Honor Before Glory

by Scott McGaugh

  It’s unlikely anyone in the 1/141 knew the leading edge of the 442nd remained more than a mile from their position. Higgins knew there was at least one major German roadblock at Col des Huttes that lay in the 442nd’s path. He probably didn’t know about a second roadblock at Col de la Croisette that would delay the rescuers. Blasting their way through both would cost more lives.

  The forest dimmed into a darkened haze of trees and underbrush just before dusk. That’s when they heard them, the now familiar growl of approaching aircraft on the other side of the clouds. Another food-drop attempt? Ten aircraft from the 405th were over Higgins’s position at 1630. The pilots looked for the slightest break in the clouds. Where is that goddamn arrow they told us about?

  Suddenly, some of the largest limbs snapped in the canopy above Higgins’s men, startling sharp breaks that sounded almost like gunshots. What the hell? There! A 150-gallon bullet-shaped auxiliary tank slammed into the ground, a shredded red parachute settling on it a few seconds later. More limbs cracking. Everyone looked up. They were being bombed by Americans! The 405th had found them! In a matter of minutes, a flock of auxiliary tanks pierced the cloud cover. Some plowed straight into the mud. Others caromed off logs and rocks, splitting open. A few parachutes remained high up in the trees after their tanks had broken free on their way toward the foxholes. Other tanks landed farther off in German territory, but no one cared. They’re here! “Planes successful. Keep them coming,” Blonder radioed the 141st’s command post.10

  James Comstock and Peter Bondar knew someone had to get the parachutes and at least one suspended tank out of the trees because they would give the Germans a more precise location of the 1/141. The last thing Higgins wanted was more accurate German artillery. Not when his men finally might have something to eat, his medics would have supplies for the wounded, and Erwin Blonder would have fresh batteries. Once Comstock and Bondar had eaten their first field ration in days, they climbed one hundred feet up the trees under enemy fire to the fluttering parachutes and yanked them to the ground. The parachutes were shredded into small strips as souvenirs. Comstock, the farm boy who could take care of himself in the woods, was awarded the Bronze Star for retrieving them.

  It had been a calculated risk, asking to be bombed with auxiliary fuel tanks. Had any hit a soldier, he would have been instantly killed. Several tanks broke apart on impact, their contents flying as shrapnel through the forest. Bond remembered one man being killed by a can of cheese that hit him in the chest. A family’s son who had survived the horrors of combat, the loss of mangled friends, miserable weather, and being surrounded had been killed by a can of processed cheese.

  Men stayed in their positions, and some returned to deepened foxholes that now resembled caverns covered with fresh-cut limbs. Some were up to six inches in diameter. Some men had used penknives as primitive saws to cut stout limbs and then gently lowered them to the ground in a blanket. Silence kept the Germans from knowing precise foxhole locations.

  The next “attack” by American forces could be even more deadly. Minutes after the 405th’s aircraft left the area, American artillery again fired resupply shells at Higgins’s position. This time there would be no warning and no parachutes to slow impact. “If they [the shells] hit you, they’d kill you. But we decided to take a chance. We figured, if you don’t get hit, you eat. We’d had no food for five days and were desperate,” Higgins said later.11

  Once again, the artillery shells from the 131st Field Artillery Battalion were off target. Cunningham and others heard the first one hit the forest floor, too far away to retrieve, but it didn’t matter. It was a smoke shell. “Reduce range by two hundred yards.” The next shell burst closer to the 1/141, but still too far away. Another reduction in range. Closer. Finally, after six rounds, a shell landed on the 1/141’s position. Nine more quickly followed, mostly filled with D rations. Some slammed into the mud too deep to extract, their timed fuses set a split second too long. Others exploded in the tree canopy, raining chocolate bars onto the 1/141.

  As much as he already respected his troops, Higgins was flabbergasted at their discipline when food and supplies finally arrived. “The Joes were as excited as kids at a Christmas party. They’d stayed in their holes while shells and airborne rations were falling and then went out in small armed groups with blankets to bring the stuff to our central distributing point. Hungry as they were, it was actually amazing to see them carrying rations back without so much as nibbling a cracker or a chocolate bar until the food was distributed all around.”12

  After all the supplies were collected, a precise inventory was conducted, so Higgins and the other lieutenants could devise a plan to make them last as long as possible. The intrepid pilots of the 405th had perhaps forged a turning point in the race to reach Higgins’s men. If pilots like Eliel Archilla and others could deliver more supplies, the 1/141’s odds of hanging on would improve immeasurably. Archilla was typical of many pilots. He had tried to join the navy before his eighteenth birthday and was turned away. When he was old enough, his boyhood love of flying inspired him to volunteer for the air corps.

  For the first time in five days, more than two hundred men had a small cache of food. “Aircraft and artillery did wonderful job. Every man thanks every [commanding officer] from bottom of heart,” Higgins radioed.13 Spirits soared within the perimeter. Bond now believed the American army was on its way to relieve the 1/141. Higgins looked across the foxholes. The darkness couldn’t hide smiles that reminded him of Christmas morning.

