Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
THE Army considers it one of the most significant battles since the Revolutionary War. In the dark forests of France's Vosges mountain range 56 years ago, a unit of Asian Americans -- some of whose parents were imprisoned in U.S. World War II internment camps because of their race -- fought the odds in rescuing their fellow soldiers.
The saga of the "Lost Battalion" was brutal.
It cost the Japanese-American unit -- the 100th Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team -- about 800 casualties, nearly four times the 211 men they rescued.
Two rifle companies in one 442nd RCT battalion were decimated.
Seven soldiers from one of those companies earned the Distinguished Service Cross -- the country's second-highest medal for valor.
"They looked like giants to us," said Marty Higgins, who as a captain commanded a company in the Texas battalion that had been cut off for more than a week and surrounded by some of the German's most experienced soldiers.
Higgins would later command the Texas battalion.
"We were without food," added Bruce Estes, who served as a staff sergeant in the same Texas unit. "I remember being able to rub my backbones from my stomach ... but then I was a really skinny kid back then."
Higgins and Estes are among the four survivors from the Lost Battalion who are visiting with members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Battalion this weekend -- the first such meeting in Hawaii since the war.
The nisei warriors are considered "honorary Texans" because of their heroism."The first men who broke through received hugs and kisses," Estes added.
Tadashi Tojo, a 522nd Field Artillery forward observer, said, "It was the first time I had seen men cry."
The Texas soldiers had been forced to drink the rainwater that had accumulated in craters created by artillery and mortar shells.
"The water was green," Tojo said.
Even as the nisei soldiers were warmly greeted by the Texans, Tojo was concerned about another German counterattack.
"Our position wasn't clear," he said. "No defensive positions had been set up. ... We didn't know where the enemy was."
S. Don Shimazu, another member of the 442nd's 522nd artillery unit, added that as he led survey crews carefully through the minefield laid down by German soldiers he saw "so many wounded and dying fellow soldiers.
"There were friends holding their comrades in their arms," said Shimazu, current president of the 442nd Veterans Club.
"I ran into I Company, which at that point only had four guys with a PFC (private first class) -- Clarence Taba -- in charge ... the fighting had been that fierce."
George Oiye, another 522nd forward artillery observer, said the rain, snow, heavy clouds, dark fog and the huge carpet of pine trees overhead made it hard "to tell day from night."
"You couldn't even see your hand in front of your face ... one of the hardest things to describe to a person without military experience or similar combat experience is that feeling ... things were so much in a state of confusion."
Cut off and outnumbered
On Oct. 25, 1944, after two battalions from Texas' 36th Division were beaten back, unable to reach its 1st Battalion, the 100th Battalion and the 442nd RCT were ordered to rescue "the lost battalion."The Texas soldiers were cut off -- 275 of them on a steep forest ridge of France's Vosges mountains east of Biffontaine. The Germans had circled them, cutting them off from the rest of their division.
Allied planes dropped food and ammo, but the supplies kept rolling down the steep slopes of the ridge, into the trees or into Nazi hands.
It had started to rain. Besides the cold, the nisei soldiers also had to battle trench foot.
By the time I and K companies of the 442nd's 3rd Battalion were forced to dig into the dense forest terrain because of a German counterattack spearheaded by tanks, snow had started to fall.
The 442nd's 100th Battalion was strung out along the 3rd Battalion's right flank. The 2nd Battalion, on the 442nd's left flank, was busy trying to clear out Hill 617.
Facing the brunt of the German counterattack was the 442nd RCT's 3rd battalion. Under a constant barrage of German mortars, rifle fire and artillery, it continued to inch forward on a narrow ridge.
At times German machine gunners would allow the nisei soldiers to advance through the Vosges underbrush only to open fire on the backs of the soldiers after they had passed.
Soldiers sent back through the lines for ammo and other supplies were getting mowed down.
At one point Lt. Col. Alfred Pursall, the 442nd's 3rd Battalion commander, rose from cover and led a charge in a hand-to-hand battle.
It was during this "Banzai Hill" charge that Pvt. Barney Hajiro was recommended for the Medal of Honor after single-handedly destroying two machine-gun nests after getting hit on the cheek, body and forearm. He never got the Medal of Honor and is among the two dozen nisei soldiers whose records are currently under review by the Pentagon for being overlooked.
On Oct. 30, I and K companies made contact with the Texas unit. By then, I company had only eight riflemen left with a sergeant in charge; all others had been killed or wounded.
The same situation was true for K company.
They had lost all their officers and only 17 riflemen survived.
The Lost Battalion, which originally numbered 275, lost 64 soldiers.
Survivors honor fallen
Star-Bulletin staff
at PunchbowlFour survivors from a Texas Army battalion rescued by the members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Battalion paid tribute this morning to their fallen comrades at a ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
During the Punchbowl ceremony, representatives of the various World War II nisei units presented wreaths along with representatives of the "Lost Battalion."
The rescue of the 1st Battalion, 141st Regiment, 36th Division -- which took place in late October 1944 in France -- was immortalized in a painting that now hangs in the Pentagon.
The visit of the Lost Battalion's four survivors was coordinated by retired Harvard University School of Medicine professor Susumu Ito and Ed Ichiyama, both members of the regiment's 522nd Field Artillery unit, which hosted the visit.
The Lost Battalion, which originally numbered 275, was down to 211 when it was rescued. The 100th Battalion and the 442nd RCT suffered 800 casualties in making the rescue.
The Punchbowl service was followed by a noon lunch commemorating the 57th anniversary of the formation of the 442nd RCT.
