A few months ago I wrote about former judge James Seishiro Burns and how he came to have a Japanese middle name. Burns was a son of Gov. John A. Burns. He married TV journalist Emme Tomimbang.

His mother had polio in 1935, and Seishiro “Henry” Okazaki (1890-1951) provided her with physical therapy.

“If it weren’t for professor Okazaki, I wouldn’t be here and neither would Jim. He gave me treatments every day,” Beatrice Burns said.

“He used his elbows a lot. He put me in hot water with seaweed. He bent my legs and it hurt like the blazes while he was doing it, but when he stopped it didn’t hurt.”

She credited Okazaki with her limited recovery and James’ birth.

After writing about it, I discovered there was more to Okazaki’s story. He and his son also provided massage therapy to two U.S. presidents, and they trained a blinded 100th Infantry Battalion veteran to be a masseur. Let’s take a closer look.

Early years

Okazaki emigrated from Japan to Hilo in 1906. Three years later he was frail and weak. A doctor told him he had a lung condition, possibly tuberculosis. He consulted Kichimatsu Tanaka, who trained him in the martial art of jujitsu.

He gained strength and his lung disorder disappeared. He studied karate, kung fu, American boxing, Hawaiian lua and many Asian healing arts.

In 1922 a heavyweight boxer challenged Okazaki to a fight. He had defeated another Asian black belt in the first round. Okazaki beat him in two rounds, and the news spread from Hawaii to Japan.

Restoration sanitarium

Okazaki opened a clinic in Honolulu in 1930, calling himself a “professor of restorative therapy and jujitsu.” He bought a Japanese-­style residence at 801 S. Hotel St. It was makai of today’s police station.

The grounds included a Japanese garden, a carp pool and a torii gate.

He converted one room into a massage parlor.

Honolulu resident Alvin Yee said he used to walk past it in his youth. “Okazaki was a legendary masseur and practitioner of Japanese martial arts. His studio/­gymnasium/home was known as Nikko Restoration Sanitarium.

“He not only treated polio victim Beatrice Burns, allowing her to give birth to James, but in 1934 he treated polio victim President Franklin D. Roosevelt six times during his first visit here.”

“The results were astounding,” Okazaki biographers Gene and Lora Edwards wrote.

“The President was so impressed with his progress that he invited Okazaki to Washington, D.C., to be his personal therapist. Roosevelt told Okazaki that he was the only one who had helped him. Okazaki politely turned down the request.”

In the years leading up to World War II, Okazaki helped the U.S. Army develop a field manual on hand-to-hand combat. The manual showed many of Okazaki’s jujitsu techniques, but because he was Japanese, his name was not mentioned.

On Dec. 7, 1941, thinking the Japanese army was invading, Okazaki ran into the streets with his sword, cursing and threatening the invaders. His loyalty was with the U.S. Despite that, he and his wife were interred at Honouliuli for three months.

Turtle and Audrey

After the war, Okazaki trained a blinded 100th Infantry Battalion veteran to become a masseur. His name was Yoshinao Omiya (1919-1984). The 1938 McKinley graduate preferred the nickname “Turtle.”

Turtle was blinded by a land mine in Italy during World War II. “I was pretty discouraged about the future,” he said, “when the doctors told me there wasn’t any hope of my ever seeing again.”

Earl Finch, who lived in Hattiesburg, Miss., near Camp Shelby, where many AJA soldiers were trained, visited Turtle in New York. He made arrangements with the Seeing-Eye organization in Morristown, N.J., for a guide dog for Turtle.

Hawaii had a 120-day quarantine for animals coming to Hawaii. Turtle arranged to live at the quarantine station with Audrey, but after the dog died in 1947, the governor issued a special order allowing him to bring his second dog, Lady Audrey, to Hawaii, bypassing the quarantine.

Lady Audrey ate in the same room with him and slept at the foot of his bed at night. Turtle and Lady Audrey were often in the news, and he was a much-admired figure in the islands. Turtle worked with the Okazakis before opening his own clinic.

Father and son

Okazaki had a son, Hachiro, in 1922, who followed in his father’s footsteps at Nikko Restoration Massage.

Some of the professor’s clients asked Hachi why his father treated them so rough. His massages were often painful. “It’s because he likes you,” Hachi would tell them. “If he doesn’t like you, he won’t work hard.”

It may have hurt, but it worked just as it did when the professor learned from his judo teacher how to use his elbows to work the kinks out of sore muscles.

Lyndon Baines Johnson

In 1961, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson came to Hawaii for the East-West Center’s groundbreaking ceremony at the University of Hawaii. Johnson had co-founded the center when he was a senator.

At the ceremony, the vice president said: “I have never met a man or woman from these Islands I didn’t like. Hawaii offers to the eye some of the world’s greatest natural beauty.

“But far more important is the inspiration Hawaii offers to the hearts of men by the example here of the brotherhood and harmony that has been achieved among your people.

“I’d like to bottle the aloha spirit and send it to countries around the world.”

Johnson reminded everybody that Hawaii’s congressional delegate, John Burns, “my old personal friend,” was the man who convinced him to support statehood for Hawaii. Burns recommended massage therapist Hachiro Okazaki to Johnson.

Presidential motorcade

Honolulu Advertiser reporter Bob Krauss said Okazaki could not simply drive to the vice president’s hotel room and knock on his door.

Nothing short of presidential motorcade would do. It pulled up, led by motorcycles with flashing lights and screaming sirens, at an out-of-the-way address on Hotel Street, a block from Thomas Square.

“A muscular man of Japanese descent and his petite wife were hustled into the car. The motorcade roared through red lights toward Waikiki, stopping traffic at every intersection.

“Was this man an atomic scientist on his way to advise the vice president? Was he a captured spy?

“No. He was Hachiro Okazaki, proprietor of Nikko Restoration Massage,” Krauss wrote, “on his way to give Lyndon Johnson a massage at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel. His wife, Ruth, massaged Lady Bird Johnson.”

The Okazakis also treated such celebrities as Johnny Weissmuller, George Burns and Shirley Temple. Third-generation masseur Keith Okazaki continued Nikko Restoration Massage until his death in 2013.

Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.