  Ingenuity, courage, and devotion to duty by the crews of the 405th Fighter Squadron one hundred miles away had made those smiles possible. The fighter squadron and supporting personnel had delivered two critical loads of cargo to the 1/141: food and hope. Perhaps not enough of either, but at least meaningful contact had been made with Higgins’s men. The 405th’s feat bought the 1/141st critical time. But now the Germans would be ready for the following day’s rescue flights. Young men strapping themselves into cockpits would know the skies above the Vosges foothills would be filled with shrapnel meant for them.

  ALTHOUGH HUNGER HAD BEEN BEATEN BACK BY THE AIR AND artillery missions, frustration, inadequate communication, and outright anger ruled a few miles to the west. When Dahlquist was told the 1/141 had secured only some of the shells and tanks delivered to them, his response was blunt: “Tell them to search for the rest of supplies tonight.”14 Reports from the front line continued to anger him.

  Telephone lines throughout the forest between units on the front line and the regimental and divisional command posts had been cut, likely by artillery shrapnel. Night had fallen with Dahlquist and his divisional operations, intelligence, and supply officers having only a vague idea of unit location, casualty numbers, and supply status. The latest battlefield report, an hour old, stated that the 100th had progressed a short distance. Company K had been unable to advance and suffered heavy casualties. The 100th and 3rd Battalions were on the edge of a German minefield. Dahlquist called for a situation report from the 141’s 2nd Battalion.

  “Patrols from E and C Company are out. G contacted patrol from 442,” replied the 2/141’s radio operator.

  “Is that the patrol I had them send out?” asked Dahlquist.

  “I think so. They said they had 10 PWs [prisoners of war].”

  “The hell they have. Can you get the ground I want?” Once again, Dahlquist was losing his patience. He wanted reports of significant advancement, not speculation from the front line.

  “It is rather obscure now.”

  “Have you contact with F Company, 143rd?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think you can get your people in hand now?” Dahlquist barked.

  “Yes sir.”15

  Minutes later, he was in a jeep, left his division’s headquarters, and headed for the front line to see for himself. Shortly thereafter, he called back to divisional operations officer Lieutenant Colonel Fred Sladen. Dahlquist was apoplectic after inspecting the front line.
“I personally saw the two battalions of the 442nd Infantry advance six hundred to seven hundred yards. Location reports we had were [a] joke. Exact coordinate locations I do not know. I saw Adams’ company [143rd Regiment] and it was not where reported. Tell Colonel Adams. I will be here for some time yet.”16 Now Dahlquist was issuing personal frontline status reports to his support personnel, who passed them on to the commanding officers of the other regiments.

  Apparently, Dahlquist’s report infuriated Colonel Paul DeWitt Adams, commanding officer of the 143rd Infantry Regiment. Adams could not have been more of a polar opposite to Dahlquist. His cold stare and leathery face could melt his subordinates. Those who grew to respect him cautiously called him “Old Stone Face” when out of earshot. He was tough and direct and didn’t tolerate nonsense. His approach to combat was as brutal as it could appear to be callous: “The man who creates the most violence in a military situation is the one who will win,” he believed.17

  When Adams learned of Dahlquist’s report from the front line, he unloaded on Pence’s 442nd operations officer:

  F Company did not fight today and I went there and I found that they are not where reported. The General will have to find out where they are even if he has to go up to the front and find out. I had a report that they (141) were never on the nose [point of attack]. I went up there and found that none of the regiment was fighting. If the General doesn’t find out the right information, I’ll have him busted and the company commanders will have to go up to the front and give the right info.18

  It was a remarkable public outburst over the radio: the commanding officer of a regiment threatening to have his immediate superior officer, a general who commanded a division, “busted.”

  Only six days earlier, Lieutenant Colonel Hanley had complained to Pence that it was Adams’s 143rd that had refused to support Hanley’s 2nd Battalion if a firefight broke out. If unity of command was a multiplier of battlefield strength, as army officers had been taught, the fractured command of the 36th threatened to become as deadly an enemy of Higgins as the Germans. Nerves were frayed and marginal levels of confidence among senior officers were crumbling at various command posts, while Kuwayama, Okubo, and the other medics in slit trenches and aid stations faced an endless stream of bloodstained litters and parades of limping wounded.

  When the forest calmed on the front line, men in command posts in the rear worked long into the night, collecting the latest intelligence; resupplying, transporting, and treating the more seriously wounded; assessing situation reports; sorting out inconsistent information; and devising the next day’s battle plan. Although Higgins’s men had eaten for the first time in days, they were still critically short of other supplies. At 2227 Higgins radioed that he had been able to collect only rations from the airdrops and artillery shells. He still needed medical supplies, batteries, more food, and ammunition. Once again, he added what had become the standard postscript to nightly transmissions: “Hope to see friends tomorrow.”

  While logistics personnel planned the next day’s missions, Dahlquist offered a bribe to the 442nd. He called the 442nd’s command post, asking for a situation report, and ordered a flanking attack on the Germans closest to Higgins. The 442nd’s signals officer asked for clarification of the objective. Dahlquist left no doubt in the exchange that he was concerned about more than Higgins’s plight:

  “Drive the Jerries out, rescue 1st Battalion, and drive Jerry south of ridge. Your objective really is that ridge and push out to the south. What about the platoon for tonight?”

