GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
100th Battalion veterans Stanley Kimura, center, and
Isao Nadamoto, right, put their backs into the tug-of-war
contest along with family and friends yesterday during
the unit's 60th-anniversary picnic at Keehi Lagoon.

New film details
MIS exploits

Japanese-American soldiers served
as key wartime translators

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By Rosemarie Bernardo
rbernardo@starbulletin.com

Second-generation Japanese-American soldiers in the Military Intelligence Service were scattered all over the United States and the Pacific, and little is known about their contribution to help end World War II, James Tanabe says.

"These guys are ready to talk now. They need to get their story out," said Tanabe, a former Military Intelligence Service soldier.

After 30 years of secrecy, some MIS veterans are now allowed to share their experiences for a new 90-minute documentary called "Uncommon Courage: Patriotism and Civil Liberties." The documentary will air on Hawaii Public Television at 8 p.m. Thursday.

Tanabe was among more than 300 veterans and family members at a 100th Battalion picnic at Keehi Lagoon Park yesterday to acknowledge the 60th anniversary of the battalion's formation.

Some had seen a preview of the documentary.

Tanabe said he watched a partial showing of the documentary two weeks ago at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii.

GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
At the 100th Battalion picnic yesterday, veteran
Robert Sato and granddaughter Diane Low
scanned their numbers for a sign of luck.

"It showed the MIS occupation was really the key to helping the Japanese population become rehabilitated," said Tanabe, 70.

The film showed how soldiers had to learn up to 50 Japanese language characters and studied 10 hours a day for six months. It also covered the cave-flushing activity where Military Intelligence Service soldiers flushed out Japanese soldiers from caves from Burma to Saipan, Tanabe said.

MIS soldiers also translated documents and maps and intercepted messages.

In 1954, Tanabe attended a Japanese language school in Monterey, Calif. After 11 months of learning Japanese, he was assigned to be a personal interpreter for the provost marshal of an Army camp in northern Japan.

Tanabe said most people are educated about the 442nd Regimental Combat Team because the information is readily available. Not so for MIS veterans, he said.

Mimi Nakano, president of Sons and Daughters of the 100th Infantry Battalion, watched the documentary on Aug. 4 during the Nisei Week Festival held in Los Angeles.

"It gave me a better understanding of the role that the military intelligence played in World War II," said Nakano.

GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
One-puka-puka vets Martin Tohara and Don Matsuda,
from left, approached Randy Shiraishi during a
drive for new memebers for the Sons and
Daughters of the 100th Battalion.

"If it weren't for them, the war would've been longer," she said.

Many of the Military Intelligence Service soldiers came from families who were incarcerated in internment camps, Nakano said.

Nakano's father, Shizuya Hayashi, served in the 8th Company of the 100th Battalion.

Hayashi, 83, said it is time the nisei soldiers were acknowledged for their service during World War II.

"They deserve to be recognized," Hayashi said.