#128: Nisei Linguists, Part II

Much of what the Nisei linguists did during World War II remained classified for decades after the war. Eventually, their stories came out and as more people learned of their great efforts to defeat the Axis powers, monuments and memorials spring up honoring their service.

The Ghosts of the Pacific Theme is Ukulele and Love Birds by emjaydabayou, with a few Waves of Hawaii added for ambiance.

The Ghosts of the Pacific Transition music are some Uke Chords by turkitron.

As always, a very special thanks to Mountain Up Cap Company for its continued help to spread the word about the podcast on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/MountainUpCapCompany Climb to Glory!

For more information about the podcast visit: 

·       The GoA website: https://www.ghostsofarlingtonpodcast.com    

·       Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ghostsofarlingtonpodcast

·       Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArlingtonGhosts

·       Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ghostsofarlington/

Transcript

Welcome back to another Ghosts of the Pacific edition of Ghosts of Arlington and thank you for joining me for episode 128, Nisei Linguists, Part II.

Last week we started the story of the Nisei linguists employed by the Military Intelligence Service in the Pacific during World War II. They translated more than 20 million pages from Japanese to English during the war and interrogated more than 10,000 Japanese prisoners; they also accompanied Marines ashore at Iwo Jima and implored Japanese civilians to surrender at Saipan and Okinawa rather than take their own lives.

They fought behind enemy lines with Merrill’s Marauders, they helped Filipino guerrillas break out of prison, and they intercepted a radio message that directly led to Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of Pearl Harbor, being shot down while flying to visit troops in the South Pacific.

The valiant and dedicated service of these Nisei linguists convinced the US Government to stand up the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442 Regimental Combat Team and changed the perceptions many of their fellow Americans had about them - but not everyone was happy when the Nisei civilians were eventually released from internment camps. 

We ended talking about Hood River,  Oregon native Frank Hachiya, a linguist who was shot in the abdomen after interrogating a Japanese soldier but managed to crawl in agony back to his command post and make a report before eventually succumbing to his wounds. Just a month prior the Hood River American Legion removed the names of 16 Hood River World War I veterans who were Nisei from its honor wall; the town also told its interned residents not to return and to find somewhere else to live after they were finally released. Remember Frank Hachiya’s name. It will come up again today.

As the war in the Pacific drew to a close, there was serious concern that allied prisoners held by the Japanese would be summarily executed when it seemed they were about to be freed by allied advances. Nisei from MIS parachuted down into Japanese POW prison camps in China at Hankow, Mukden, Beijing and Hainan as interpreters on mercy missions to liberate American and other Allied prisoners before that could happen. 

After the end of World War II, over 5,000 Japanese Americans served in the occupation of Japan. MIS graduates served as translators, interpreters, and investigators in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East that investigated war crimes. Thomas Sakamoto served as a press escort during the occupation of Japan and took American correspondents to Hiroshima, to report on the devastation of the bomb and the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. He was one of four Nisei on board the Missouri when the Japanese formally surrendered. The others were Arthur Komori, who served as personal interpreter for Army Brigadier General Elliot Thorpe; Kay Kitagawa, Fleet Admiral Bull Halsey’s personal interpreter, and Kan Tagami who served as personal interpreter <<slash>> aide for General Douglas MacArthur.

During the post-war occupation, Nisei linguists addressed issues related to public welfare and the rebuilding of Japanese cities, writing the new Japanese Constitution, creating the Japanese National Police Reserve, and the Japanese Defense Agency. Several would be awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government for their efforts. MIS Nisei also assisted in demobilizing Japanese military personnel returning from various overseas posts, and contributed to the arrest and prosecution of Japan's military leaders during war trials which began in December 1945 and lasted until 1948.

Because of the highly classified and secret nature of their missions, the public was unaware of much of the work of most MIS soldiers during the war and for decades after. A few records about these activities came to light in 1972 under the Freedom of Information Act, however, much still remains unknown today. Individual MIS members have been honored with the Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Navy Cross, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart from the United States, as well as Taiwan’s Order of National Glory, the Philippine Legion of Honor, the British Empire Medal, and the previously mentioned Japanese Order of the Rising Sun.

With that said, many MIS soldiers did not receive recognition or decorations for their clandestine efforts. They became quote/unquote unsung heroes, unacknowledged for their contributions in wartime as well as postwar activities. Colonel Sidney Mashbir, the commander of the MIS Allied Translator and Interpreter Section wrote in his memoir, I Was an American Spy: "The United States of America owes a debt to these men and to their families which it can never fully repay."

At its peak in early 1946, the MIS Language School back in the US had 160 instructors and 3,000 students studying in more than 125 classrooms. At the school’s twenty-first and final commencement at Fort Snelling, Minnesota in June 1946, 307 students graduated, bringing the total number of graduates to more than 6,000 in just over four years.

