Gordon Warner

Gordon Warner (October 24, 1912 – March 4, 2010) was an American one-legged swordsman who became the highest-ranked westerner in the Japanese martial art of kendo. He was also a world-record-holding breaststroke swimmer, a decorated World War II Marine officer, an academic in educational administration, and an author of books on kendo, the culture of Japan, and the history of the Ryukyu Islands.

Early life and war service Warner grew up among Nisei in Long Beach, California, and began watching Samurai cinema and studying Japanese martial arts as a teenager. Tall and athletic, he became captain of the University of Southern California swim team, but had to leave Japan in haste after the Kenpeitai learned from his correspondence that he was a Marine officer.

In 1941 he was called to United States Marine Corps service as a combat instructor at the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. He was later deployed to the South Pacific, He became the first to raise the American flag on Bougainville Island in the Landings at Cape Torokina in November 1943. He was awarded the Navy Cross for his heroism in this battle, His 1950 thesis for a Master of Arts in history was Artificial limb development: A history of the Northrop Artificial Limb Research Department 96, Project 17, founded on prosthesis development. From 1950 to 1954 he studied education at the University of California, Berkeley, completing a doctorate in 1954 with the dissertation History of the continuation education program in California.

After completing his doctorate he became an assistant professor at California State University, Long Beach. He traveled to Japan in 1956 to attend an international kendo match between American and Japanese kendo masters, hosted a return match in Long Beach in 1957, and continued visiting Japan repeatedly in subsequent years.

In 1964, Warner retired from his faculty position to become the director of the Education Department of the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands, on Okinawa Island. He continued practicing kendo, eventually reaching the 7th dan. He was married and had two children, a son Ion Musashi Warner and a daughter Irene Tomoe Cooper. Japanese Festivals (with Hideo Haga, 1968) History of Education in Postwar Okinawa (1972) Japanese Swordsmanship: Technique and practice (with Donn F. Draeger, 1982) The Okinawa War (1985) The Okinawan Reversion Story: War, Peace, Occupation, Reversion, 1945-1972 (1995) Dining in Chopstick Societies (2007)