Honor Before Glory

by Scott McGaugh

  Two hundred eleven men had been rescued by the 442nd’s three battalions and their support personnel. The exact number of Japanese American soldiers killed, wounded, or missing during the mission is not known. However, one after-action report showed more than 800 442nd total casualties for the month of October. Nearly all had occurred in approximately two weeks’ fighting, beginning with the campaign to liberate towns west of the ridge and then the mission to reach Higgins’s men. Another 442nd report for the month of October shows 756 men killed or wounded in combat. For every soldier killed, 5 were wounded.

  The son of Martin Higgins, who has spent much of his life researching the mission, has written that 54 Japanese Americans were killed and 156 were wounded in reaching the 1/141. Research by the army’s 34th Division shows 52 battle deaths during the rescue mission.g If the October killed-to-wounded ratio is applied to 52 deaths, approximately 280 soldiers were wounded during the rescue mission as well, for a total of about 330 rescue-mission casualties.

  That figure is comparable to an estimate by Chaplain Yamada, who had served at aid stations, hospitals, and the 100th’s headquarters.

  Our AJA’s [Americans of Japanese ancestry] in this particular rescue mission had approximately 350 wounded in action. Two of our assault companies have only a platoon and a half left in strength. Some say it’s strange that the other two battalions of the 141st did not push so vigorously as the 442nd did. Our K Company men saw some of the 141st men run during a counterattack by the Jerries, thereby exposing them to danger. Others say that the first battalion could have fought their way out with additional supply of ammunition. In many ways, they were in better condition than our own battered battalions, for they have had less casualties and more officers and men. . . . I hope that a human story as such would bring a deeper understanding of the AJA’s spirit.24

  That burden also weighed heavy in the hearts of many who had been surrounded. “No one will ever be able to convince me that the men killed and wounded in our rescue can be justified. We should have been bypassed,” Higgins told a group of 442nd veterans more than five decades after the war. “I am not sure if I could have done what you did. To volunteer to fight for the country that took away your constitutional rights. In my lifetime, no other group was ever persecuted as badly as you were. Every one of you deserved the Distinguished Service Award.”25

  It would be another year before the entire 442nd came home. More than five decades would pass before some 442nd soldiers received the credit due to them for reaching the lost battalion.

  a In late 1944 the War Relocation Authority began allowing some Japanese American families to return to their homes. The Supreme Court was considering a case that challenged the constitutionality of the relocation program. President Roosevelt, among others, was openly discussing the merits of allowing Japanese Americans to return to the West Coast or perhaps require relocation elsewhere in the country. Some organizations in Hood River, Auburn (California), and elsewhere publicly threatened retaliation against any Japanese Americans who returned home.

  b War correspondents later reported that as many as 120 dead Germans were found in the vicinity of the lost battalion’s position.

  c In July 1945, Martin Higgins was awarded the Silver Star for his leadership. In part it reads, “Lieutenant Higgins worked tirelessly and courageously to maintain the morale of his men and, bravely exposing himself to hostile fire, directed elements of the battalion in repelling attacks. . . . [H]is courageous and resourceful leadership inspired his men and kept them well-organized and encouraged until help arrived.”

  d The 111th Combat Engineer Battalion had built four and a half miles of road through the forest that had been utilized by seven battalions, three companies of tanks, medical personnel, and an antiaircraft unit.

  e Owens had intended to join Higgins’s men before nightfall but reported that his French guide had led him the wrong way, so he could not join the 1/141 as he had intended.

  f The author could not find any newsreels showing the 1/141 personally thanking members of the 442nd. The 442nd remained on the front line when the 1/141 was transported off the ridge to waiting war correspondents and the Signal Corps.

  g The 442nd had been attached to the 34th Division in Italy prior to deployment in France.

  CHAPTER 8

  PATHS TO PEACE

  THE SMOLDERING AMERICAN TANK HAD BEEN AN EASY TARGET for the Germans in the dense forest. On November 4, medic Jim Okubo saw that an American tank had been damaged, but not destroyed. Had the crew inside been injured? There was only one way to find out. He ran toward the tank and the enemy’s small-arms fire. Others watched him dart in one direction, then another, as he approached the tank. Ricochets off the tank echoed through the forest.

