Kongo Nitta was born on May 13, 1923, in Los Angeles County, California, to Toichi and Chika Nitta, who had emigrated from Japan. The Nitta family also included five daughters, Yoshiko, Mary, Betty, Lorraine and Fugie and three other sons, Noboru, Mas and Sus. Kongo completed grammar school and attended Watsonville High School for three years until the war interrupted his education.

In the spring of 1942 the Nitta family was moved from their Watsonville home to a temporary facility in Salinas and then sent to the permanent relocation camp in Poston, Arizona. The Nitta family occupied two rooms in Barrack 12, block 216, of Camp II at the facility.

Kongo Nitta enlisted in the US Army in March 1945 and was assigned to Camp Maxey, Texas, for basic training. In July 1945, while undergoing a training exercise at that camp, Private Kongo Nitta was accidentally drowned. His body was recovered and sent to Denver, Colorado, where funeral services were conducted. The family later had his remains reinterred in the Pajaro Valley Memorial Park in Watsonville.

(CBR; NARA2, Internment Record; Mas Hashimoto Watsonville JACL, email (13 April 2008]); Poston Newsletter Prepared for AJA WWII Memorial Alliance by Mits Kojimoto and Lisa Terao Blum)