#133: Tales from Punchbowl, Part VII

Today's episode covers the lives of eight men named Nakada. The first seven were all brothers who served in the Army in World War II - the most of any family in the United States. The final Nakada, Captain Pershing Nakada, was the senior Nisei officer and only Nisei commander in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He commanded and along with his seven Nisei lieutenants led the 442nd's 232rd Combat Engineer Company.

All eight of these men survived the war and two of them would eventually be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

This week's Ghosts of Arlington are:

1. Army Technician 5th Grade Minoru Paul Nakada - Columbarium 5, Row 13, Niche 5
2. Army Lieutenant Colonel Pershing Nakada  - Section 68, Grave 4146

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 the Commando Pando Cap Company for its continued help to spread the word about the podcast on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/MountainUpCapCompany Climb to Glory!

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Transcript

Welcome back to another Ghosts of the Pacific edition of Ghosts of Arlington, and thank you for joining me for Episode 133: Tales from Punchbowl, Part VII [record scratch] Though technically we’re going back to Arlington today [record scratch].

Well, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that after a three week hiatus I am back with a new episode today - Since you’ve tuned in to this episode, I assume you think that is good news, too. And if that is good news, then this is surely bad news. After today’s episode, I am going to have to take another extended break. Mrs. Ghosts of Arlington and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary in May and we are finally getting around to a proper celebration. We’re going to Hawaii for a week to visit Volcanoes and Haleakala National Parks, and then I have to stay in Hawaii for an additional two weeks, again for work. I know, it’s a hard job but somebody has to do it.

I would also like to take a minute to thank listener Stephen C. who reached out with some very kind words during my recent hiatus. 

Finally, I don’t want to say that this episode was hastily put together so I could get at least one new episode out over the course of six weeks, but I also didn’t want to start a multi-part story - which was the original plan - until I get back so I hope you enjoy this somewhat unexpected tale of ten guys named Nakada.

[TRANSITION MUSIC]

When Saving Private Ryan was released in 1998, it left many viewers wondering if the movie was based on a true story. While it was not, it was in some part inspired by something that actually happened. While the Ryan brothers may not have been real, it was the first time that I was introduced to the Fighting Sullivans.

The Sullivans were five brothers from Waterloo, Iowa. The oldest brother George was born in December 1914, followed by Frank in February 1916, Joe in August 1918, Matt in November 1919, and Al in July 1922. They grew up during the Great Depression with their parents and sister Gen.

In 1937 to help the family make ends meet during those lean economic years, George and Frank joined the peacetime navy together and were discharged in May 1941. Barely six months later, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, sailor Bill Ball, Gen’s boyfriend, himself a member of the Navy, was killed while serving on the USS Arizona. Ball’s death - and the US entry into World War II - prompted George and Frank to reenlist in the Navy and this time Joe, Matt, and Al were old enough to follow them.

The Sullivan brothers enlisted on January 3, 1942 with the stipulation that they all be allowed to serve on the same ship - the Navy accepted those terms and all five were assigned to the light cruiser USS Juneau.

The Juneau participated in a number of naval engagements during the months-long Guadalcanal campaign beginning in August 1943. In the late evening and early morning of November 12-13, the US and Imperial Japanese navies engaged in one of the most brutal naval battles of World War II. Minutes into the fight, a torpedo from the Japanese destroyer smashed into the port side of the Juneau, breaking its keel, disabling its electrical power, and  killing 19 sailors in its forward engine room. 

Listing to port with its bow low in the water, the crippled light cruiser withdrew from the fight and limped back to the Solomon Islands. Later that day it joined a flotilla of five gravely damaged but still floating warships and crawled together toward the relative safety of Espiritu Santo island in what is today Vanuatu. Unfortunately, the ships were  located by the Japanese submarine I-26, which fired two torpedoes at the damaged heavy cruiser USS San Francisco. Both shots missed their intended target but one struck the thinly armored Juneau at or near its ammunition magazine. The ship was blown in half and quickly sank in a fiery explosion.

Captain Gilbert Hoover, commanding officer of the light cruiser USS Helena, and the senior officer present afloat of the battle-damaged US task force, was skeptical that anyone had survived the sinking of Juneau and believed it would be reckless to look for survivors, thereby exposing his wounded ships to a still-lurking Japanese submarine. Therefore, he ordered his ships to continue on towards Espiritu Santo. Helena signaled a nearby US B-17 bomber on patrol to notify Allied headquarters to send aircraft or ships to search for survivors.

