With the nisei veterans of World War II slowly passing into history, those who care about them have focused their efforts on honoring their legacy and chronicling their fight for their country and Japanese-Americans everywhere so that future generations will remember their "go for broke" heroism and their impact on the nation and the world.
They even remember the 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team in the little town of Bruyeres, France, in the Vosges Mountains, along the German border. The people of the community of 3,400 have put up a memorial to the nisei, or second generation Hawaii warriors, and hold an annual ceremony to honor and remember the men who liberated them from the Nazis in that cold October 1944.
"In 1944, we have been delivered from the Nazis . . . by our young soldiers (of the 100th/442nd)," said Christian Deville, vice secretary of the group in charge of the Honolulu-Bruyeres sister-city relationship.
Were it not for the 100th/442nd, "we would be German," said Deville later in the interview Saturday, adding ironically that he currently works for a German company.
Deville, 60, was part of a delegation of about 30 French citizens from Bruyeres touring the islands to mark the 50th anniversary of the sister-city relationship with Honolulu. On Saturday, a luncheon gathering was held at the Nisei Veterans Memorial Center off Kahului Beach Road, bringing together the nisei veterans, most in their 80s and 90s, and their families and friends with the French delegation.
Most of the French visitors, such as Deville, were not alive in 1944 and could not give firsthand accounts of the exploits of the 100th/442nd. Still, they know the history of the nisei veterans and how much they sacrificed for their town.
"We don't want to forget them, because they fought to prove to the American army that they are honest, that they are real American soldiers and fought to liberate us," said Martial Hilaire, 57, president of the Go For Broke French Club, with Deville interpreting. "That's why we don't want to forget them.
"In the middle of the forest near Bruyeres, we have erected a monument to the glory of the 442nd and the 100th, and every October we celebrate this anniversary."
"Go for broke" was the motto of the 100th/442nd.
In fall 1944, the 100th/442nd were brought in from Italy to the French battle theater to join the 7th Army. The German army was being beaten out of France, following the successful Allied landing at Normandy. At the Vosges Mountains, a 100-mile-long range with peaks averaging 3,000 feet high that divided France and Germany, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler ordered his men to halt their retreat and defend the mountains to the death.
It was "the last stand," Howard Murakami, 88, of Wailuku, a communications specialist with regimental headquarters, recalled Saturday. "Their backs to the wall, a fight to the end."
A 7th Army report said, "Bruyeres will long be remembered, for it was the most viciously fought-for town we had encountered in our long march against the Germans."
Bruyeres sits in a valley surrounded by four hills, labeled A, B, C and D by Allied forces, an account of the battle on the Go For Broke National Education Center said. Maj. Gen. John Dahlquist ordered the 100th Battalion to take Hill A and 2nd Battalion to attack Hill B on Oct. 15.
Entrenched Germans on the high ground had the tactical advantage as well as the wet, cold and foggy weather on their side.
"Before we hit Bruyeres, it started raining in the forest," said Takeo "Ike" Ikeda, 87, of Wailuku, 442nd F Company. "We got soaked wet. We changed the socks but the socks got wet again.
"A lot of guys got trench feet, frozen feet. Mine were just a little red. Cannot take heat, you know."
Artillery shells, nicknamed "screaming meemies," would explode at the tops of pine trees 70 feet tall, raining down splinters and shrapnel on soldiers below.
One of those aerial bursts got Harold Kishaba, who is almost 90, of Kahului. He was in the forest near railroad tracks checking out the wounded after the town had been taken.
"There was shelling far away," said the soldier with 442nd, E Company, Sen. Daniel Inouye's company. "But the one you no hear is the one (that's) danger.
"The shrapnel hit the ground, right through my wallet," he said pointing to his right breast pocket. "Lucky I had the wallet in the right pocket.
"I didn't know I was wounded," he recalled, but he felt something funny under his shirt. So, he took off his shirt and jacket and saw "big blood." He felt the shrapnel embedded between his ribs.
A medic asked if he needed a stretcher-bearer, but Kishaba said he could make it back to the first-aid station. While walking to the back lines, he took a path down a gully that he knew was safe. Kishaba would later learn that a group of stretcher-bearers just ahead of him who took the main road were ambushed.
On the third day of deadly battles, artillery fire from the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion helped the 100th and 2nd battalions take Hills A and B, with 3rd Battalion driving the Germans out of Bruyeres.
Kishaba said he went down to the village "and kicked down a kitchen door." He saw a girl with a pitcher of water.
"She saw me all dirty and everything. She dropped her pitcher of water," he said. "So I told her, 'Don't be afraid, I'm not going to harm you.' ''
Knowing a little French, he learned that there were others holed up in the attic. He asked if there were any enemy soldiers in the area; they had left the day before, Kishaba was told.
"I gave them cigarettes, chocolate candy, whatever I had. . . . I think they figure I was friendly because I was handing out goodies."
Murakami remembers a curious sight as he entered Bruyeres.