  “We will send one.”

  “We want to find out where Jerry flank is. There is a chance they have an undefended area and our 1st Battalion can get out. I want to talk to you before you send out the patrol. You need a good man and if he can get out that 1st Battalion he can have a DSC [Distinguished Service Cross]. You personally interview the man who is going.”19

  The official record isn’t clear on how Dahlquist thought Higgins could evacuate his men after Higgins had told him repeatedly that he lacked the firepower and the ability to transport his wounded off the ridge.

  Many Japanese American business owners faced boycotts and violence in the months following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Library of Congress

  Internment camps were hastily constructed in some of America’s most-desolate terrain in the months following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Library of Congress

  Thousands of interned families sent sons to war. Here the Yonemitsu family at the Manzanar Relocation Center honors a son fighting in Europe. War Relocation Authority

  Ansel Adams photographed Corporal Jimmie Shohara when Shohara visited his parents at the Manzanar Relocation Center. Shohara served in the Military Intelligence Service. Library of Congress

  Japanese American soldiers were filmed at Camp Shelby as part of War Relocation Authority newsreels shown in movie theaters that justified internment of their families. National Park Service

  The 442nd’s troops, particularly the volunteers from Hawaii, generally detested the living conditions at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. U.S. Army

  Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Singles, commanding officer of the 100th Battalion. U.S. Army

  Automatic rifleman Barney Hajiro. U.S. Army

  Medic Jim Okubo

  Major General John Dahlquist, commanding officer of the 36th Infantry Division. U.S. Army

  General Friedrich Wiese, commanding officer of the Germans’ Nineteenth Army.

  Command posts were primitive, cold, and temporary in the Vosges Mountains. U.S. Army

  Steep hillsides were made more dangerous by constant rain, slick rocks, moss, and a dug-in enemy. U.S. Army

  A fluid battlefield relied on a variety of signs that directed troops to temporary command posts and warned them of enemy mine fields. U.S. Army

  Unlike combat in Italy, the Vosges forests were so dense that mortars were ineffective so some crews were reassigned as scouts and infantrymen. U.S. Army

  The ideal foxhole in the Vosges was deep enough to accommodate a roof of logs packed with mud. It protected against shrapnel and effectively concealed a soldier’s position. U.S. Army

  Soldiers slept in hand-dug slit trenches which offered modest protection against enemy shrapnel. U.S. Army

  The few trails and logging roads in the Vosges often forced the 442nd into positions that were exposed to German artillery. U.S. Army

  Only one logging road extended the length of the ridge, forcing the 442nd to advance and fight through a treacherous forest. Photo by author

  Artillery crews relied on forward observers on the front line to direct artillery fi re to within fi fty yards of 442nd troops. U.S. Army

  Men wounded in battle were taken to primitive aid stations such as this for life-saving triage before they were transported to a field hospital in the rear. U.S. Army

  Radioman Erwin Blonder. U.S. Army

  Yohei Sagami was killed the day the 442nd entered combat in France on October 15, 1944. He died in George Sakato’s arms. Courtesy Barbara Berthiaume

  Private Terry Cato was one of thousands of 442nd soldiers who were wounded in combat in only two years’ fighting in Italy and France. U.S. Army

  General Paul DeWitt Adams, at the time a colonel and commanding officer of the 143rd Infantry Regiment, threatened to have General Dahlquist “busted” during the rescue mission. U.S. Army

  Medic Jimmie Kanaya chose to stay with wounded soldiers and become a German prisoner, rather than escape into the forest. U.S. Army

  In 1948 Saburo Tanamachi and Fumitake Nagato became the first two Japanese American soldiers to be buried at the Arlington National Cemetery. U.S. Army

  Robert Allan Booth died while trying to drop supplies to the 1/141 by air. Future missions were successful, days after the surrounded troops had exhausted their food supply. U.S. Army

  Lieutenant Eliel Archilla led one of the successful resupply missions by air. He had been trained as a glider pilot and had flown P-51 Mustangs earlier in the war. Courtes
y Elliot Archilla

  Major John Leonard was mistakenly shot down by an American anti-aircraft vehicle after trying to drop supplies onto the lost battalion. Courtesy Michael Higgins

  This photo was taken the day the 442nd reached the 1/141. These men had held off the Germans for a week. Courtesy Michael Higgins

  Army photographer Lieutenant Harold Valentine captured the exhaustion of men who had been surrounded for a week. U.S. Army

  Martin Higgins (left) is greeted by members of the Signal Corps the day after the 442nd reached his men. U.S. Army

  The relief was evident on members of the surrounded battalion after Mutt Sakumoto and the 442nd reached them. U.S. Army

  Exhausted soldiers who had been rescued the day before wait to be driven to the rear. U.S. Army

  After they were relieved some men of the 1/141 walked off the ridge along the same logging road they had used a week earlier. U.S. Army

  President Harry Truman saluted the 442nd as part of its seventh Presidential Unit Citation ceremony, earned when it broke through the Germans’ Gothic Line in Italy. U.S. Army