Still Going for Broke
The 100/442 is alive and well as an Army Reserve unit in Hawaii, as members of the original celebrate its 65th anniversary. Yes, the famous “Go For Broke” name of World War II is still
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Del.icio.uslost an arm: “Senator Inouye, you wrote that your father told you as you left at age 18 to join the Army and fight a war that the Inouyes owed an unrepayable debt to America. If I may say so, sir, more than half a century later, America owes an unrepayable debt to you and your colleagues.”
There were 18,000 individual decorations including 53 Distinguished Service Crosses, 588 Silver Stars, 5,200 Bronze Star Medals, 9,486 Purple Hearts and eight Presidential Unit Citations - more than any unit of that size in WWII. More than 600 killed and 9,000 wounded. More casualties than any American unit of that size in WWII.
442nd soldier Lloyd Tsukano wrote during that war:
“Keep your troubles to yourself. Don’t show how you’re hurting. Don’t bring shame on your family. Comrades who are slain in our charge on the ridge have not died in vain but forged through heroism a bridge for all Japanese-Americans to cross.”
“The boys” of the 442nd never seemed to say no, even when the odds indicated they should. Larry Nakatsuka wrote a book called Hawaii’s Own that told his view of the taking of Bruyeres in France.
“The Germans had to be cleaned out of four hills. They sent artillery rounds to score big casualties with tree bursts. Three of our battalions plunged ahead. Mortars, howitzers and tanks ... the 100th took Hill A and the 2nd Battalion captured another. The 3rd Battalion made a direct charge over open field for Bruyeres, occupying the town by nightfall.”
The 100th had been in ferocious fighting for four hours, the 2nd Battalion for seven hours. It was more than the Germans could handle. They withdrew from Bruyeres.
Stanley Akita, who died last year, remembered that very well.
“The French were overjoyed. We saw the wrath of the French people on the collaborators. Male collaborators were beaten. The women were shaved bald and marched through the town.”
That’s where Robert Kuroda of the Aiea Sugar Plantation was killed by a sniper while attacking a German machine gun nest. Toyoichi and Sekino Kuroda had three other sons in the war - Ronald was with B Company of the 100th Battalion and Wallace was with the 1399th Engineer Construction Battalion. Joe would retire as an Army colonel and become a state senator. That family also had four first cousins serving with the Japanese army. Such two-sided family stories were not unusual.
The late Eiro Yamada was a UH student when the war started, and he signed up and served with the 442nd as his duty. His survivors run the Yamada Scholarship Program for descendants of AJA World War II vets who are entering college, already in, or in graduate school. Applications are at www.goforbroke.org.
The war years and the after-war years were equally daunting. 442nd commander Col. Virgil Miller knew that when, at a May 5, 1945 memorial service, he told the men:
“The sacrifices made by our comrades was great. We must not fail them in the fight that continues and the fight that will be with us even when peace comes. Your task will be the harder and more arduous one, for it will extend over a longer time.”
He meant that discrimination would not end overnight.
The big questions on this 65th anniversary of the 442nd: What happens when all these vets are gone? How long can the remaining sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters be expected to keep on with their own demanding lives and also put in the time to keep the story of the 442nd fresh in an age of new Americans without much memory of WWII?
Club president Bill Thompson hopes to keep the legacy alive through a local website. Former president Don Shimazu says, “If it weren’t for what we did, we might still be second-class citizens.”
He was just out of UH ROTC when Pearl Harbor was hit and was quickly reclassified as 4-C, not useable by the Army because of his Japanese heritage (he eventually served in the 522nd Artillery arm of the 442nd.)
Bert Nishimura, the only local 442 vet to serve in WWII and the Korean and Vietnam wars, remembers how all 317 nisei members of the Hawaii Territorial Guard were summarily discharged “without any warning or explanation” after the Pearl Harbor attack.
(In 1940, the Hawaii Guard had 40 nisei members, not for integration reasons. Most only were recruited because they were great boxers or baseball players for the 298th and 299th regimental sports teams!)
The war changed the lives of the Hawaii nisei soldiers who survived it. Many used the GI bill for college and became professional people and political leaders. There’s the story of Kauai taxi driver Henry Kono, who was training for war in Mississippi. He used to go into Hattiesburg. That’s where he met his future wife, Jean Francis Fleming. And Sakae Takahashi of a Kauai plantation family, recuperating in New York City, met and married very blond, haole, Danish-to-the-core, would-be-opera-singer Bette Wulff.
There was a sea change in our cultural baseline happening in Hawaii and it all started with “the boys” of the 100th Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
442nd Events This Week
Legislature Honors 442nd
State Capitol Lt. Gov. Office
March 28, 11 a.m.
442nd Combat Veterans Display
Kapiolani Community College Library
Through April 17
Artifacts and memorabilia from the 442nd archive and learning center. Displays on the 442nd Antitank Company, 232nd Combat Engineers, 442nd Medics, and 522nd Artillery.
Digital Storytelling
Kapiolani Community College Library
March 28
The website stories of Hawaii nisei veterans.
Panel Discussion With 442nd Veterans
Kapiolani Community College Library
March 28, 5 p.m.
Public discussion on veterans’ experiences from the attack on Pearl Harbor until their return home.
Memorial Service
DAV Keehi Memorial Park
March 29, 9-9:30 a.m.
Family Fun Day
Same day and location, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.
65th Anniversary Luncheon
Hilton Hawaiian Village Coral Ballroom
March 30, 11 a.m.
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