News 6 Friday, May 23, 2014
Register
1
WORLD WAR II
Seventy years ago an Army regiment fought in Europe that became the most highly decorated group of soldiers
in our nation’s history. They were Japanese Americans, their families were interned, and their motto was ...
‘GO FOR BROKE’
KAZUO MASUDA
B
orn in Santa Ana in 1918, Kazuo Masuda was one of 11 kids. They were called Nisei, meaning child of a
Japanese immigrant. Masuda was in basic training when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Shortly
after Pearl Harbor, Masuda’s father was arrested and sent to an internment camp in Missoula, Mont. In
1944 Staff Sgt. Masuda died in combat fighting for America. Here is a look at the regiment he fought with.
The 442nd’s five battle campaigns
The 442nd was composed ot two distinct units: the 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Infantry
Battalion. The 100th was the first U.S. Army unit of Japanese Americans activated in 1943. The 100th was part of Gen.
Dwight Eisenhower’s HQ guard in Algiers before sailing to Italy.
Internment
camps in the
mainland held
more than
110,000.
Exclusion area
The U.S. military was given
broad powers to ban any citizen
from an exclusionary zone
along the West Coast.
NAPLES-FOGGIA
Sept. 1943- Jan. ’44
The 100th Infantry Battalion lands during the Salerno Beach
invasion and secures a bridgehead over the Volturno River.
It earns a reputation right away with three Distinguished
Service Cross recipients and 19 Silver Star recipients in the
first 1 1/2 months. Casualties are high as well, with three
officers and 75 enlisted men dead.
The 442nd did not see combat until
1943. By the time Germany surrendered in May 1945, the regiment of
about 3,000 men had 650 killed in
action and 67 missing in action.
ITALY
Monte Cassino
Salerno
After the Salerno landing, it fights in the attacks on Monte
Cassino, a heavily fortified mountainside fortress. The
commander of the Fifth Army calls the battle “the most
gruesome, the most harrowing and, in one aspect, the most
tragic, of any phase of the war in Italy.”
ROME-ARNO
Jan. 25, 1944 to Sept. ’44
Joined by the 442nd reinforcements, it takes part in the
bloody Anzio invasion. Then it fights for nine months,
heading north to Rome and beyond with heavy resistance
all the way past the Arno River. The units are given the first
of seven Presidential Citations, for seizing a town and
destroying an entire Nazi SS battalion.
Arno River
Remains of the German fortress at Monte Cassino in 1944.
Rome
The 442nd emblem features the
torch of the Statue of Liberty.
ITALY
442nd and 100th WII decorations
RHINELAND CAMPAIGN-VOSGES
Oct. 10, 1944 to Nov. ’44
The antitank company is split from the regiment and joins
up with paratroopers in Operation Overlord, the D-Day
invasion of France. The rest of the men fight heavily
guarded Nazi positions in mountainous eastern France.
They also rescue a “Lost Battalion,” taking massive
casualties of their own.
21
29
334
Medals of Honor
FRANCE
Bruyers
Distinguished Service Crosses
A bombed out bridge along the Arno River and a photo of Staff
Sgt. Kazuo Masuda from Santa Ana. Masuda was awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross. His actions and family will be
featured in the Sunday Register.
RHINELAND-MARITIME ALPS
Nov. 21, 1944 to March 17, 1945
Silver Stars
(plus 28 Oak Leaf Clusters
for a second award)
Dachau
Divided again, part of the unit fights through the French
mountains to German soil before it helps Jewish survivors
of the Dachau concentration camp. The rest patrol the
border between France and Italy and make history by
becoming the first Army unit to capture an enemy
submarine.
4,000+
ITALY
Genoa
Purple Hearts
The 442nd was called the Purple Heart
Battalion for such high casualty rates.
NORTHERN APENNINES AND PO VALLEY
7
April 1-4, 1945, April 5, 1945 to May 5, 1945
The war is winding down, but the fighting is still fierce.
The 442nd fights in tough mountain terrain in northern
Italy. The 442nd is used to spearhead an infantry attack to
break the “Gothic Line.” Pvt. Sadao Munemori heroically
takes out several enemy machine gun nests before diving
on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers. He becomes the
only member of the 442nd to receive the Medal of Honor
until 56 years later.
Gothic Line
Po Valley
Members of the 442nd in French winter of 1944-45.
ITALY
“Americanism is
not, and never was,
a matter of race
or ancestry.”
AFTER WWII
The 442nd is deactivated in Hawaii in 1946, but reactivated in 1947 in the U.S. Army
Reserve. It is mobilized in 1968 to refill the Strategic Reserve during the Vietnam
War. It is still today an infantry unit of the Army Reserve.
Sources: U.S. Army, 442nd.org; goforbroke.org; U.S. Army Mediterranean Theater of Operations Information-Education
Section. The Story of the 442nd Combat Team, Composed of: 442nd Infantry Regiment, 522nd Field Artillery Battalion,
232nd Combat Engineer Company, 1945. Photos: U.S. Army archives, Wikimedia Commons, The Associated Press
Presidential Unit Citations
Left, a one-man German sub like the 442nd captured off Italy. Right,
Shizuya Hayashi being awarded the Medal of Honor in 2000. Nine of
the 21 recipients of the unit’s Medals of Honor died in action.
— President Roosevelt
announcing the formation
of the 442nd Infantry
Regimental Combat Team
KURT SNIBBE / STAFF CONTRIBUTOR