TULE LAKE JAP SLAIN BY GUARD

TULELAKE, Calif., May 25.--(AP)--Shiochi James Okomoto, 30 years old, American-born Japanese, died today from a bullet fired yesterday by a military police sentry at the Tule Lake Segregation Center.

Some Japanese truck drivers halted work at the camp today in protest of the fatal shooting of a fellow-driver. The men objected to assignments which require Japanese drivers to pass through sentry-guarded gates.

The War Relocation Authority, in charge of the camp, said four blood transfusions were given the wounded man after Japanese and Caucasian surgeons had operated in hope of saving his life. Nearly 50 men stood ready at the center hospital during the night to give their blood in transfusions.

Lieut. Col. Verne Austin, commanding the proect's [project's] military detachment, named a board of investigation. The segregation center houses persons of Japanese descent admittedly disloyal to the United States.

An eyewitness said the guard shot Okomoto when the internee refused to halt when ordered to do so.

In Washington, Interior Secretary Ickes said today that so far as he has been able to learn, Okomoto was unarmed and made no threatening gesture before being shot.

Ickes told his press conference he understood the Army has ordered a court-martial and "we are leaving it to the court-martial in full confidence that the Army will get the facts and take whatever action is necessary."