442nd REGIMENTAL COMBAT TEAM
The motto of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was “go for
broke.” It’s a gambling term that means risking everything
on one great effort to win big. The soldiers of the 442nd needed
to win big. They were Nisei - American-born sons of Japanese immigrants.
They fought two wars: the Germans in Europe and the prejudice
in America.
The motto was invented by the high-rolling Nisei soldiers who
came from the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii-born Nisei, also known
as “Buddhaheads,” made up about two-thirds of the
regiment. The remaining third were Nisei from the mainland. In
April 1943, the islanders and mainlanders arrived for training
at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. Immediately, they fought with each
other because of different perspectives based on where they grew
up.
The Buddhaheads represented the largest ethnic group in a small
island community. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, the Nisei, like
everyone else on the island, responded to the emergency. No one
rejected them as they pitched in to aid the wounded, give blood
and bury the dead. On the day of the bombing and for six weeks
after, the Nisei cadets in the University of Hawaii’s ROTC
guarded vulnerable areas against enemy attacks.
But on January 19, 1942, the Army discharged
all the Japanese Americans in the ROTC - and changed their draft
status to 4C - “enemy alien.” The Nisei cadets felt
such despair that the very bottom of their existence fell out.
But community leaders convinced the demoralized students to turn
the other cheek. One hundred and seventy students petitioned the
military governor: “Hawaii is our home; the United States
our country. We know but one loyalty and that is to the Stars
and Stripes. We wish to do our part as loyal Americans in every
way possible, and we hereby offer ourselves for whatever service
you may see fit to use us.”
The students gave up their books, and their chance for the education
that would lift them up from their menial plantation jobs. Instead,
the “Varsity Victory Volunteers” picked up shovels
and hammers. From January to December 1942, they built barracks,
dug ditches, quarried rock and surfaced roads. When Assistant
Secretary of War John McCloy visited the islands, military and
community leaders made sure he saw the VVV hard at work breaking
rocks.
Apparently that made an impression. The Varsity Victory Volunteers
finally got their chance to fight. On January 28, 1943 the War
Department announced that it was forming an all-Nisei combat team
and called for 1,500 volunteers from Hawaii. Ten thousand men
volunteered, including men from the Varsity Victory Volunteers.
Meanwhile, on the mainland, the War Department tried to recruit
3,000 soldiers. But only 1,182 enlisted. Given how America had
treated the Nisei, it was very admirable that this many men volunteered.
More than 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry (including 60 percent
who were American citizens) were forcibly “relocated”
from their homes, businesses and farms in the western states.
They were incarcerated in crowded, tarpaper barracks, in the desolate
wind-swept desert. Even behind the barbed wire of the U.S. concentration
camps (President Truman’s term), even though their country
had failed to protect their rights, these American-born Japanese
men wanted to give up their lives to fight for their homeland,
America.
Back in Hawaii, the entire Japanese community was not interned
(with the exception of about 1,000 suspects that the FBI arrested
and incarcerated). So the Buddhaheads couldn’t understand
the “whipped-dog” complex that the mainlanders had
in relation to Caucasians.
The Buddhaheads thought the mainlanders were sullen and snobby,
and not confident and friendly. Soon misunderstandings, fueled
by alcohol, turned into fistfights. In fact, that was how mainlanders
got the name “Katonk.” It was the sound their heads
made when they hit the floor. The Katonks were fairer skinned,
and spoke perfect English. The Buddhaheads were darker skinned
and spoke Pidgin - a strange mixture of Hawaiian, Japanese, Portuguese,
Chinese and broken English.
Money was another big divider between the groups. The Buddhaheads
gambled heavily and spent freely using the cash sent by their
generous parents who still worked in Hawaii. They thought the
Katonks were cheap. They didn’t realize that the Katonks
sent most of their meager Army pay to their families imprisoned
in the camps. The Katonks didn’t talk about their painful
incarceration.
The friction between the two groups was so bad that the military
high command considered disbanding the 442nd. They thought the
men could never fight overseas as a unit.
The Army decided to send a group of Buddhaheads to visit the
camps in Arkansas. The men thought Camp Jerome and Camp Rowher
were little towns with Japanese families. But when the trucks
rolled past the barbed wire fence, past the guard towers armed
with machine guns pointed at the camp residents, past the rough
barracks where whole families crowded in small compartments with
no privacy - suddenly the Buddhaheads understood. Word of the
camps spread quickly, and the Buddhaheads gained a whole new respect
for the Katonks. Immediately the men in the 442nd became united
- like a clenched fist.
From May 1943 through February 1944 the men trained for combat.
The men excelled at maneuvers and learned to operate as a team.
In March, Chief of Staff General George Marshall inspected the
regiment. In April the regiment packed up, and on May 1, 1944
the men boarded ships destined for Europe.
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team included the 522nd Field Artillery
Battalion, 232nd Combat Engineer Company, 206th Army Ground Force
Band, Antitank Company, Cannon Company, Service Company, medical
detachment, headquarters companies, and two infantry battalions.
The 1st Infantry Battalion remained in the States to train new
recruits. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions would join the legendary
100th Battalion, which was already fighting in Italy.
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was the most decorated unit
for its size and length of service, in the entire history of the
U.S. Military. The 4,000 men who initially came in April 1943
had to be replaced nearly 3.5 times. In total, about 14,000 men
served, ultimately earning 9,486 Purple Hearts , 21 Medals of
Honor and an unprecedented eight Presidential Unit Citations.
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