Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II

In April 1943, Hawaiian Nisei arrived in Hattiesburg, Mississippi—a place where Black Americans faced historical inequality and violence. Lynchings were “the most brutal manifestations of an economic, social, and political order that white Mississippians had built on a foundation of intimidation and dehumanization” (161). The military training took place at Camp Shelby, where recruits practiced field maneuvers in the swamps of Louisiana and were forced to participate in demeaning exercises like being hunted by dogs trained to detect “the unique scent of the Japanese” (165). Rudy Tokiwa deliberately failed his Japanese language proficiency to avoid being taken into Military Intelligence. The biggest problem in training was the cultural differences between the Hawaiians, nicknamed “Buddhaheads,” and the mainlanders, called “kotonks.” Nisei from Hawaii were more laid back and sometimes used Hawaiian pidgin to speak. Mainlanders, on the other hand, “who had volunteered for the army out of concentration camps arrived angry, fueled by a grim, righteous determination to prove themselves as patriotic Americans” (167). The two sides often fought.

Historically, close to 30,000 Japanese had escaped poor economic conditions in their homeland in the 1880s and 1890s, traveling to Hawaii to work in sugar cane fields six days a week. Most were men, who later imported women to marry from Japan. Hard plantation life was easier than the “even worse conditions in Japan” (170). When Hawaii became part of the United States in 1900, these “slave” labor-like conditions were eliminated, and the men had to find other ways to make a living. The “language, the manners, and the attitudes” (172) of mainland Nisei reminded their Hawaiian counterparts of their haole, or white, bosses.

Kats Miho began training in the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, which was the 442nd’s artillery unit. Based on an aptitude test, Kats concentrated on “learning the complex geometry and calculus required to accurately fire the 522nd’s big howitzers” (173). He was also an example of a middle ground “between kotonks and Buddhaheads” (173). Kats made some friends, including a Montanan, George Oiye, also part of the 522nd. George, who did not speak Japanese or show interest in the culture, was an excellent marksman thanks to his hunting and fishing background. Kats and George were similarly “full of opinions” (175). Meanwhile, Rudy was getting into “the most spectacular trouble” (180). For example, he convinced a Black soldier to enter a bus from the front at a time of segregated bus seating in the south. When the bus driver objected, Rudy and his friends dragged the driver out and hijacked the bus. As a result, they were placed into the stockade overnight.

At this time, Gordon Hirabayashi “worked tirelessly” (177) to make the lives of Japanese Americans easier. He had a difficult time finding a job because “far fewer employers were willing to hire anyone of Japanese ancestry” (177) even when they desperately needed workers. He looked forward to having his case resolved by the Supreme Court and was certain “that he would win” (178). For this reason, the unsuccessful resolution of Hirabayashi v. United States, of which Gordon “only learned when he happened to pick up a newspaper,” was “crushing” (179). The Court’s decision meant that Gordon would be taken back to prison.

Training for the 442nd in Mississippi involved long hikes with full backpacks, using heavy machine guns, digging tank traps, and marching. Despite the racial hierarchy—most commissioned officers were white—”both the kotonks and the Buddhaheads began to warm up to their officials” (187), instructor Captain Walter Lesinski and Commander Charles Wilbur Pence.

Many in the 442nd headed had summer furloughs. The Hawaiians had “large stashes of cash from their parents” able to use it for “a good time before they went off to war” in places like New York City (186). In contrast, the mainlanders traveled to see their parents in the camps. The “big brothers” (191) of the 442nd—the 100th Infantry Battalion—left for North Africa in August 1943.

The Hawaiians and mainlanders still fought with each other periodically. Pence attempted to reduce the bickering by organizing dances for the soldiers with Nisei women from a nearby camp. On the one hand, the dances offered the soldiers the socializing they missed. On the other, the women “were partial to the Buddhaheads,” attracted “to the island boys’ spontaneity” (190-91). The latter infuriated the mainlanders, and the fights continued.

Some Nisei soldiers were sent to Alabama to guard POWs from General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps. The locals, who described the POWs as “fine-looking,” “blond,” and “wonderful specimens of physical manhood,” “appeared to be more at ease with the presence of the German POWs in their midst than they were with the American boys with Japanese faces” (196). One of the soldiers guarding the POWs in Alabama was Kats’s brother Katsuaki. He and another young man died in a tragic army truck accident. Kats used his furlough to visit his father with Katsuaki’s ashes. His father’s concentration camp, Fort Missoula in Montana, also housed non-military aliens, such as Italian merchants stranded on the Allied side when the war began. Kats’s father was “overwhelmingly proud” that his sons volunteered for the US Army despite thinking of himself as Japanese (201). The news of Katsuaki’s death was “a crushing blow” (201). After the father held a private memorial, the urn was to travel to Kats’s mother in Hawaii.

In Spokane, Gordon Hirabayashi accepted a longer 90-day sentence to be able to stay at a federal work camp rather than a prison. However, for administrative reasons, the closest camp was in Arizona, and the government did not want to fund the trip. The young man managed to get a signed letter allowing him to hitchhike to Arizona. In Tucson, the “inmates […] heard that the famous Gordon Hirabayashi was coming and wanted to welcome him personally” (196).

Following a lot of convincing on the part of the clergy, Camp Shelby introduced two Japanese American chaplains to accompany the soldiers to war, Reverend Masao Yamada and Reverend Hiro Higuchi, two Hawaiian Protestants who were also “happy to minister to whoever came through their office,” including Buddhists (203). Yamada counseled Kats that “his brother’s death imposed a new obligation” on him “to renew his focus” and “to devote himself to a higher cause” (205). The chaplains also helped find a solution to the fights between the mainlanders and Hawaiians. It was clear to them that while the Hawaiians dreamed of returning to “beautiful and grateful island girls, home-cooked meals, falling asleep in their own beds,” the mainlanders “had nothing like that to look forward to” (207). The Hawaiians did not comprehend the realities of concentration camps, so Higuchi proposed to Pence a series of field trips to show them incarcerated life. Sobered by what they saw, “more Buddhaheads began to ease up on more kotonks” (209).

The 442nd practiced using M1 rifles, bazookas, and mortars, as well as making gun emplacements from sandbags and using camouflage. Japanese concepts such as filial piety and social obligation fit into their discussions of American patriotism. Over in Europe, many in the 100th were killed in Italy; “[t]heir sacrifices did not go unnoticed back home” (222). In March 1944, US Chief of Staff George C. Marshall arrived at Camp Shelby and inspected the 442nd. A month later, the soldiers received orders to travel to Anzio in Italy.

At this time, federal inmate number 3751, Gordon Hirabayashi, performed grueling labor as part of a roadcrew under the Arizona sun. He began “to question the rules and assumptions by which the camp was administered” (210), such as racial segregation because he was placed with the white inmates. Soon others, including white inmates, joined him in questioning authorities.