Japanese-American soldiers of WWII

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, many Japanese-American service members aided in its defense and in guarding against a potential invasion in the days that followed.

Shortly thereafter, the government initiated a program of forcible mass incarceration which rounded up virtually every person of Japanese descent on the West Coast and confined them to “relocation centers” such as Manzanar.

In Hawaii, however, Japanese-Americans made up such a large segment of the population that mass internment would have devastated the economy.

Japanese-Americans served in the Hawaiian Territorial Guard and later the Varsity Victory Volunteers. And a battalion of 1,432 such soldiers was sent to train on the mainland, becoming the 100th Infantry Battalion.

In the summer of 1942, a Japanese-American fighting unit was suggested by the Office of War Information as a propaganda tool to counter Japanese claims of American racism, and was even supported by some of the architects of the internment program.

On Feb. 1, 1943, President Roosevelt announced the creation of an all-Japanese-American fighting unit (with white officers): the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

A call for volunteers went out that asked for 1,500 from Hawaii and 3,000 from the continental U.S.

Incarceration in internment camps had not exactly swollen the patriotic pride of Japanese-Americans. Only 1,000 from the continental states volunteered.

Hawaii, which did not go the route of mass incarceration, produced over 10,000 volunteers, 2,686 of whom were accepted.

The 442nd and the 100th batallions trained at Camp Shelby, Mississippi.

In August 1943, the 100th shipped out to Italy and fought in the Allied campaigns which led to the capture of Rome.

The high casualties it suffered at Anzio and Monte Cassino earned it the nickname “Purple Heart Battalion."

The 442nd shipped out in May 1944, linking up with the battle-hardened 100th and continuing its exemplary fighting record. 

After Italy, the soldiers moved through France where they encountered fierce fighting at Bruyères and Biffontaine before receiving orders to rescue a battalion surrounded more than a mile behind enemy lines.

In its efforts to rescue the “Lost Battalion,” the 442nd endured five days of ferocious combat in dense fog and biting cold. When members finally broke through and rescued the 211-man battalion after an aggressive run-and-gun rush, they had lost 800 men.

The 100/442nd returned to Italy to break the mountainous Gothic Line, and pushed back the Germans with such overwhelming speed and force that supply units struggled to keep up with them.

The 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, which began as part of the 442nd but later became a roving battalion placed wherever it was most needed, liberated 3,000 prisoners from a satellite camp of the Dachau system in April 1945.

By the war’s conclusion, the unified 442nd had become the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in American military history.

The 14,000 men who served earned 9,846 Purple Hearts, eight Presidential Unit Citations, 21 Medals of Honor and thousands of other decorations and citations.