Shortly after that graduation, the school moved to its current location the Presidio of Monterey in California  and was renamed the Army Language School. It expanded rapidly during the Cold War and eventually took on the name it is now known by – The Defense Language Institute-Foreign Language Center – which is the Department of Defense’s premier school for culturally based foreign language education and training with native speaking instructors of more than thirty languages and dialects, recruited from all over the world to teach US service members.

What began as an experimental military intelligence language-training program launched on a budget of $2,000 has now trained 230,000 military linguists in more than 65 languages. Since 2001, the school has been a fully accredited degree granting institution and has awarded 20,000 associate degrees. In 2013, Mrs. Ghosts of Arlington and I both received Associates of Arts in Thai Language and Culture there - and for the record, her grade point average was much better than mine during our time there! In 2022, a bachelor's degree program was also established.

[TRANSITION MUSIC]

The record of the Nisei serving in the 442nd and in the Military Intelligence Service helped change the minds of anti-Japanese American critics in the continental U.S. and resulted in easing of restrictions and the eventual release of the 120,000-strong Japanese American community from the internment camp system. While the internees began to be released before the end of World War II, the last camp to remain open, Tule Lake in California, still had prisoners until March 1946. 

 In Hawaii, Nisei veterans were welcomed home as heroes by a grateful community that had remained mostly supportive throughout the war. However, as I mentioned last week, Japanese Americans’ exemplary service and many decorations did not change all attitudes of the general population in the continental U.S. towards those of Japanese ancestry, and many Nisei veterans came home to signs that read "No Japs Allowed" and "No Japs Wanted", the denial of service in shops and restaurants, and the vandalism of their homes and property. But in time, those prejudices began to fade and the deserved recognition and memorials came.

In episode 126, I mentioned that after the war, the Democratic Party, led by many Nisei veterans, was assuming control of Hawaiian Territorial politics. When Statehood was finally achieved in 1959, in spite of considerable opposition in Congress, some of the credit went to the Texas Congressional Delegation including Jim Wright and Sam Rayburn in the House and Lyndon Johnson in the Senate; all acknowledged the 442nd’s rescue of the Lost Battalion of the Texas National Guard in France’s Vosges Mountains in 1944 as having influenced their decision.

Going one step further, in 1962 Texas Governor John Connally bestowed the status of honorary Texan on all members of the 442nd. 

In April 2000, more than 50 years after World War II, the Military Intelligence Service was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation.

On October 5, 2010, Congress approved awarding the Congressional Gold Medal – Congress’s equivalent of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the 100th Infantry Battalion, and Nisei serving in the Military Intelligence Service. The Nisei Soldiers of World War II Congressional Gold Medal was collectively presented on November 2, 2011.

In 2012, the surviving members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team were made chevaliers of the French Legion of Honor for their actions contributing to the liberation of France during World War II and their heroic rescue of the Lost Battalion outside of Biffontaine.

Nine Nisei members of the Military Intelligence Service have been inducted into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame, and 3 members assigned to Merrill's Marauders have been inducted into the Army Rangers Hall of Fame

The Defense Language Institute has several buildings, including classrooms, headquarters, and residential halls named for Nisei veterans. The most obvious is Nisei Hall – Building 620 – named in honor of all Japanese Americans who served in the Military Intelligence Service, but there are others as well.

Hachiya Hall – Building 621 – is named for the technical sergeant who heroically crawled back to his headquarters and delivered important information gathered during an enemy interrogation before succumbing to his wounds.

Mizutari Hall – Building 623 – is named for a Corporal Yukitaka Terry Mizutari, the first MIS Nisei killed in action. He was defending his division command post in New Guinea when he died and was awarded a posthumous Silver Star.

Munakata Hall – Building 610 – is named for Yutaka Munakata, one of the four original MIS instructors.

Nakamura Hall – Building 619 – is named for Sergeant George Nakamura, who enlisted out of the Tule Lake, CA internment camp and was killed in the Philippines while trying to convince a group of 25 Japanese soldiers to surrender. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.

Finally, the Aiso Library – Building 617 – is named for John Aiso, the Harvard Law School graduate who was called to serve his country during World War II and chosen to organize the Military Intelligence Service Language School where he served as director of academic training from 1941 to 45.

Additionally, longtime civilian MIS Language School instructor Shigeya Kihara was inducted into the Defense Language Institute inaugural Hall of Fame class in 2006. Graduates Colonel Thomas Sakamoto and Major Masaji Gene Uratsu were inducted the following year.

