#442nd

Go for broke.

- Motto of the the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, US Army

Soon after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, effectively placing over 100,000 West Coast residents of Japanese descent, the majority of them American citizens, into incarceration camps. Racism against Japanese Americans was rampant as much of the country grew more fearful and suspicious of collaboration with the Japanese government. But Japanese Americans were equally outraged at the attack on their country. Despite the growing racism against them, many Japanese Americans answered the call to war.

President Roosevelt activated the 442nd Regimental Combat Team on 1 February 1943, nearly one year after the signing of EO9066. Hawaiian-born Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) made up roughly two-thirds of the regiment, with the remaining third composed of Nisei from the mainland United States.

The motto of the unit was “Go For Broke,” a phrase that meant putting everything on the line in an effort to win big. Just as other minority groups, Japanese Americans faced two wars during World War II - war against the Axis powers and war against racism back home - making “Go For Broke” an appropriate motto.

Training for the 442nd was completed in April, and on April 22, 1944, the unit left Camp Shelby in Mississippi on their journey to Europe for their first overseas assignment. They arrived in Italy in June 1944, where they began to fight alongside the 100th against Germans encamped across the country. By August, the 100th was absorbed into the 442nd, with all units serving under the motto “Go For Broke.” In September 1944, the 442nd participated in the invasion of Southern France, successfully liberating French cities from Nazi occupation. The unit went on to fight with the 92nd Infantry Division, a segregated African American unit, in driving German forces out of northern Italy.

Today, the 442nd is remembered as the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the history of the US military. The unit, totaling about 18,000 men, over 4,000 Purple Hearts, 4,000 Bronze Stars, 560 Silver Star Medals, 21 Medals of Honor, and seven Presidential Unit Citations. Additionally, the 100th garnished their own impressive record prior to their absorption into the 442nd. In 2010, various groups and advocates, including the National Veterans Network, were successful in obtaining congressional passage of the bill S. 1055, awarding all members of the 100th and 442nd, along with the Military Intelligence Service, the Congressional Gold Medal for their heroic service in World War II.

When Kazuo Tomasa joined the Army at age 18, he had never left Oahu, let alone traveled to the mainland. The world beyond Hawaii was very big and there was much to see that he had never come across before. Imagine growing up where most Haoles (white people) have the real money and influence and knowing you’re not one of them, and then coming to Fort Shelby, Mississippi and seeing a similar tension, but this time it’s not directed at you but another minority. The southern states of the mainland had very strict laws of segregation, dividing access to buildings like restaurants and theaters and even buses between “White” and “Colored.” In this case, “Colored” meant African Americans. Most Japanese Americans were confused by these labels and then surprised when they were told that they were “white.”

I unexpectedly found this pamphlet online while searching for an photo of my grandparents’ grave marker this morning. I been understandably stressed with everything going on in the country and when I read this I became a little emotionally compromised on my morning commute.  A white reporter from the Honolulu Star Bulletin traveled to Camp Shelby in Mississippi in 1943 where my grandfather and the other Japanese-American recruits from Hawaii were training before they were shipped off to Europe.  

The section that I’ve posted above is the reporter talking with my grandfather but I’ve transcribed the portion that really got to me. 

We asked Tadashi whether the men think much about the implications of their service in the United States army­—what their record for better or for worse means with regard to the futures of all Americans of Japanese ancestry and aliens in Hawaii and on the mainland, and what their battle record will mean in terms of psychological warfare against the Axis.

That’s a mouth-filling sort of a question that you can’t casually ask a soldier on contact in the field. He isn’t going into a lengthy discussion of his ideals—and as a man who is making a practical demonstration of his faith and has volunteered to prove it in battle, he doesn’t have to say anything.

But we were interested, and sought Tadashi’s opinion, as an older man, as to the way the soldiers in general felt about it.

“If we want to see our children and our grandchildren lead the sort of life we want them to have in America, “ he said, “we feel we must do something about it right now.  Really, the feeling is pretty basic with the boys.”

I love how my grandfather basically told the reporter to fuck off.  

While I don’t expect to have children or grandchildren I need to do everything I can to help get this country at least to a state where we’re not BUILDING MORE INTERNMENT CAMPS and discriminating against people based on their country of origin.  

While my immediate family was lucky and not interned because they lived in Hawaii and determined to not be “a threat to national security” I’m really rather grateful that my grandfather isn’t here to see what’s going on in the U.S. right now.  

Thanks for the inspiration Grandpa.