"Go For Broke" - The 442nd RCT & 100th Infantry Battalion.

kubai02

New Member
My first thread post here. So here goes..

I was curious ever since I saw pat morita (if I am not mistaken) in Karate Kid mentioning about him being in WW2, because I knew there were not many "dedicated racial" batalions in the US Army. Only lately did we see documentaries and movies on "race based" troops i.e. Bufallo Soldiers, Windtalkers, The tuskagee Airmen, etc. I stongly believe that this regiment is one of those least highlighted and would like to share with the forum...

One have to appreciate bravery and valour despite their race and creed.

An exerpt from the medal of honour website ...

Most decorated, yet slighted
Those being honored mostly served in the segregated Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Infantry Battalion, which together became the most decorated combat unit for its size in the nation's history.

The men emerged from seven major campaigns in France and Italy with eight presidential unit citations, 9,486 Purple Hearts and 18,143 individual decorations. The latter included 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, the second-highest award for valor.

As outstanding as these achievements were - especially for units that had a total of 25,000 men during the war - some felt the recognition was incomplete. Only one soldier received the highest award.

"The fact that the 100th/442nd saw such fierce and heavy combat, yet received only one Medal of Honor award, and then only posthumously and due to congressional intervention, raised serious questions about the fairness of the award process at the time," said Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii.

He decided to re-examine the process and concluded that wartime "bias, discrimination and hysteria" were partly to blame for the withholding of Medals of Honor.

Volunteers `Go for Broke'

Distrust and even hatred of the traditionally clannish Japanese were almost immediate after the Pearl Harbor attack. Most islanders, and especially the military, believed an invasion was imminent and local Japanese might aid those invaders.

All Japanese Americans were reclassified as "4C-enemy aliens." Japanese Americans in the Army were disarmed and assigned to labor battalions; the Hawaii Territorial Guard and ROTC discharged 1,400 Japanese Americans.

On the U.S. mainland, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered 120,000 alien Japanese and Japanese Americans rounded up and placed in relocation camps "for their own safety."

Meanwhile, when the Army allowed it in 1942, about 1,500 Hawaii Nisei joined the 100th Infantry Battalion being formed in the islands.

Their "Go for Broke" training at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin so impressed the Army brass that the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was formed, taking thousands more Japanese-American volunteers from Hawaii and across the country for training at Camp Shelby, Miss.

By war's end, 25,000 Japanese Americans had served, including several hundred in Pacific intelligence units as spies, interrogators and interpreters.

In 1996, Akaka persuaded Congress to direct the Pentagon to review the actions of 104 soldiers of Asian and Pacific ancestry who were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

That effort was patterned on a 1993 law that led to the upgrading of Distinguished Service Crosses and Navy Crosses won by seven black veterans to the Medal of Honor.

After a three-year review, the Army last month recommended that 21 soldiers - 19 Japanese Americans, one Filipino American and one Chinese American - be awarded the Medal of Honor. A recommendation for the late James Okubo was granted later.

More info, search for "442nd" and "go for broke"

Their patch



Are there any other troops that are not getting the proper highlights ? I note that there are not many articles on ANZAC troops in WW2 or of the indian regmts in WW2 operating in Europe...

p/s Admin & Mods, I have the rules of posting and I hope I have not infringed any... :)
 
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