Building 640, the building at the Presidio of San Francisco that was the original site of the MIS Language School, is preserved as the Military Intelligence Service Historic Learning Center by the National Japanese American Historical Society.

Today, April 5th is celebrated as National "Go For Broke Day", in honor of the 442nd's first Medal of Honor recipient, Private First Class Sadao Munemori, killed in action near Seravezza, Italy on April 5, 1945.

The Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism During World War II in Washington, DC, - labeled the National Japanese American Memorial on Google Maps – is a National Park Service site honoring Japanese American veterans who served in the Military Intelligence Service, 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and other units, as well as the patriotism and endurance of those held in Japanese American concentration camps and detention centers.

At that memorial’s dedication on November 9, 2000, US Attorney General Janet Reno read a letter from President Bill Clinton which said in part, “We are diminished when any American is targeted unfairly because of his or her heritage. This memorial and the internment sites are powerful reminders that stereotyping, discrimination, hatred, and racism have no place in this country.”

I am embarrassed to admit that prior to researching this episode, I had no idea this monument existed. It is located just a few blocks north of the US Capitol Building and I am now planning my next trip to the National Mall so I can visit it.

The Go for Broke Monument in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo and The Brothers In Valor memorial at Fort DeRussy near Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii, are two other prominent memorials dedicated to the 33,000 Japanese Americans who served in the US military in World War II. 

Also in Los Angeles is the National Japanese American Veterans Memorial Court, which honors the bravery and sacrifice of all Japanese American service members lost in service to the United States. There are approximately 12,000 names engraved at the court and includes veterans who served in the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Desert Storm, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The memorial is maintained by and located adjacent to the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center in Little Tokyo.

California has four state highway segments with honorary designations for Nisei soldiers:

• A portion of State Route 23 is named the Military Intelligence Memorial Freeway; 
• State Route 99 between Fresno and Madera is the 100th Infantry Battalion Memorial Highway;
• State Route 99 between Salida and Manteca is the 442nd Regimental Combat Team Memorial Highway;
• And the interchange between the 105 and 405 freeways in Los Angeles is the Sadao S. Munemori Memorial Interchange.

The USS Hornet Museum in Alameda, California, has a permanent special exhibit honoring the 442nd.

In 2021, the United States Postal Service released a postage stamp honoring the contributions of Japanese American soldiers who served in the U.S. Army during World War II, following a multi-year nationwide campaign. 

In addition to the memorials for Nisei service members, several others have been established acknowledging the illegitimacy of Franklin Roosevelt’s  internment order, including: The Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial, in Bainbridge Island, WA whose 276 Japanese and Nisei residents were the very first interned due to that community’s proximity to multiple navy bases.

The Empty Chair Memorial in Juneau, Alaska, honoring that city’s 53 interned residents. The relatively small Japanese population in Juneau was well liked by all their neighbors and the title of the memorial - the empty chair - refers to a student named John Minoru Tanaka, a Juneau High School valedictorian who was relocated a month before his graduation in May 1942. His classmates left an empty chair to recognize him, and, by extension, other local Japanese families, at their graduation ceremonies.

The Harada House in Riverside, California was the focus of a critical application of the California Alien Land Law of 1913, which prevented foreigners who were ineligible for citizenship from owning property. The state of California attempted to seize the property from the family in California v. Harada, but the Haradas ultimately won the case and retained ownership of the house. The house, built in 1884 and added on to by the Harada family, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990 and is currently overseen by the Museum of Riverside.

Sakura Square is a small plaza in Denver, Colorado and contains busts of Colorado Governor Ralph Carr, who served from 1939 to 1943 and was the only elected official in the United States to protest and apologize for internment while it was happening. The square is dedicated to Minoru Yasui, a Japanese American lawyer from Hood River, Oregon who fought the post-Pearl Harbor anti-Japanese laws in US court – he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 for his efforts, and Yoshitaka Tamai, a Buddhist priest who served and was interned with the Japanese community in Denver. Denver's annual Cherry Blossom Festival takes place in late June in and around Sakura Square and the Tri-State/Denver Buddhist Temple.

And what of Hood River, Oregon- Frank Hachiya's home town who removed the Nisei name’s from its American Legion honor wall and told its interned residents to look for somewhere else to live once they were released? Aside from the good old fashioned racism that surely existed at the time, many people who did not want the Japanese Americans to return to Hood River after the war were afraid that they would create unwanted competition for white farmers in the area. In the seven decades since World War II, however, Hood River's economy has embraced tourism and outdoor activities with less emphasis on agriculture. By 2010, its population was almost thirty percent Latino, while residents of Japanese descent comprised little more than one-half of one percent of the population. Those with mixed-race Japanese descendants brought the number up to 1.1%. Residents who experienced the war often chose not to speak about it and newcomers were unfamiliar with their community's past. One local once described the situation as "an eerie crime scene, which nobody dare[d] discuss."