In fact, approximately 100 of Juneau's crew had survived the torpedo attack and the sinking of their ship and were left in the water. The B-17 bomber crew, under orders not to break radio silence, did not pass the message about searching for survivors to their headquarters until they had landed several hours later. The crew's report of the location of possible survivors was mixed in with other pending paperwork actions and went unnoticed for several days. It was not until days after the ship had been sunk that headquarters staff realized that a rescue operation had never been mounted, and belatedly ordered aircraft to begin searching the area. In the meantime, Juneau's survivors, many of whom were seriously wounded, were exposed to the elements, hunger, thirst, and repeated shark attacks.

Eight days after the sinking, ten survivors were found by a Catalina flying boat and retrieved from the water. The survivors reported that Frank, Joe and Matt were all killed instantly, Al drowned the next day. George had survived for four or five days, before suffering from delirium as a result of hypernatremia (though some sources say the loss of his brothers drove him “insane with grief" and that is what did him in). Either way, he reportedly climbed over the side of the life raft he was in, fell into the water, and was never seen or heard from again.

Security required that the Navy not reveal the loss of Juneau or the other ships so as not to provide information to the enemy. It wasn’t until January 1943 - almost two months later - that the Navy gave further details of the eventual American victories at Guadalcanal, but also announced the great cost in lives and ships of the engagements. 

Even before this announcement, letters from the Sullivan sons stopped arriving at home and their parents grew worried, which prompted their mother Alleta to write to the Bureau of Naval Personnel in January 1943, citing rumors that survivors of the task force who had come home to Waterloo on leave claimed that all five brothers were killed in action.

On January 11, 1944, Alleta and the boys' father, Tom’s worst fears were realized. The couple was met by three men in uniform – a lieutenant commander, a doctor and a chief petty officer – at their home. "I have some news for you about your boys," the naval officer said. "Which one?" asked Tom. "I'm sorry," the officer replied. "All five."

The Sullivan Brothers became national heroes. President Roosevelt later sent a letter of condolence to their parents; Pope Pius XII sent a silver religious medal and rosary to their grieving Irish Catholic survivors along with a personal message of regret; and the Iowa Senate and House adopted a formal resolution of tribute to the Sullivans.

The brothers' story was turned into a film in 1944. Originally titled The Sullivans, it was later renamed The Fighting Sullivans. As I said at the top, this story inspired, at least in part, Saving Private Ryan. 

The Navy would eventually name two destroyers after the brothers and several memorials would be built in their honor, including a museum wing in Waterloo, IA and a Department of Defense elementary school in Yokosuka, Japan.

Gunner’s Mate Second Class George Thomas Sullivan, Coxswain Francis Henry “Frank” Sullivan, Seaman Second Class Joseph Eugene “Joe” Sullivan, Seaman Second Class Madison Abel “Matt” Sullivan, and ALbert Leo “Al” Sullivan aged 20-27 were all lost at sea but their names are listed on a memorial for the missing at the Manila American Cemetery in The Philippines. 

Al, the youngest brother, was also the only one married. Married at 17, he had a 21-month old son when he enlisted. He was survived by his wife Katherine and their son Jimmy. Jimmy followed his late father into the Navy and was assigned to the first USS The Sullivans (DD-537). Al’s mother christened that ship in 1943. The second USS The Sullivans (DDG-68) was christened by his granddaughter Kelly in 1995 - it is still in service today.

The Sullivan family’s sacrifice inspired the US Department of Defense’s 1948 Sole Survivor Policy which in part exempts the sole surviving son of a family where one or more sons or daughters have been killed in action, died in the line of duty, or subsequently died of injuries or disease incurred while in military service, from being drafted either in peacetime or wartime.

And while they certainly lost the most servicemember children during the war, there was a Nisei family who had more sons serving in the military than any other family in the United States. 

Ginzo Nakada was born in Okinawa Japan in 1884. In 1916, he married Kagi Ikehara and that same year the newlyweds immigrated to the United States. They ended up settling in Azusa, California at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains - about 20 miles or 32 kilometers - east of downtown Los Angeles where Ginzo was self-employed as a citrus rancher. Together they raised eleven children, nine boys and two girls.

