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MEMORIAL DAY 2000
Listening to
voices of the past
One veteran works to get
Forgotten veterans
more recognition for his
fellow nisei interpreters
Honoring the dead By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-BulletinFifty-five years ago this month, a baby boy was born during the battle for Okinawa to a frightened Japanese woman who was so grateful for the help medical corpsmen gave her that she named the child after the Navy doctor who delivered him.
To this day, Mike Miyashiro, who was one of 175 Japanese-Americans drafted by the Army to serve as interpreters in closing moments of World War II, doesn't know if the infant survived the war.
"But if he is, his name is Louis Matayoshi -- named after the doctor who delivered him," said Miyashiro, 75.
"The mother was so grateful that we were able to help," said Miyashiro, who has been spearheading an effort to get recognition for two little-known World War II units made up only of Japanese Americans from Hawaii.
They were assigned to Navy and Marine Corps teams in March 1945 and found themselves in the South Pacific battles for Saipan, Leyte and Okinawa.Unlike the better-known Japanese Americans who served with the 100th Battalion, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the Military Intelligence Service, very little has been written about the 1st Provisional Military Government Detachment and the 6205th Interpreters Special Detachment, Navy 3256.
The two units were composed mainly of niseis, or second-generation Japanese Americans, from Hawaii who were recruited for their ability to speak Japanese.
On this Memorial Day, Miyashiro estimates that about 50 Japanese Americans served with the 1st Provisional Military Government Detachment, and probably another 125 were members of the 6205th Interpreters Special Detachment, Navy 3256.
Miyashiro doesn't know how many veterans are still living today or returned to live in Hawaii or moved to the mainland.
The exploits of these 175 interpreters were so forgotten that they were never recognized when the first major mainland monument dedicated to deeds of Japanese Americans was built last year.
Hoping for recognition
The job of the interpreters during the Okinawa campaign, which began April 1, 1945, was to help the island's nearly half million civilians.Miyashiro, who spent 18 months on Okinawa from May 1945 to October 1946, hopes to help the nisei interpreters receive recognition by getting their names inscribed on the $2.5 million "Go For Broke" memorial in Los Angeles.
The names of 15,987 nisei soldiers who served in Europe and the Pacific are engraved on the black granite monument, which was dedicated last June.
It is the first mainland monument dedicated to the wartime heroics of the more celebrated 100th Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the Military Intelligence Service and the 1399th Engineer Construction Battalion.
Miyashiro in October asked Sen. Daniel Akaka -- who was instrumental in getting the Army to recognize 21 Asian Americans with the Medal of Honor -- to get an official roster from the Pentagon of the two interpreters units.In Los Angeles, Henry Ikemoto, vice chairman of the 100th Battalion/442nd/MIS World War II Memorial Foundation, said he wasn't aware that the two units existed and now faces the possibility that another 175 names may have to be added to the monument.
"We already plan to add another 75 names that were left out last year," said Ikemoto, who added that those names should be engraved on the monument by June 3, when a celebration will be held to mark the memorial's one-year anniversary.
"There is room for another 200 more names, but it will be tight and we would have to consult the architect on the best way to do it."
Ikemoto said a special committee reviews all requests. Applicants need to present proof, such as their discharge papers, that they served from the beginning of the war and were sent overseas before September 1945.
"If a veteran can't send us his discharge papers," Ikemoto, "the foundation is willing to go by affidavits signed by other veterans who served with him."
Helping civilians settle in
Arthur Kubota, 76, said he was drafted in March 1944 and was pulled off Schofield Barracks pistol range and taken with 40 other soldiers to an Army barracks, where he was told by a Navy lieutenant that the group "was handpicked by Adm. (Chester) Nimitz to be interpreters.""Two months after being drafted I found myself in a war zone and stayed there for 18 months," said Kubota, who served with the 6205th.
"I had to help civilians get re-settled," said Kubota. "A lot of their homes were destroyed and we tried to get them things like lumber. The people there also needed food and other rations."
Miyashiro still vividly remembers his Okinawan arrival.
"It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon," said Miyashiro, who was assigned to a Navy dispensary at Nadake near Futema, which is where most of the U.S. military is now stationed on Okinawa. "The dispensary actually was someone's house. A lady was brought to us on a stretcher."She didn't want to come in because she was afraid. She thought she was going to get killed.
"I went outside and talked to her and comforted her. I told her I would accompany her. A few minutes after she came in she gave birth to a son ... I was only 20 years old and it was the first time I saw a woman give birth. I nearly threw up."
Throughout his assignment on Okinawa with the 6205th, Miyashiro said Hawaii's nisei interpreters worked in small teams. In his case, he was assigned to a Navy doctor and six corpsmen.
All of the interpreters worked alone and were assigned to civil-affairs teams. Miyashiro said their job was primarily to work with the civilians -- held in relocation centers.
"All of us (interpreters) were cut off from each other," said Miyashiro, who was embarrassed about discussing what he did. "There were so many others who did a lot more than what I did."
Miyashiro, whose brother Sadao served with the Military Intelligence Service, remained on Okinawa after the war and worked as a general contractor before returning to Hawaii in 1971.
He believes the military formed the two special units because it wasn't able to train Japanese interpreters as quickly as it needed them as the Pacific campaign advanced closer to Japan.
Isles’ Korean War
By Treena Shapiro
vets honor fallen comrades
Star-BulletinWhile World War II veterans came home celebrated heroes, Korean War veterans returned to Hawaii quietly, without fanfare, parades and rallies, recalled retired Army Cpl. Dan Morris, who served in Korea as a combat engineer.
