Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II

On June 26, 1944, the Nisei unit officially joined the war. Rudy Tokiwa and Fred Shiosaki were now members of K Company, led by Captain Walter Lesinski. Their mission in Suvereto in Tuscany “was to make a frontal attack on the town, clear it of the enemy, and then advantage up into the hills” (254). After Lesinski got lost and Major General Charles Ryder and Colonel Pence at headquarters could not contact parts of the Second or Third Battalions, “everything went horribly wrong” (255). The Germans, who had observed the movements of the Americans, “suddenly unleashed a torrent of shrieking steel” (255). They shelled F and K Companies, and then Tiger tanks fired upon them at point-blank range. American soldiers like Fred Shiosaki tried to find cover on the ground. Some found themselves face-to-face with the Germans and managed to capture some as POWs. The 522nd could not provide artillery cover—it had been ordered to relocate closer to the town.

Rudi Tokiwa’s job was to transport messages between company commanders and the headquarters. He shot a German soldier, but made the mistake of going through the dead man’s wallet, where he found photographs of three young children: “It wasn’t just a soldier he’d killed; it was a father” (260). He subsequently killed other soldiers, “[b]ut this one was the one he would never be able to put out of his mind” (260).

Finally, the Americans were able to get the upper hand, moving toward Suvereto as the Germans withdrew. US soldiers cleared the town and drove “Germans up the forested hills toward the jaws of the 100th and the trap that they had set for them” (263). Overall, the first day of combat was brutal. In training, the 522nd had “earned outstanding marks for their speed, accuracy, and adaptability” (266). Now they could prove themselves in live combat. Kats, a corporal gunner, received targeting instructions—”how far to the right or to the left to move the barrel of the howitzer in response to the coordinates being called in” (267). The artillery cover allowed the 100th to move up the Suvereto-Sassetta road as the Third Battalion “swept down from the ridge above town” (267). The Germans were again in retreat.

The recruits encountered their first deaths, realizing “how fragile their own hold on sanity had suddenly become” (269). Fred saw the body of Gordon Yamaura, whom he knew, pulled from the rubble. Kats, in turn, saw the body of a friend from university, Grover Nagaji. By July, 10% of the Nisei who arrived in May had been either killed or wounded. Land mines were a particular concern, especially for Rudy, who carried messages alone.

Americans celebrated the Fourth of July of 1944 in different ways. On the newly launched Normandy front, artillery fired shots at German troops simultaneously. At home, “people celebrated the holiday quietly” (274) as war needs overtook firework production. In concentration camps such as Poston, Japanese American prisoners celebrated with sports competitions and a talent show at the Cottonwood Bowl amphitheater.

Some camps, like Poston I, experienced growing tensions between Issei and Nisei Japanese regarding loyalty to Japan or the United States. Nisei who had spent time in Japan “tended to harbor much more bitterness about the incarcerations and often agitated to resist camp authorities” (277). Some resisters of the draft were out of jail on bond waiting for their trials. Loyalty Questions 27 and 28 continued to divide Japanese American communities, with the “disloyals” taken to California’s Tule Camp. One young man, Soichi James Okamoto, whose father died in Wyoming’s Heart Mountain camp, was in Tule Lake for refusing to sign the loyalty oath. In May 1944, he was murdered by Private Bernard Goe who did not like the way Okamoto showed his pass. Goe was acquitted of manslaughter despite “the testimonies of more than a dozen Japanese American witnesses” (279).

Meanwhile in Italy, a key goal for the 442nd after the Fourth of July, 1944 was to take Hill 140 occupied for months by the Germans. K Company’s James Okubo “was quickly becoming something of a hero” for being “everywhere on the battlefield” and helping the wounded (282). Brothers Calvin and George Saito took part in combat; Calvin was the radioman for K Company communicating requests for artillery coverage. Kats Miho and his artillery team controlled the howitzers. They “grabbed wrenches, and nervously tuned the timing mechanisms on the fuses, dialing in the necessary settings” (286). As US troops charged the hill and took heavy casualties, Calvin was killed by a German mortar shell. In the end, the Germans withdrew, and the 442nd controlled Hill 140.

The logistics of supplying the Allied invasion was heretofore unparalleled. V-mail allowed correspondence to and from the front. George Saito—and Calvin before his death—used V-mail to correspond with their father Kiichi, who worked as a house servant in Massachusetts.

Over the airwaves, soldiers often spoke Japanese or Hawaiian pidgin to avoid German detection. When the 442nd was around Orciao and Pisano, Italy, Rudy Tokiwa snuck behind enemy lines and singlehandedly took several Germans prisoner. He wanted to impress senior officers like Colonel Pursall.

Local Italian partisans cooperated with Allied forces, giving them directions, enemy troop locations, or mine locations. The soldiers had to clear the town of Luciana building by building, mindful of civilians and the complexities of urban warfare, such as enemy mortars on the roofs. Some of the captured German soldiers were in their teens. American soldiers also began to learn about the atrocities committed by the German soldiers against the local civilians.

1944 was a year of waiting. Calvin Saito’s father Kiichi waited for letters from his now-deceased son, until the Western Union telegram showed up informing him of his son’s death. In Hawaii, Kats Miho’s mother Ayano waited for her incarcerated husband, her soldier-son in Europe, and for letters from her children in Japan. Fumiye Miho “waited for life simply to become tolerable again” (301). The war made daily life “spartan, drab, pinched, regimented, and filled with suspicion” for millions of Japanese (301). Katsuichi Miho moved from camp to camp. At this time, the Department of Justice repatriated some Issei to Japan, paroled others, and kept the rest incarcerated. Fred Shiosaki’s parents, Tori and Kisaburo, waited in Spokane for their sons.

In Spokane, Gordon Hirabayashi waited to be taken into custody again. On July 29, he and Esther got married despite the potential “years of public scorn and derision over their interracial marriage” (303). The local media covered the event favorably, but the Associated Press emphasized that an “attractive young girl” (304) had married outside her race. The couple received letters: Some called Esther a “traitor of her race” (304), though others were supportive.

In Italy, the Americans faced off against the Germans along the Arno River. Rudy Tokiwa carried out another dangerous mission, meeting Italian partisans and identifying German defenses. On the way back, Rudy fell into a house after a grenade fragment hit his heel. The Italian residents hid him in the attic from Germans.

Sometimes the 442nd had alternatives to army food: foraging, receiving packages of Japanese delicacies from home, or having locals offer them summer produce. Hot showers were a luxury. In Tuscany, soldiers were allowed leave to go sightseeing in Naples and Rome. The two chaplains, Higuchi and Yamada, wrote condolence letters to the families of those killed. They also visited the wounded and conducted memorials.

Moving up the Arno River to Florence, Kats Miho sandbagged barricades for the howitzers, while Sus Ito and George Oyie looked for German troop movement. Nighttime patrols sought to capture German POWs to gather intelligence about the Gothic Line. Mines caused the most casualties: Harry Madokoro, Rudy Tokiwa’s friend, “stepped on a mine and simply disappeared in a shower of mud, metal, blood, and bone” (315). The soldiers and even the chaplains often had to crawl through mine fields to bring back the fallen. In one incident, Reverend Yamada was thrown off a jeep and wounded after hitting a Teller mine that killed others. He ended up in a field hospital in Naples. Over the summer, the 442nd earned an excellent reputation for an outstanding battle record. In late September, the Nisei were transferred to Marseille, France.