The 100th Battalion and the 442nd
Regimental Combat Team

Military Service

Vosges Forest, France, 11/14/1944: Bob Yorita, Shigeru Suekuni, Lefty Ichihara, Michio Takata, and Capt. Joe Hill of F Company, 2nd Bn, 442 RCT, move out of its old command post. Their unit is holding a section of the front lines. (Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps)

In response to the Nisei petitions to Washington to allow them to serve in combat to prove their loyalty, the impressive training record of the 100th Battalion and for other reasons, Washington approved the formation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in early 1943. The 442nd RCT was comprised of 4,000 Nisei volunteers from Hawaii and the mainland US–including men from internment camps. Following training at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, the 442nd RCT, with the motto Go For Broke, was shipped to Italy where the 100th had been fighting for the previous nine months. The 100th merged into the 442nd RCT and continued executing tough assignments successfully. When the war ended, the US Army declared that the 442nd RCT combat performance record was “unsurpassed” and that it was the most highly decorated unit for its size and period of combat. The 442nd RCT left over 650 Nisei on the battlefields of Italy and France.

Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps

Soldiers training at Ft. Shelby, Mississippi.

Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps
Source: National Archives

The 442nd RCT were made honorary Texans and Iowans after the war.

Source: National Archives

Nisei of the 2nd Bn 442nd RCT bow their heads in prayer for those who gave their lives while fighting the enemy north of Rome.

 
Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps
Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps

Vada area, Italy: 100th Battalion march to parade ground to receive award.

Vada area, Italy: LTG Mark Clark pinning the Presidential Unit Citation ribbon awarded to each member of the 100th Battalion.

Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps
Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps

October 1944: A line of Army trucks full of 2nd Battalion infantrymen move up to a new bivouac point in the Chambois area of France.

Nisei soldiers move past a knocked-out Nazi half-track in Bruyeres, Vosges Forest, France.

Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps

Vosges, France, 1944: Goichi Suehiro looks for German movements in the valley 100 yards away. Co F, 2nd Bn, 442 RCT. (Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps)

Vada area, Italy: LTG Mark Clark and Navy Secretary James Forrestall reviewing the 100th Battalion.

Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps
Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps
Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps

THE TRAPPED BATTALION STORY

Source: U.S. Army Center of Military History

Rescue Of The Trapped 1st Battalion, 141st Regiment, 36th Infantry Division

The US Army commissioned military artist Charles McBarron to paint 20 most fiercely fought battles in US Army history. One scene McBarron selected was the October 1944 rescue of the 1st Bn, 141st Regiment, 36th (Texas) Division, by the 442nd RCT. The Texas battalion was en- circled by superior German forces in the Vosges forest in northeastern France and was doomed to be annihilated. After 5 days of bitter fighting, including hand-to-hand with fixed bayonets, 211 Texans walked out to freedom.

In the slightly over one month of combat in the Vosges, the 442nd sustained huge casualties. One company that started the rescue operation with 180 men had 16 men standing at the end of one battle, another company had 8 men standing. Five of the 7 Presidential Distinguished Unit Citations, 5 of the 21 Medals of Honor, and 9 of the 29 Distinguished Services crosses awarded to the 442nd illustrate the intensity of combat. The 442nd fought true to the Army dictum: don’t leave your buddy behind, save them at all costs. The enemy abandoned their fortress in the Vosges forests thus giving the 7th Army a clear shot for the invasion of the German homeland

The 442nd RCT and the 100th were engaged in a series of tough battles including Monte Cassino and Anzio, but the rescue of the Texas Trapped Battalion stands out as the defining moment to affirm the loyalty of Japanese Americans to our country while their families were imprisoned in America.

 

Mitsuyoshi Fukuda, C.O., 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd RCT. Photo taken during Po Valley Campaign in Italy in April 1945. Fukuda was the highest ranking Nisei in the 442nd and one of the four highest ranking Nisei in the US Army during WWII. Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps.

German troops surrender to 100th Bn in Orciano area of Italy during Po Valley campaign, April, 1945.

Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps

We end this sequence of photos with a more cheerful image: PFC George Morihiro, I Co, 442nd with a little orphan from the St Joseph’s Orphanage in Italy who attended the RCT’s July 4th, 1945, party .

Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps

The 522nd Field Artillery Battalion of the 442nd RCT liberated a Jewish extermination sub-camp at Dachau, Germany, towards the end of WW II. In this photo by George Oiye of the 522nd, the inmates are seen milling around. Following the 442nd assignment to the Vosges forests, the 522nd was detached from the 442nd and assigned to LTG Alexander Patch’s 7th Army for the invasion of Germany while the main unit of the 442nd was assigned to the Maritime Alps, on the French side of the border between France and Italy. 

Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps

In March 1945, the 442nd, minus the 522nd Bn, was deployed back to Italy to pierce the German Gothic Line at Tuscany, north of Pisa, which had repelled Allied attacks for the previous five months.

 

Review of the 442nd RCT by President Harry S Truman

On July 15, 1946, President Harry Truman reviewed the 442nd RCT at the Ellipse, the outer south lawn of the White House, following its march down Constitution Avenue. That morning rained hard in Washington, DC, and an aide advised the President he should cancel his portion of the day’s event. Truman is said to have replied, “Hell no, for what these boys have done, I can stand a little rain”. He told the 442, “You fought the enemy abroad and prejudice at home, and you won”. By his remarks, Truman confirmed Japanese American loyalty and placed them in America’s mainstream. This statement resonated across the land, supported by strong editorials, one of which won the Pulitzer Prize.

President Truman’s statement, in effect, removed the stigma of disloyalty placed on Japanese Americans in 1941 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the War Department when they incarcerated 110,000 people, two-thirds of them citizens, and declared military-age individuals to be aliens, unfit for military duty.