"We had no celebration. There was nothing. We had a hard time finding jobs.
It wasn't easy," Morris, 69, remembered. "They say that Korea vets and Korea is the forgotten war."
Fought from 1950 to 1953, the Korean War saved South Korea from Communism, but overall, neither the United States nor China was a clear-cut victor, and the conflict essentially ended in a stalemate. Although the United States and China signed an armistice on July 27, 1953, there has never been a peace treaty and the state of war still exists on the Korean peninsula.
But Morris and other members of the Korean War Veterans Association have been working to make people remember the forgotten war, participating in parades and community service projects and going into elementary schools to tell children about their experiences.
Last night, the 16th Annual Sunset Memorial Service at the Armed Services Eternal Flame commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Korean War, with Hawaii veterans representing five Army divisions lighting candles in remembrance.
Retired Lt. Floranio Castillo, 73, said he felt privileged lighting a candle for the Army's 25th Division.
Twice a year, Castillo helps his organization clean the Korean War Memorial at the state Capitol.
"What really hits me when we're polishing the marble is that we come across names that were in your platoon or in your ROTC program," he said.
They were the ones Castillo said he would be thinking of as he lit the candle.
Members of the "Chosin Few," a Marine Korean War veterans group, didn't participate in last night's program, but eight attended the ceremony.
Nicholas Revuelto had joined the Marine Corps Reserves in high school and, as a junior, he was activated and sent to Korea, where he made the Inchon landing and proceeded to the Chosin Reservoir. Revuelto was among the first group of Marines from Hawaii sent to war.
"The reason everybody signed up for the Marine Corps Reserve was we'd never been to the mainland. This was the opportunity for us local boys to go to the mainland. So everybody joined the Marine Corps. We didn't expect the Korean War would come around. When the Korean War came around, we had to pay the price," Revuelto said.
Instead of a free trip to Hollywood, the reservists found themselves in battles where they were outnumbered 10-to-1.
Last night, Revuelto remembered his friend, Frank Reynolds, who is still missing in action.
Mitsuo "Ted" Hamasu, 80, fought as a soldier in the famous 100th Infantry Battalion during WWII and was part of the team that repaired communications equipment for the 5th Regimental Combat Company in Korea.
Hamasu performed the Queen's Prayer at last night's service, but he said the song invoked thoughts of Queen Liliuokalani, not memories from the war, a period he was reluctant to revisit in the interview. "You look at some pictures and they glorify war, but war is not something you can glorify," he said.
"It's really an inhuman thing to go to war when you have ammunition and all these things shooting at you. It's not fun. People who didn't participate in the war can't understand how it is and how you feel when you go to war."
Hamasu said his greatest struggle was trying to stay safe and alive. "If you're not afraid of death, that's easy. But no one wants to die," he said.
His years of service weren't the time for good memories, said Hamasu. "You meet a lot of people, and you make friends, but when you go to war, sometimes your buddies get killed. Sometimes you get killed."
About 2,000 soldiers from Hawaii served in the Korean War, more than from any other state and four times higher than the national average.
Of those, 456 were killed, a number which includes prisoners of war who didn't survive and soldiers missing in action and presumed dead. About 50 soldiers were taken prisoner during the war, and 40 were repatriated after the armistice was signed in 1953.
Mayor lauds Medal
By Treena Shapiro
of Honor recipient
Star-BulletinBarney Hajiro was honored today as one of 21 World War II Asian-American veterans selected to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor next month. But walking through the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific before the mayor's ceremony, Hajiro, 83, honored his friends, members of the unit sent in to rescue "The Lost Battalion." Many of them died in an Oct. 29, 1944, attack by the Germans.
Hajiro takes care to visit the grave of Takeyasu "Thomas" Onaga, who was with him on that day.
"That's my guy, I will never forget when he loaded my BR (Browning automatic rifle). A few minutes later he was dead already. I was cut down, too. I was lucky because it hit me here," he said, pointing to a spot on his upper left arm.
That arm has been paralyzed for more than 50 years, said Hajiro, one of perhaps 50 people who arrived at Punchbowl early this morning to pay respects privately before the ceremony.
During the annual Memorial Day service, Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris recognized Hajiro, among other Hawaii veterans receiving the nation's highest award for military valor, highlighting the significance of Hajiro's loaded rifle: "Barney carried a Browning Automatic Rifle and he single-handedly destroyed two machine-gun nests and silenced two snipers as he led the successful charge against one of the greatest concentrations of German weapons ever seen."
Hundreds turned out for the Punchbowl service, this year commemorating not only the 50th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, but also the 25th anniversary of the United States' withdrawal from Vietnam. "Many of our veterans still bear the emotional and physical scars of Vietnam more than a quarter century later," Harris said. "Now, 25 years after the last U.S. forces left Saigon, we honor the sacrifices of all who served in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam." While the mayor led the service at Punchbowl, Sen. Daniel Inouye was to be the keynote speaker for early-morning services at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. The service was to include performances by the Pacific Fleet Ceremonial Band and the Marine Forces Pacific Band. In addition, the National Park Service was offering two boat tours today, one focusing on the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the other on the harbor's natural history.
This afternoon, Gov. Ben Cayetano, who commemorated the 50th anniversary of the start of the Korean War last night, was to hold a ceremony at the Hawaii State Veterans Cemetery in Kaneohe. The governor and Major Gen. Edward L. Correa Jr., adjutant general, were to speak, and Cayetano was to place a wreath at the Memorial Plaza Monument. Performers include the 111th Army Band of the Hawaii Army National Guard, Soo Wahn Featheran and the New Hope Windward Halau.
