Japanese American Women in Service

The history of Japanese American military service during World War II is not a male-only story. By the time the war ended, nearly 500 Japanese American women had served the United States.

When America entered World War II, the country had to raise large armies on both the Atlantic and Pacific fronts. The result was a manpower shortage, which required the military to turn to women for needed support. Servicewomen became military clerks, typists, cooks, drivers, and unit cadre, freeing up men to go to frontline combat roles.

Japanese American women served in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), Army Nurse Corps (ANC), and Cadet Nurse Corps (CNC). The ANC began accepting Japanese American women in February 1943, while the WAC began enlisting them in September of that same year. Japanese American women had previously been denied entry to its predecessor WAAC (Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps).

Private Shizuko Shinagawa, 21, of the Women’s Army Corps. May 1944. Courtesy of the War Relocation Authority.

Japanese American women faced a difficult choice when considering whether or not to enlist. They had to leave family behind, often behind the barbed wires of government incarceration camps. And the women often faced strong disapproval from their family and friends, as they were often seen as breaking traditional gender norms by enlisting in the military.

So why did Japanese American women volunteer to serve their country? Quite often, it was for the same reason as the men: they were patriotic Americans who wanted to serve their country. Many had brothers and husbands in the Army, and they jumped at the chance to help relieve and support military men. Other women joined to escape life in the incarceration camps. Many also sought the travel and adventure that joining the military could provide. For a variety of reasons, Japanese American women from both the mainland and Hawaii enlisted for duty. Through the end of WWII, 142 volunteered for the WAC.

Female officers, courtesy of the US Government and Bonnie and Ken Kasamatsu.

After induction into the WAC, these women went through five weeks of basic training at one of five military training centers. Most went to either Fort Des Moines in Iowa or Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia. Unlike Japanese American men, they were not segregated. When basic training was complete, they received one of 155 different assignments, with the majority being clerical.

Forty-eight Japanese American WACS were assigned to the Military Intelligence Service Language School. They became translators for the Army, trained separately from the men and assigned non-combat roles in document translation. A few were even so successful that they were retained as teachers at the school. Most others were assigned to the Pacific Military Intelligence Research Section at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, where they did important work translating captured Japanese documents. The Section was later moved to the Central Document Center in Washington DC.

At the end of the war, eleven Japanese American WACs accepted military assignments in Tokyo under General Douglas MacArthur’s command. As soon as they arrived in Tokyo, however, they discovered that MacArthur did not approve of enlisted women serving overseas. The general ordered them to either return to the States as WACs or continue to serve in Japan as civilians. All remained in Japan as civilians and performed their work honorably.

It is estimated that 350 Japanese American women participated in the CNC. The CNC was non-military and provided free education in nursing programs across the country in an abbreviated 30 month period.

In exchange, Cadet Nurses were obligated to provide nursing services for the duration of the war.

The program actively recruited Nisei women from the concentration camps with the promise of free education. The CNC program maintained a policy of anti-discrimination and was open to all women, though many nursing schools refused to admit Japanese American students.

Those in the ANC were already nurses. Only a handful of Japanese Americans served in the ANC and did not receive overseas assignments.

When World War II ended, the women of the WAC, ANC, and CNC were not only proud of their service, but they also gained valuable education and job skills. And they held their heads high. Like their brothers and husbands, they had answered America’s call in its time of duress, and they served their country with courage and sacrifice despite how their country was treating them.

Haruko Hurt, speaking about her reasons for joining the WAC, explained it aptly but with far too much modesty: “I feel that I belong here… I feel that I’m American, [and] I feel that I’m just as much American as any white person… I felt good that I was doing my little part in serving the country.”

For more information on Japanese Americans women who served during World War II, check out the following resources:

Serving Our Country: Japanese American Women in the Military

(2003) by Brenda L. MooreJapanese American Women and the Women’s Army Corp, 1935-1950 (1993) by Stacey Yukari Hirose (2005) by Thelma M. Robinson

(2003) by Brenda L. Moore (1993) by Stacey Yukari HiroseNisei Cadet Nurse of World War II: Patriotism in Spite of Prejudice (2005) by Thelma M. Robinson

Near Biffontaine, another engineer unit refused to clear a minefield because of heavy enemy fire. The 232nd stepped in and cleared the field, allowing the grateful infantrymen to advance.8

Throughout the Vosges campaign the rugged terrain and wet weather made the 232nd’s job of keeping the supply lines open even tougher. The few narrow logging roads that crossed the steep wooded hills were quickly turned to soggy bogs. The three platoons worked constantly in 12-hour shifts. They laid more than a mile of plank-board, dumped truckloads of gravel and built culverts across badly shelled roads.