Although the family was sent to an internment camp at the start of World War II, sevenNakada brothers volunteered for military service. Despite what some sources say not all nine Nakada brothers joined - the youngest two would have been too young to serve.

The six Nakada brothers all served in the US Army in various roles, though sadly I could not find much about their wartime service - including their rank for many of them - or later lives but here is what I could piece together.Oldest son Yoshio was born in February 1917 and served in the Pacific in the Military Intelligence Service; next came Yoshinao who was born in March 1918 and served in the Office of Strategic Services - the precursor to today’s Central Intelligence Agency (Episodes 90-94); Saburo Jake, born in December 1919 was an instructor at the Army’s Military Intelligence Service Language School (episodes 127 & 128); and Minoru Paul, born in January 1921, also served in the Pacific with the Military Intelligence Service. The two youngest brothers to serve both fought in Italy with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team; Isao Henry, better known as Hank, was born in October 1922, and served in Company I; while George Micho born in 1924 served in Company K.

The fifth overall of the eleven Nakada children, Hank got his name when his grade school teacher was unable to pronounce his given Japanese name Isao. After he graduated from Covina High School in Los Angeles County in 1939, Hank worked for a short time in the California agriculture industry before moving to Seward, Alaska where he took on odd jobs unloading ships and working on the Alaska railroad. He eventually got a job on Elmendorf Air Force Base but was forced to quit after Pearl Harbor. Since he stayed in Alaska he was not interned and he worked at the Snow White Laundry until Nisei were allowed to join the military.

During the war he served primarily as a scout, usually at the front of any attack, and earned a Bronze Star and four Purple Hearts among other decorations. One close call that didn’t result in a purple heart occurred when he and another soldier went out to retrieve the body of a fellow soldier. On their way to the site, the jeep they were in hit a landmine. Both soldiers were thrown from the jeep and somehow landed on soft moss, unhurt.

After the war, Hank went on to earn a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Temple University. In time, he became a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. When he retired, Hank and his wife Mitsu moved to Homer, Alaska to be near their sons. Hank Nakada died in Homer Alaska in March 2008, he was 85 years old.

George, the other Nakada brother to serve in the 442nd, was ranked with machine gun fire that left him partially paralyzed in one hand. In the words of his nephew Mike - one of the sons Hank moved to Alaska to be near - “He didn’t let it stop him, they were tough buggers.”

Private FIrst Class Geroge Nakada died in 1976. He was 56 years old and interred at the Kirkland Cemetery in Kirkland, Washington.

I was only able to find a tiny mention of one of the brothers who served in the Military Intelligence Service. Minoru served as a Japanese translator in the Pacific and was one of the MIS soldiers sent to Hiroshima and Nagasaki shortly after the atomic bombings of those two cities.

Army Technician Fifth Grade Minoru Paul Nakada died on December 4, 2001; he was 80 years old. Minoru was cremated and his ashes were installed at Arlington National Cemetery in Columbarium Court 5, Section N2, Column 13, Niche 5.

Because of their service in the 442nd and the Military Intelligence Service, all seven brothers received the Nisei Congressional Gold Medal. Hank was the only one to not receive the medal posthumously.

[TRANSITION MUSIC]

Back in Episode 125, when I talked about the formation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team I mentioned that the Federal Government’s plan was to have the entire regiment of Nisei soldiers led by white officers. 

Of all the units that made up the 442nd, the 232nd Combat Engineer Company was unique because all of its officers were Japanese Americans. Captain Pershing Nakada - no relation to the Nakada brother - a 25-year-old Nisei and seven Nisei lieutenants led about 200 enlisted combat engineers.

The men in the 232nd Engineers tended to be older than most of their infantry and artillery counterparts. The majority of them had a high school diploma, and many had backgrounds in engineering and the sciences before the war. Nakada himself had a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Nebraska. Nakada was named after General John J. Pershing, the senior US commander in World War I. Nakada’s father, one of only a handful of Nisei to serve in World War I, served directly under Pershing and greatly respected his former commander.

The combat engineers’ role was to keep the lines of communication and transportation open for the infantry. While construction engineers supported occupied areas, often in the rear, the combat engineers were at the front. They ensured that the wounded could be evacuated and that needed supplies could make it to the men on the line. They cleared the way so that the unit could move as quickly and as safely forward as possible. They swept areas for enemy mines along the unit's line of advance and laid mines for their own defense. When possible, they felled trees to built improved fighting positions and other fortifications for the infantry, as well as roads and bridges when they were on the march.