The following sequence of images gives us a sense of the glory heaped on the 442nd RCT when they returned to the U.S.

Washington, DC. July 15, 1946: 442nd RCT marched down Constitution Avenue from the US Capitol Building to the Ellipse where President Harry Truman reviewed the troops and presented the Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation. 

 

 

In the photo to the right, President Harry Truman (left) and Secretary of War Patterson review the 442nd at the Ellipse. Seated in wheel chairs behind the President are 442nd wounded soldiers from Walter Reed Army Hospital, and behind them are reviewing officials, including Dillon S. Myer, former Director of the War Relocation Authority; Earl Finch, the one-man USO for Nisei; General Jacobs Devers, Commanding General of Army Ground Forces; LTG J. Lawton Collins, Chief of Public Information; MG Alfred M. Gruenther, Deputy Commandant, National War College; MG Charles L. Bolte, former commanding general of 34th Infantry Division; and MG John T. Dahlquist, former commanding General of 36th (Texas) Division. Photos: U.S. Army Signal Corps.

The Wilson Victory left Leghorn, Italy, on June 22, 1946 and arrived at New York City on July 2. The vessel was met at Ambrose light by two fire boats, a Navy blimp and fighter planes. There was a welcoming program at the pier. The 442nd members were guests of Camp Kilmer for five days. There were many press conferences, including on TV, which was making its debut. Hawaii flew in 1,000 orchid leis. The 442nd departed on schedule for Fort Belvoir, Virginia, for the review by President Harry Truman on July 15, 1946. The 442nd left Fort Belvoir on July 21, 1946 for Staten Island, New York, where they boarded the Waterbury Victory for the trip to Hawaii via the Panama Canal. The colors were deactivated in early August 1946 and personnel were discharged.

Source: Pacific Citizen

U.S. House of Representatives: Hawaii Delegate to Congress Joseph Farrington opened his office to 442ndveterans when they visited the nation’s capital for the Presidential Review. Here he is visited by M/Sgt Mitsuomi Tanaka, Honokaa, HI; Sgt Paul Masaki, Honolulu; T/Sgt Hank Kuniyuki, Honolulu; SGT Mitsuharu Aono, Hilo, HI. Seated on the left is Mrs. Turner, Secretary. Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Thirteen members of the 442nd RCT participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Corporal Kiyoshi Hotta of Wailuku, Maui, and PFC Raizo Okazaki of New York City, both of whose brothers were declared Missing in Action, are rendering the hand salute while the bugler is sounding taps. The 442ndRCT was in Washington, DC, to be reviewed by President Truman on July 15, 1946. Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Ft. Belvoir, VA. July 13, 1946: MAJ Claude D. Roscoe, a survivor of the trapped Texas Battalion which was rescued by the 442ndin October 1944 in the Vosges forests of northeastern France, greets Tech Sgt Hiroshi Fujita of Sanger, CA, and Tech Sgt Mitsugi Tagawa of Chicago, IL. Roscoe is on assignment at Ft Belvoir. On the left is 1st Lt Thomas Kobayashi, 442nd Adjutant, and on the right is LTC Alfred A. Purcell, 442nd Commanding Officer. Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Washington, DC: Mr. MacDonald of radio station WINX (center) interviews twin brothers Laverne (left) and Conrad (right) Kurihara on their 442nd experience. The interview lasted 15 minutes. Conrad and Laverne served as color guards in the parade and review by President Truman. Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Ellipse, White House: Lt Colonel Alfred A. Pursall (Crystal City, MO) Commanding Officer of the 442nd RCT, is standing between PFC Terry Kato (Honolulu, HI) (Colonel’s right) and PFC Wilson Makabe (Loomis, CA) (Colonel’s left). On Kato’s right is 1st Lt Howard Miyake (Honolulu, HI) and on Makabe’s left, PFC Tadao Ono (Honolulu, HI). Miyake and Ono served in the 100th Battalion. Kato and Makabe were patients at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Source: Pacific Citizen
Source: The Washington Post

Time Magazine reported the following (July 22, 1946): “Down Constitution Avenue this week marched one of the smartest, toughest fighting units the U.S. had ever sent to the battlefield. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team–all Nisei except for a sprinkling of officers–was home from the wars. On the rain-soaked Ellipse adjoining the White House, the wiry little solders, their crisp khaki crumpling to a soggy brown, stood rigidly at attention while President Truman fixed the Presidential Unit Citation to the regimental colors. For the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the war had been doubly hard. Its men had not only fought the Germans at their defensive best up the spine of Italy and in the Vosges; they had also fought prejudice at home. Yet the Niseis’ record was unexcelled. In 240 combat days, the original 3000 men and 6000 replacements collected eight unit citations, one Medal of Honor, 3600 Purple Hearts and a thousand other decorations. They lived up to their motto, “Go for Broke”:* no less than 650 of the Purple Hearts had to be sent to next of kin (many of them in relocation centers) because the soldiers were dead. The 442nd also set an unbeatable mark for soldierly behavior: no man in the outfit had ever deserted. As the regiment’s vanguard, 500 strong, was shipped back to the U.S., the men had no idea what sort of welcome they would get. Fellow-soldiers knew they had proved themselves the hardest way of all, but would the folks at home know–or care? New York gave part of the answer with harbor sirens and a reception committee of skimpily dressed wiggle dancers. Harry Truman and thousands of other civilians gave another part of the answer in Washington this week. As the fighting Nisei headed for their homes, they would get the answer to the rest of Combat Correspondent Terry Shimabukuro’s question: “Will we, as Japanese-Americans, come home to something we can call our own?””*Meaning “Shoot the Works” in Hawaii, home of more than half of the 442nd’s men.