From November 6-8, the engineers stopped their day-and-night work to become infantrymen and relieve the exhausted and decimated 100th Battalion A Company.⁹ The engineers also served as infantry riflemen in the Rome-Arno and the Po Valley Campaigns.¹⁰

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.¹¹ Meanwhile the rest of the 232nd worked to keep the supply lines open for the swift-moving infantry.¹²

Members of the 522nd working in the fire direction center. Castellina Sector, Italy. July 12, 1944. Courtesy of the United States Army Signal Corps.

While the infantrymen wielded rifles, machine guns, and bazookas, the engineers used bulldozers, saws, and minesweepers as their “weapons.” While the infantrymen cleared machine gun nests, the engineers cleared roads. Although combat was not their primary function, the engineers still faced enemy sniper, mortar and artillery fire and the constant danger of booby traps and mines. Nearly 30 percent of the engineers were wounded and seven died because of their hazardous work keeping the supply lines open.¹⁹

The 232nd provided one additional thing that earned the gratitude of the infantrymen: 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.²⁰

The engineers devised an ingenious portable hot shower unit, built using bits and parts retrieved along the way: an American jeep engine, a German electric dynamo, a fuel pump motor from an Italian self-propelled gun, a condenser from a beer factory, and shower heads salvaged from a demolished resort hotel. The shower unit was capable of producing 50 gallons of hot water a minute. Thanks to the engineers, the 442nd was likely the only regiment to enjoy hot showers in combat.²¹

The 442nd could not have succeeded without the 232nd’s support. The 232nd participated in a total of four campaigns, received two Presidential Unit Citations for its actions in the Vosges and at the Gothic Line, and numerous individual awards.²²

Footnotes

¹The Army Historical Foundation, “232nd Combat Engineer Company,” National Museum US Army, accessed February 8, 2015
²Dorothy Matsuo, From Boyhood to War: History and Anecdotes of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (Honolulu, HI: Mutual Pub. Co., 1992), p. 213.
³Ibid, p. 211.
⁴George Goto, “History of the 232nd Engineer Combat Company,” [pamphlet], 232nd Engineer Combat Company, US Army, p. 7.
⁵Chester Tanaka, Go For Broke: A Pictorial History of the Japanese-American 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442d Regimental Combat Team (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1997), p. 76.
⁶Goto, p. 7.
⁷“36th Division in World War II: Engineers Build a Road,” Texas Military Forces Museum, accessed February 6, 2015
⁸Ibid.
⁹Goto, p. 7; Tanaka, p. 103; Matsuo, p. 219.
¹⁰Tanaka, pp. 76, 136.
¹¹Goto, p. 10.
¹²Ibid; Lyn Crost, Honor by Fire: Japanese Americans at War in Europe and the Pacific (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1997), p. 257.
¹³Goto, p. 6; Tanaka, p. 136.
¹⁴Charlie Ijima, “What was the 232nd Engineers’ role in World War II?” Go For Broke Bulletin Archives XLVIII.4 (October-December 1997), reprinted by Sons and Daughters of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, accessed on February 8, 2015
¹⁵Goto, p. 9.
¹⁶Crost, p. 233.
¹⁷Crost, p. 257; James M. Hanley, A Matter of Honor: A Memoire (Springfield, MA: Vantage Press, 1995), p. 89; Tanaka, pp. 130-131; Goto, p. 11.
¹⁸Goto, p. 13.
¹⁹Matsuo, p. 217.
²⁰Ibid, p. 216.
²¹“232nd Combat Engineer Company (Nisei): Hot Showers – when and where you needed them!” 36th Infantry Division Association, www.34infdiv.org/feature/232engrco.html accessed on February 6, 2015
²²The Army Historical Foundation.