The Germans didn’t make the work easy. On October 15, 1944, near Bruyeres, France, the infantry encountered a quarter-mile long roadblock of logs and fallen trees. It was the only way in for friendly supplies and the only way out for friendly wounded, and it was heavily booby-trapped.

As the engineers worked to clear the obstacle, the Germans opened fire on them with four machine guns. Infantry soldiers moved up to help the engineers silence the machine guns, but then for the next eight and a half hours, under intermittent heavy mortar and artillery fire, the engineers defused mines and hand-sawed the downed trees and pulled them off the road.

From October 27th-30th, two platoons of engineers accompanied front line infantrymen during the rescue of the lost battalion of the Alamo regiment (Episode 126). For four days, engineers endured enemy fire and the cold, wet weather, but they managed to clear more than thirty mines in the path of the rescuing infantry. They worked day and night, stopping only to eat or sleep when they absolutely had to, and even then only for brief moments.

Near Biffontaine, another engineer unit refused to clear a minefield because of heavy enemy fire. The 232nd stepped in and cleared the field without hesitation, allowing the grateful infantrymen to advance with one fewer worry.

Throughout the Vosges campaign, the rugged, wet weather made the 232nd’s job of keeping the supply lines open even more difficult than usual. The few narrow logging roads that crossed the steep wooded hills quickly turned into soggy bogs. The company’s three platoons worked continuously in twelve hour shifts. They dumped truckloads of gravel, laid more than a mile (more than a kilometer and a half) of plank-boards, and built culverts across badly shelled roads.

From November 6-8, 1944, the engineers stopped their day-and-night work to again become infantry soldiers and relieve the 100th Infantry Battalion’s exhausted and decimated Company A. They later served as riflemen in the Rome-Arno and Po Valley campaigns.

During the drive on the Gothic Line, squads of engineers were frequently assigned to clear gaps through minefields and do other engineer work during infantry assaults. While that was going on, the rest of 232nd worked tirelessly to keep the supply lines open for the swiftly moving infantry.

During the final advances of the war in Italy, the engineers built four essential bridges to get equipment and supplies over rivers and hauled away more than a ton of dynamite from five bridges the Germans failed to destroy. They also removed dozens of booby-traps set to delay the US advance and defused more than 300 anti-tank mines and countless anti-personnel mines known as Bouncing Betties that proved devastating to soldiers when stepped on or otherwise tripped.

While the infantry wielded rifles, machine guns, and bazookas, the engineers used bulldozers, saws, and minesweepers as their weapons of war. And although combat was not their function, as you have seen, they still faced enemy sniper, rifle, mortar, and artillery fire and the constant danger of booby traps and mines. Nearly 30% of the engineers in the 232nd Combat Engineer Company were wounded during the war and seven were killed in action while keeping the roads open. 

The 232nd provided one additional thing that earned the gratitude of their infantry counterparts: hot showers. For soldiers facing cold, wet weather and trudging through thick mud, hot showers did wonders for their morale, even if the showers themselves were infrequent and only three minutes in length.

According to the Army Historical Foundation, by the time the war ended on May 2, 1945, the 232nd company had participated in four campaigns, earned two Distinguished Unit Citations and a large number of individual awards, including more than 100 purple hearts. After World War II, the 323nd performed occupation duty in Italy until it was inactivated on January 31,1946. Between 1946 and 1968, the 232nd was reactivated and inactivated several times until it was inactivated for the final time on August 26, 1968 during a ceremony at Fort Benning, Georgia.

I have been able to find next to no additional information on the 232nd’s company commander, Captain Nakada, with two exceptions. First, he remained in the Army after the end of World War II and eventually retired sometime after rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. And second, Lieutenant Colonel Pershing Nakada died on October 28, 1993 at age 75. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 68, Grave 4146.

Thanks for joining me for the stories of all of these Nakadas. While I wish there was a better record of their service, I think it is important to remember and re-emphasize that heroes come in all shapes and sizes and just because we don't know all the details of these men’s service does not diminish the service in any way.  

Please join me next time - and again, that will be in another three or so weeks - where I will share the story of Francis Takemoto - the first Japanese American general officer in the US military.