of William Fielder and May Jordan, he was born in Cedartown in 1893 and later went on to play at Georgia Tech when they were still the Golden Tornadoes, and played on both offense and defense, was during his career a captain of the team and president of the junior class.

Fielder even played under head coach John Heisman during his short tenure at the school, and was part of the infamous 105-0 game against Mercer.

It is still one of the highest s coring f ootball games of all time, and later the 222-0 game against Cumberland College which still holds the record as most lopsided game in history of college football.

Later, Fielder joined up and was made a 2nd Lieutenant in the U. S. Army during World War I, and continued his service following the war.

He did much more than that at school and later in his military career, but Fielder should be better remembered as one of the men who saved Japanese Americans on the Hawaiian islands from internment camps.

Prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Fielder had been a Colonel in the U.S. Army assigned to duty in the 22nd Brigade stationed in Hawaii in 1938. There he was first assigned as a training officer for a National Guard unit on the island, then was appointed as an internal security officer for the Intelligen­ce division of the Army’s chief on the i slands, Gen. Walter Short.

After the bombing of the islands, Fielder was later involved in the Morale Division in the Territoria­l Office of Civilian Defense, and argued that despite the attack by Japanese Imperial forces to start the war, Japanese Americans on the islands were loyal citizens and shouldn’t be held in camps.

There’s plenty more to Fielder’s story than that, and Dwight Gates hopes that local residents will want to learn more about the man who did so much for Georgia Tech and for Japanese Americans on the Hawaiian Islands.

He’ll be presenting a program on Fielder’s history and the family on Thursday, June 8 starting at 6 p.m. at the Polk County Historical Society.

The event will be free to the public.

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