Campaign News
April 8, 2008
Testimony of William Yoshino
Testimony of William Yoshino
State Government Administrative Committee
HR 850, Nisei World War II StampIn recent years, the term "patriotism" often has been tossed about to gain an edge in political discussions about the conduct of the war in Iraq. Two generations ago, in 1941, at the onset of World War II, the community of Japanese Americans residing in the United States faced difficult questions about the manner in which their fellow Americans perceived them. They faced an onslaught of angry accusations of suspected disloyalty where their patriotism as citizens of this country was questioned and their status as citizens soon became meaningless. They were eventually uprooted from their homes on the West Coast and herded into concentration camps in the most desolate areas of America's interior.
Under those circumstances, it is a tribute that those men would volunteer from confinement in those camps to serve in a segregated unit, joining their Japanese American brothers from Hawaii to form the 100th battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team and as well, serve in the Military Intelligence and Language Service.
The wartime record of those men is legendary. The record speaks for itself. Four thousand men initially served and suffered over 300% combat casualties, the highest combat casualty rate of any regiment that served in the United States Army -- seven Presidential Unit Citations, twenty-one Medals of Honor, over 18,000 combat and service medals, nearly 9,500 Purple Hearts and 5,200 Bronze Stars. They opened the gates at Dachau, rescued the Texas Lost Battalion and broke the German Gothic Line at Mt. Folgorita in Italy, opening the Po Valley for the eventual march into Germany.
The Military Intelligence and Language Service or MIS trained over 6,000 Japanese Americans for service in document translation, interrogations and code-breaking in the Pacific war. General MacArthur's chief of intelligence, General Charles Willoughby said, "never before in history did an army know so much concerning its enemy, prior to actual engagement, as did the American Army during most of the Pacific campaigns." He estimated that the Japanese Americans serving in the MIS shortened the Pacific war by two years and saved a million Allied lives.
For my generation of Japanese Americans, these veterans were our fathers, our uncles, our neighbors and our friends. Following World War II, they quietly got on with their lives and established themselves in places like Illinois, where many joined their families who had relocated from the camps to cities like Chicago. They found jobs and raised families and instilled in their children the values that their own country tried so hard to deny them during World War II. They formed community institutions and churches and said very little about their heroic military service to this country.
And now it's time for us to speak for them. The Japanese American veterans from World War II, the Nisei veterans, left a towering legacy. President Truman said of the 100th/442nd, "…you fought not only the enemy, you fought prejudice – and you won…" The exploits of the Nisei veterans were transformational. They reshaped public attitudes about an entire group of people, and in so doing, they made our country more tolerant. This committee and the House of Representatives would perform an important service by approving this resolution to support a U.S. postage stamp honoring the Nisei veterans.
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