With Hood River's increased cultural and ethnic diversity, greater intermarriage, the involvement of Japanese Americans as active community participants and leaders, and the passage of time, efforts to memorialize the past and pay tribute to Nisei veterans have finally taken place. In 2001 George Akiyama and Mamoru Noji served as grand marshals of the annual Fourth of July parade. That fall on Veterans Day, American Legion Post #22 – the same posts that caused so much controversy back in 1944 – dedicated a brick at the downtown Overlook Memorial Park "in honor of all Nisei veterans." In 2007 more than five hundred Nisei attended a Day of Remembrance to "break the silence" of the past. And on Memorial Day in 2011 at Idlewilde Cemetery – where Frank Hachiya’s father finally had his son buried in 1948 – the community unveiled a marble monument with engraved names of the sixteen Nisei World War I veterans it had removed from its wall of honor decades earlier as well as all 160 service members of Japanese ancestry from Hood River who have served in the armed forces.

[TRANSITION MUSIC]

On August 10, 1988, and after a decades long movement for redress, President Ronald Regan signed the Civil Liberties Act which stated that a grave injustice had been done to Japanese Americans interned without probable cause during World War II and established a fund to provide financial restitution to those internees still living. Reagan was initially against the bill, but Republican California Governor Thomas Kean reminded the president of a speech he, Kean, had given as an Army captain at a December 1945 ceremony presenting the family of Kazo Masuda with a posthumous Distinguished Service Cross. Quoting Kean’s words, when Reagan signed the bill he declared, “blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color.”  

At a 1990 ceremony in Washington, DC, with the funds finally in place, Attorney General Richard Thornburgh presented the nine oldest surviving Nisei detainees a written apology signed by the new US President George H.W. Bush and a check for $20,000. The apology letter read in full:

“A monetary sum and words alone cannot restore lost years or erase painful memories; neither can they fully convey our Nation’s resolve to rectify injustice and to uphold the rights of individuals. We can never fully right the wrongs of the past. But we can take a clear stand for justice and recognize that serious injustices were done to Japanese Americans During World War II.

“In enacting a law calling for restitution and offering a sincere apology, your fellow Americans have, in a very real sense, renewed their traditional commitment to the ideals of freedom, equality, and justice. You and your family have our best wishes for the future. Sincerely, George Bush, President of the United States.”

In true government fashion, the Office of Redress Administration  miscalculated exactly how much money would be needed to pay restitution. It estimated that there were approximately 60,000 surviving internees using actuarial tables based on the life expectancies of white males. Ultimately the commission identified, located, and paid $20,000 to 82,250 former detainees for a total of more than $1.6 billion before it officially closed in February 1999.

There is a lot more that I could say about the Nisei and their collective experiences during World War II. I uncovered a wealth of information on the topic thanks to a non-profit started in 1996 called Densho. 

Densho is a Japanese term meaning ‘to pass on to the next generation,’ or to leave a legacy. The legacy the Densho project leaves on its website is a treasure trove of quote, “the testimonies of Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II before their memories are extinguished.” At the website www DOT densho (D-E-N-S-H-O, or Delta Echo November Sierra Hotel Oscar for those who prefer) DOT com you can find videos of oral histories, written accounts, photographs, and more with the three-fold mission to document, learn, and teach.

Again, densho.org was a priceless resource for learning the history of the 442nd and the Military Intelligence Service.  

I’m going to stop here today, but next week I will return with the first in a series of episodes where I will share stories of individuals who served in the 442nd or MIS and who ended up at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific or Arlington National Cemetery. At least, I hope I will return next week. I’m about to hit a busy patch at work so if it takes me a little more time to get the next episode out, I hope that you will bear with me. As always, thanks for your support and remember, “Fear not death. For the sooner we die the longer we shall be immortal.”

[PLAY MUSIC]

Pershing Nakada – the only Nisei captain in the original 442nd and commander of the 232nd engineer company – is buried at Arlington

I just found out about the 9 Nakada brothers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakada_brothers

Virgil Miller, a 442 CO who is at Arlington - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_R._Miller

LT Alan Ohata, 100th MoH recipient at Punchbowl

BG Francis Takemoto, first Japanese American GO – Punchbowl

John F Aiso (senior Nisei officer in WWII, created what became DLIFLC) Forest Lawn Memorial Park – highlight anyway? Probably

Roy Hiroshi Matsumoto – Merrill’s Raiders, burial details unknown

Talk about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Remembrance_(Japanese_Americans) & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Korematsu_Day in episode about the May celebrations…

Maybe the redress movement https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Redress_movement/, too