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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The 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry is the only remaining infantry unit in the Army Reserve. Its headquarters is at Fort Shafter, Hawaii. The 100th/442nd’s wartime mission is to be one of the maneuver battalions of the 29th Separate Infantry Brigade, Hawaii Army National Guard. (U.S. Army Table of Organization.)
Yes, the famous “Go For Broke” name of World War II is still with us -discarded after WWII but reborn as a unique-in-the-Army reserve unit in 1947.
The most recently fallen-in-combat soldier of the unit is Staff Sgt. Wilgene Lieto, 28, killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq on Oct. 31, 2005.
The clock still ticks for the 442nd, with 65 years of history already in the books.
It’s believed the term “go for broke” was coined by pidgin-speaking gamblers in Hawaii in the 1800s. It meant you went for it all and lost big or won big.
That became the motto of the WWII Americans of Japanese ancestry (AJA) 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy and France, a unit made up of Hawaii volunteers - known then as “Buddhaheads” - and Mainland AJAs, many recruited out of internment camps and known as “katonks.” Buddhahead likely came from the shaved heads of Japanese priests in Hawaii; katonk was derogatory and referred to the empty sound Hawaii AJAs claimed they heard when they hit Mainland AJAs’heads in their frequent fights in training camp.
There was little aloha between Hawaii and Mainland AJAs at Camp Shelby in Mississippi back then. Each thought the other acted and talked funny.
The first unit insignia in 1943 showed a yellow arm holding a raised, bloody-tipped sword. Oops! The sword was later changed to a torch and the arm became white.
The incredible combat accomplishment of the 442nd as a racially segregated fighting force through Italy and France is one of the great stories of America’s history.
Not so many people here know that the unit name still exists. First Sgt. Beau Tatsumura of D Company (his regular job is at Aloha Airlines) tells of meeting an elderly woman, saying he was in the 100/442nd, and she scoffed at him as a liar. “You’re not old enough to have been in that,” she scolded.
The current 100/442nd men and women did a 20-month deployment in 2005-06 for training and then Iraq combat duty. Most are going on a new, one-year deployment to Kuwait and/or Iraq this fall. That’s a strain on family life. But as Tatsumura says, “When you sign on the dotted line ...”
This Sunday at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Coral Ballroom, survivors of the original 442nd, their sons and daughters, and some current 100/442nd reservists - altogether about 1,200 strong - will lunch and observe the 65th anniversary of the founding of the original regiment. The keynote speaker will be one of their distinguished brothers-in-arms, Medal of Honor holder and U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye.
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The theme of the day is: “65 Years And Still Going For Broke.”
There are so many stories to be told about the 442nd that most writers wrestle mainly with where to begin. There are books and movies - some movies were OK, but the first one with Van Johnson was very bad. The stories, however, live in well-recorded oral history and in the 442nd clubhouse archives on Wiliwili Street in McCully.
But that cadre of amazing men dwindles as the years race by.
Some background before I tell you some stories.
The first AJA unit, the 100th Battalion, was formed in Hawaii in May of 1942 and went into combat in Italy in September of 1943. The 442nd wasn’t born until March 1943 and didn’t get to Italy until June of 1944. By that time, the 100th troops already had fought at Salerno, Monte Cassino, Anzio Beach and through Rome. So when the 442nd settled in north of Rome, at Civitavecchia, and the 100th was made one of its three infantry battalions (plus the 522nd Field Artillery, the 232nd Engineering Company, the 206th Army Band, the Anti-Tank Company, the Cannon Company, and Service Company), there was considerable friction. The 100th guys felt the 442nd was Johnny-come-lately-to-battle, and the 442nd soldiers felt “who are these cocky guys who think they know everything about combat?”
Truth be told, there’s still separatism. Two clubhouses. Failure of every proposal to join the few survivors into one club. They do now have a joint annual memorial service at Punchbowl.
The main story is how so many AJAs rose in the 1940s to the defense of an America that had stripped them of their homes, their businesses and their dignity. Only 25 percent of those of military age in the internment camps refused to sign American loyalty oaths. Seventy-five percent did sign and join the 442nd.
Ed Ichiyama is one who went to war with them and later married an interned AJA woman. His oral history:
“The 442nd was called upon to free men of the First Battalion, 141st Regiment of the 36th Texas Division. These soldiers, 211 of them, were surrounded by the Germans for about a week without food or water in the Vosges Mountains of France.
“The 442nd was ordered to rescue these men at all cost. To do that, the 442nd suffered over 800 casualties, wounded and dead. My nightmares include the mournful, haunting sound of my comrade calling, ‘Mother, Mother, please help me,’ and as his life slowly ebbed in the cold dark forest of the Vosges Mountains of France, thousands of miles away from his home in Hawaii, his plea for help became fainter and fainter until it stopped.
“That rescue of the Lost Battalion is classified by the U.S. Army as one of the 10 most dramatic battles in U.S. Army history.”
After that battle, when the Army division commander had the 442nd assemble for a recognition ceremony, he told the 442nd commander, “I wanted the whole regiment here.” The 442nd colonel replied: “General, this is the whole regiment. The rest are dead or in the hospital.” Ed Yamasaki’s I Company, for example, had only eight men still standing.
The 442nd has 21 Medal of Honor recipients. Writers often use the word “winners.” They didn’t “win” that medal. They most often were awarded it posthumously for doing something so special it got them killed.
At a medal-awarding ceremony in June of 2000 in Washington, then-President Bill Clinton said to one living recipient who had
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