G.I. Japyank, 1944

From Collier's. 114:6 (August 5, 1944). 41-43.

The kid hesitated on the other side of the room, anxious to see how he stood, but when I said, "Hello, Soldier," he bounded across with his hand out and smiled all over his face. I never thought I'd shake hands with a Japanese but I felt pretty good about it afterward, because this kid was a different kind. His blood was Japanese but he was all American.

I'm suspicious by nature and I didn't approach this kid with any social service worker's milk of human kindness bubbling in my veins. I wanted to talk with him because he was from the famous 100th Infantry Battalion, and dozens of big questions had been forming in my mind as to just what made that outfit tick. The Hundredth was composed almost entirely of Japanese-Americans from the Hawaiian Islands, and it was public knowledge that they'd licked the pants off Hitler's boys in Italy and had kept going in the face of terrific casualties. I was wondering why they'd fought like a gang of tigers.

The kid grinned. "It was so damn' cold and rainy," he said, "we got fighting mad. We didn't care a hell of a lot whether we lived or died. We just wanted to go after those Nazis who were keeping us there."

But that wasn't the whole answer.

The kid's background was typical of the rest of the battalion, all of whose enlisted men and half of whose officers were of Japanese descent. He'd been in constant action with them for six weeks in Italy and had had six months in hospitals to think things over.

"My first name is Mac," he said, "but I'd better spell the last one. It's Y-a-z-a-w-a." He stopped to light a cigarette. "I have to watch out I don't smoke too many. They got all the shrapnel out of my lung, but I'm sorta short of breath."

I could close my eyes and listen and he was strictly a G.I. Joe. He was an American kid with an unruly lock of black hair that hung down on his forehead, and he was still young in his ideas, even though he had been sobered by a large chunk of war. He looked more like an Indian from the Southwest than he did like a Japanese. He was short, just under 5 foot 5, and he only weighed 130 pounds with the shrapnel still in his right arm (which had been nearly torn off) and right foot. Normally, he said, he'd go 140 to 143.

He was wearing two rows of ribbons. There was the Purple Heart, and service ribbons for the European, Pacific-Asiatic, Mediterranean and American theaters of operation, and two battle stars--one for the Italian campaign and one for that one-sided scrap at Pearl Harbor. I'd never stopped to think before that there was Japanese fighting on both sides at Pearl Harbor.

The Story Behind the Decorations

Those Japanese-Americans of the Hundredth knew it, because most of them were there, and their battle slogan, "Remember Pearl Harbor," showed how they felt about the sneak attack. But that wasn't what kept them going in Italy after two thirds of the outfit became casualties. There were more personal reasons for the battle spirit which won them three Distinguished Service Crosses, 21 Bronze Stars, 36 Silver Stars and 900 Purple Hearts.

Pvt. Mac I. Yazawa was celebrating his twenty-fifth birthday the day I talked to him. He was born in Honolulu, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Tokuji Yazawa, who settled there forty years ago and raised eight children. He has an older brother, John (who is probably in the Army now, because he was in 1-A the last Mac heard), three older sisters who are married and two brothers and a sister who are younger than he. One of his married sisters, who lived on the West Coast, is at the Gila Relocation Camp in Arizona, but the rest of his family are still in Honolulu.

Mac and about half of the other boys of the 100th Infantry Battalion attended Honolulu schools. Most of these kids never learned anything about Japan and weren't particularly interested in the country of their ancestors. Mac never even bothered to learn to speak Japanese. Honolulu was the only home they ever knew, and the United States was their country.

The only time they ever wanted to visit Japan was after the sneak attack, and then they wanted to go with a lot of other Americans in uniform. They were dying for a crack at the Jap army all the time they were fighting in Italy. Some of them couldn't understand why they'd been sent to fight the Germans when they had a personal bone to pick with the Japs who had attacked their homes. . . .

They [Japanese-American soldiers] first learned of the problem that was making life difficult for great numbers of loyal Japanese-Americans. They were willing to take their government's word for it that there were Jap spies in this country, just as there were German spies. But they thought that most Japanese-Americans were loyal citizens, the same as most German-Americans. They couldn't understand why some folks in the United States were down on everyone of Japanese ancestry.

They trained at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, for six months, and all the white folks they saw treated them fine, but they worried about the sentiment that was arising against them in other sections. They'd never run into anything like it before, and they didn't know what to do about it.

Then Mac went to the Gulf of Mexico Command with some of his buddies for specialized training in the handling of war dogs. He spent three months at this, rejoined his battalion at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, for seven months, and then went on maneuvers in Louisiana. The G.I. Japanese ran into their first racial trouble in the South. It didn't turn out to be serious trouble, because they kept their mouths shut, but they'd never had anything like it up North. Some folks--soldiers and others--made dirty cracks about their Japanese blood. It hurt them. . . .

"We weren't," said Mac, "like Japanese and German troops who fight only because they are sent somewhere and made to. We knew what we were fighting for-for our country and our homes and our families, just like other American boys. We fought a little harder because we were good Americans, so our families would be better thought of and better treated back home."

Brunt of the Attack

Mac's company was out in front, leading the way up the Salerno Valley, and it took most of the punishment when the first tough German resistance was encountered. . . .

The Hundredth took turns with the other battalions in leading the attack all the way up from Salerno to Cassino. They were attacked twice by German planes north of Naples, and both times were caught in the open, moving along the road. There wasn't much of any shelter, and one attack lasted twenty minutes. The Jerries bombed and strafed and several men were killed and wounded. The Hundredth got madder at the Nazis.

By mid-October, 1943, they were in mountainous terrain, and it turned rainy and cold. It was no weather for a bunch of boys from Honolulu. Between the cold at night and the Nazi artillery, they couldn't sleep and were pretty miserable. Overcoats and overshoes hadn't caught up with them, and they were half frozen most of the time, but they were hardened to outdoor life, and no one Mac knew became sick or even caught a cold.

They suffered a lot, but they kept it to themselves. They wouldn't even admit to one another that the weather could be too tough for them. Mac was pinned in foxholes by gunfire for days at a time. The longest stretch was three days, and there was a foot of water and mud in the foxhole. He had to keep stamping up and down to keep from freezing and that made more mud. Bullets and shells were so close that the stench of cordite was always in his nostrils. Shrapnel rained so heavily around him that he gave up all hope of surviving, and he got so mad that he didn't care.

Three times the Hundredth fought its way across the Volturno River, and three times was thrown back. The battalion jumped off the fourth time shortly after midnight on the morning of November 4th. Mac's company was in the lead and for once, there wasn't any opposition crossing the river. But after they were across they slowed down and felt their way along, because no sappers had been out ahead to clear the mines.

At about 2:30 A.M. Captain Suzuki and Mac were up in front when they hit a mine field. They were about sixteen miles south of Cassino. The captain was lucky, but one of the mines got Mac. Shrapnel smashed into his chest and right foot and nearly tore off his right arm. Much of it went into his right lung, but he didn't feel any pain. He was just numb and losing blood, and after a while, as he lay there thinking this was it, he became unconscious.

The next he knew, he was in an evacuation hospital thirty miles behind the lines, and it was three days later. . . .

"I'm one of the lucky ones," he said, "I never expected to get back. I was very sick for three months. I couldn't talk or eat, and I was fed by injections. But I was given the best of care by nurses and Medical Corps men (all of whom were white), and they were very nice to me. Soldiers from the other battalions in our regiment, who were in hospitals with me, were always pointing me out to others and telling them what a swell job my battalion was doing. I was very proud."