Episode 126: Go For Broke, Part IV

 

After their success in Italy, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was requested by the 7th Army to go to France where they encountered wet, cold, rugged terrain that was more extreme than they had fought through in the Italian Campaign.

Their bloodiest battle was when they fought through strong German defenses to rescue the so-called Alamo Battalion. Major General Dahlquist was accused of treating the Nisei as cannon fodder to reach those cut off troops, and despite the HEAVY casualties, they rescued their fellow Americans. Today, this painting commemorating the event hangs in the Pentagon.

After their victories in France and receiving replacements for their casualties, the 442nd was called back to Italy to spearhead the final push against the Axis's Gothic Line. They off as the diversionary effort, but when they still managed to defeat a much larger German force, the diversion quicky turned into a attack. Soon, Germans were surrendering in the hundreds and thousands. World War II ended in Italy on May 2, 1945; it ended in Europe six days later.

When the 442nd returned to Italy, its 522nd Field Artillery Battalion was detached and became a roving unit than went on to successfully accomplish 52 separate missions as the Allies moved from France into Germany. They went on to be the only Nisei unit to fight in Germany and liberated one of the Dachau death camp's satellite locations in Bavaria.

On July 15, 1946, at a ceremony in Washington, DC, President Truman personally presented the 442nd with its eighth Presidential Unit Citation. 

Episode 125: Go For Boke, Part II

Thanks in part to the 100th Infantry Battalion blowing all their doubters's expectations out of the water during their training, FDR and the War Department decided to stand up anther segregated Nisei unit - the 442nd Regimental Combat Team - mad made up of volunteers from Hawaii and the mainland (most of the of 1200 volunteers from the mainland were interned at the time) and like the 100th before them, they did everything the Army asked of them and more while fighting in Italy against the German and Italian militaries.

Go for Broke is a Hawaiian pidgin term for when a dice player puts all his money on a single throw. It was the motto the 442nd Regimental Combat Team picked for itself and it prepared to Go for Broke combating racism, stereotypes, and the Axis.

Episode 124: Go For Broke, Part II

In 1943, the US Army Finally decided what to do with the few hundred Nisei soldiers who had yet to be discharged as enemy aliens. They were formed into the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate) and sent to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. Despite what the rest of the army assumed would happen, the men of the 100th excelled at training and proved all of their naysayers wrong. 

At the end of their training, the 100th received the motto it requested, Remember Pearl Harbor, and was sent overseas. After a few detours, they ended up in Italy where they fought in several key battles, including Monte Cassino.

the 100th biggest supporter, and their first commander, was Lieutenant Colonel Farrant Lewis Turner. When the battalion entered combat, he was 48 years old. After a month in Italy, he had to be evacuated due to health. A short time later, he was mustered out of the military. Afterwards, he returned to Hawaii and continued to help 100th veterans for the rest of his life.

LTC Turner died in 1959 at age 63 - the same year Hawaii became a state. He was interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Section U, Grave 1174. His wife Helen Van Inwegen joined him in 1988. She was 91.

Their son Bert followed his father's footsteps, graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1949 and served in the Army for 22 years. By the time he retired, he was a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. 

Colonel Albert Farrant Turner was interred at the Hawaii State Veterans Cemetery in Section 121-B, Site 10. He was 91 years old.

Episode 123: Go For Broke, Part I

 

While Mr. Miyagi is a fictional character, the distinguished unit he was written to have served with in World War II was not. After the US government interned Japanese residents and their American citizen children in concentration camps after Pearl Harbor, many of those Americans unconstitutionally detained by their own government looked for a chance to prove their loyalty by volunteering to serve in the Army. The two most famous of these (nearly) all-Japanese American units are the 100th Infantry Regiment (Remember Pearl Harbor) and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (Go for Broke!). Not only did the men in those units serve with distinction, they became the highest decorated units of their size in US Army history. This podcast marks the beginning of a multi-episode are about Japanese American military service in the Second World War.