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Texas veterans
to applaud
isle soldiers’
WWII rescue

Their unit was rescued
by the 442nd Regimental Combat
Team and the 100th Battalion

Star-Bulletin staff

Four members of the World War II Texas Army unit that was rescued by members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Battalion will pay tribute to Hawaii's nisei soldiers at a veterans' memorial service next Saturday.

The Texas veterans will attend the 442nd's 57th annual memorial service at 9 a.m. at the National Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl.

Later that day, Marty Higgins -- who was a captain in the 1st Battalion, 141st Regiment, 36th Division -- will deliver the keynote address at the group's luncheon banquet at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel.

Also speaking will be Ben Kuroki, who flew 58 missions. He flew 30 as an aerial gunner on B-24 bombers in the European campaign, and another 28 as a B-29 tail gunner in the Pacific.

In October 1944, elements of the 100th Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team rescued soldiers of the 141st Regiment, which had been cut off by enemy troops in the Vosges mountains of France during bitter fighting.

During the month the 442nd was attached to the 36th Division, the Hawaii unit, made up of 3,000 soldiers, suffered 2,200 casualties, including 161 dead and 1,800 hospitalized.