"The men were trying to gather all these women," he said. "So we asked them, 'Why you gather all the women?' They said they were associated with the Germans when they were in town. They were rounding them up to shave their heads. They were (going to) just cut all their hair off, so the people know these were the women who collaborated with the Germans."
The buildings in the town were in pretty good shape, compared to some of the other towns the 100th/442nd had liberated in Europe.
"For the most part, it (the town) looked pretty normal," said Stan Izumigawa, 86, of Kula, a member of the 100th Battalion. "In Anzio (Italy), there was nothing left. It was rubble. Bruyeres, it was relatively untouched."
The structures may have been sound, but the people were suffering.
"All the inhabitants had no food, nothing to eat," said Hilaire. "And all the people were in cellars for 18 days" during the fighting where the town sat "between the two armies."
Then came their liberation by the men of the 100th/442nd.
"For the inhabitants of Bruyeres, it was very surprising for them when they first saw the American army, which wasn't made up of American natives but by Japanese natives," he said. "Their faces, it was amazing for them.
"This surprising time was very short because some of the soldiers were injured, and the people of Bruyeres took care of them in the hospital. . . . They were very friendly, . . . They were our liberators."
The Germans continued to bombard Bruyeres until the 100th/442nd captured Hills C and D days later. While mopping up after the retreating army, Izumigawa recalls walking outside of the town and hearing someone crying "mama." He came across a German soldier, who couldn't have been more than 15 years old.
He later came upon a foxhole and reached in to help a German soldier out.
"When I grabbed him by his biceps, he was real thin," Izumigawa recalled. "I thought I was grabbing him by his forearm."
When he saw the man, he must have been in his 70s, said Izumigawa.
"I could see him trembling. He didn't say a word," he said, adding that they had heard that the Germans had conscripted the young and old to fight.
The 100th/442nd were later ordered to take the nearby village of Biffontaine, which they did on Oct. 23. The cost for the 100th /442nd was 21 killed, 122 wounded and 18 captured to win that village, the Go For Broke website said.
After only two days of rest, the 100th/442nd was ordered to save the " Lost Battalion" in a battle the Army rates as one of its top 10 in history.
The Lost Battalion incident began when Dahlquist ordered the 141st Texas Regiment to advance four miles beyond the lines of friendly forces, the Go For Broke center account said. In following the general's orders, the Texans were warned that they would get cut off.
Some 6,000 fresh German troops had moved into the area and cut off the Texans. More than 200 were stranded on a ridge, getting low on food, water and ammunition. Attempts by other battalions in the regiment to rescue the trapped men were unsuccessful.
So the general called in the 100th/442nd.
"He was terrible," said Murakami.
"Our thought was, 'We were expendable,' but they told us, so the 442nd went," he said.
The hills were steep, the area was mined, and there were few roads, By early afternoon on Oct. 27, the 100th/442nd was moving toward the narrow ridge that held the besieged Texans. The going was difficult and deadly. Tanks could not be used and artillery fire could not accurately zero in on the entrenched enemy. The fight had to be won by the infantry.
By Oct. 29, the situation became desperate for the Lost Battalion having been isolated for six days and fending off five enemy assaults. The nisei soldiers had fought for five of those days.
On Oct. 30, the nisei soldiers broke through to the Lost Battalion. To save the 211 Texans, 54 nisei soldiers were killed, the Go For Broke center report on the battle said. Other reports put casualties as high as 800.
When the 100th/442nd was finally relieved, Dahlquist wanted to congratulate the men for their efforts. Murakami recalled the scene.
"When he (Dahlquist) saw the regiment he told the colonel, 'Did you send anybody out for passes?' because not too many people were in the regiment.
"The colonel, with tears in his eyes, said, 'If they not here they either in the hospital or they dead.' ''
K Company started off with 186 men; only 17 remained after the French campaign. I Company started out with 185; it ended up with only eight men after the battles.
In his remarks at the luncheon, David Fukuda, a member of Maui Sons and Daughters of the Nisei Veterans, said Maui lost 25 men in the French battles.
Among the dead was Yoshio Tengwan, 22, who was born in Lahaina. He was killed in action on Oct. 15 in the Bruyeres battle. He is buried at the Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial at the foothills of the Vosges Mountains. He is one of two Hawaii 100th/442nd soldiers laid to rest in the cemetery.
He was born May 5, 1922, the son of Matsusuke and Kana Tengwan and a graduate of Honokowai and Lahainaluna High schools.
Fukuda mentioned another man who lost his life in the French campaign, Tommy Onaga of Haliimaile. In his last moments, with his best friend Charlie Ota at his side, he said, "I'm leaving my valley forever, how green was my valley then."
"Men in the prime of their lives would die in this foreign land never to return home," Fukuda said.
"Yet despite the tragedy and inhumanity of war, it was the warmth and humanity of the nisei solders toward the people of this region and the reciprocal graciousness and appreciation which these people showed to these soldiers from Hawaii that has forged a permanent bond between the people of the Vosges and Hawaii."
* Lee Imada can be reached at leeimada@mauinews.com.
