V. H. Viglielmo

Who is V. H. Viglielmo?

Valdo H. Viglielmo is a prominent scholar and translator of Japanese literature.

Viglielmo was born on December 11, 1926, in Palisades Park, New Jersey. He grew up in a small rural community in the Hudson Valley of New York State, completing both his primary and secondary school education and beginning his college studies in that state. Being of draft age during World War II and knowing he would have to serve, he chose to volunteer, serving in the ASTRP. He was eventually drafted in January 1945, undergoing basic training in Florida. The European phase of the war ended in May 1945 while he was in training, but the Pacific war was still raging.

Toward the end of his training Viglielmo responded to an appeal for enlisting in a Japanese language program being conducted under the auspices of the ASTP and was sent to the University of Pennsylvania where he began an intensive nine-month course of study, almost exclusively in the spoken language. After the end of the war in August 1945, his training was then directed toward being an interpreter during the Occupation of Japan, and he served as such in the 720th Military Police Battalion in Tokyo from April to September 1946.