  Unharmed, Okubo made himself an easy target when he pulled a wounded crewman out of the tank. But he couldn’t treat the wounded man under such heavy fire. He had only one choice. Okubo steadied his legs in the mud, ignored the rain on his face, picked up the man, and found his balance. Then, without pause, he carried the wounded soldier seventy-five yards through enemy fire back to his men. Another American soldier had been lifted out of enemy territory and delivered to a place in the wet forest that offered a chance for survival.

  AFTER REACHING HIGGINS AND HIS MEN, MOST OF THE 442ND had pushed ahead, nearly to the eastern end of the ridge, and then dug in. For four days they had expected an enemy counterattack and sent patrols out to probe enemy strength and position. Although the 1/141 had been evacuated to the rear, a significant German presence remained on the ridge, and enemy artillery pounded the 442nd’s positions. The casualty list continued to grow. So many men had been lost to enemy fire, trench foot, accidents, battle fatigue, and other causes that members of the 232nd Engineers were alerted that some of their road-building crews might have to move forward, pick up a rifle, and join the 442nd on the front line.

  On the day Okubo rescued that tank crewman, the 442nd began receiving its winter-weather gear. Overcoats and heavy jackets offered protection against the rain. Wool sweaters and heavy socks sparked hope for warmth. The seriously depleted 442nd had suffered for weeks in the cold rain and was one of the last units in the sector to receive its winter clothing, only three days before heavier snow arrived.

  For a week following the rescue of the 1/141, the 442nd stayed on the ridge, clearing out the enemy, protecting supply routes from the valley to the south, and enduring enemy artillery attacks. By now battle-weary veterans had learned to dread the artillery barrages that often came at dusk, producing more wounded.

  Men like John Tsukano struggled with not knowing if in the next split second artillery shrapnel would slam into his body. He could hear chunks of jagged steel flying through the air and slamming into the ground like buzzing bees as he lay in his slit trench. He never knew when he might be hit in the spine, head, neck, shoulders, buttocks—perhaps paralyzing or killing him. Horrific possibilities flashed through his mind after having seen others horribly wounded and then listening to them suffer at night.

  Tsukano recalled one night incident in particular. A replacement soldier who was seriously wounded lay in a trench next to Tsukano. His eyes had swollen shut, and there was nothing more the medics could do for him. In shock, he moaned through most of the night. Tsukano and the other battle veterans suspected he would die before morning. At dawn, Tsukano looked at him. He had died with his hands clasped together over this chest, as if he had been praying before he died.

  Finally, on November 8, relief came to the 442nd. No more could be asked of these Japanese Americans. The 100th was relieved by the 142nd Infantry and headed back down the ridge toward Bruyères. The following day, most of the remaining 442nd pulled out and headed for Lepanges, a French village not far from Bruyères. A hot bath, clean clothes, pay for October, a movie, hot food, and a beer ration awaited the 442nd. In less than thirty days of combat, the 442nd had lost 25 percent of its men: nine hundred officers and enlisted men.1

  Sorrow also a
waited the 442nd in the days following the men’s first bath and clean clothes in weeks. On November 11, George Sakato and the rest of the 2nd Battalion stood motionless in a corner of a snow-covered farm field, shoulder-to-shoulder, their heads slightly bowed. Their shoulders slumped under their newly issued overcoats, belts pulled tight. Helmets that had been tipped jauntily back when they had first hiked into the Vosges had been replaced by skullcaps and helmets pulled hard and square onto their heads. Vacant stares were frozen on expressionless faces. Even in the blustery winter cold, few felt the need to blink. Heavy gray clouds, full of snow, hovered at the top of leafless stands of trees bordering the field.

  Wintry sadness hung in the air. It was a day of reflection. They had come to honor eighty-two men who had been killed in recent days. Perhaps some survivors looked to those who had led them in battle to help make sense of the carnage. Colonel Virgil Miller and Lieutenant Colonel James Hanley stood in front of the men. Miller had served with some of these men back in Hawaii before the war. The quick-smiling officer who once favored ascots bore little resemblance to the man standing before them. Miller’s and Hanley’s pale faces exuded shock and exhaustion. When a chaplain ended his invocation, Miller wiped away a tear. Silent film footage of the brief ceremony did not capture the words Miller and Hanley spoke to their men following the twenty-four haunting notes of taps played by a gloved bugler. But when they concluded their comments and dismissed their men, no one looked relieved or inspired. They broke ranks, almost in slow motion, and walked back across the field’s furrows toward their quarters. After they had left, the light dimmed as snow began falling. The ghostly footprints left in the mud by the survivors who had gathered to pay their respects to the dead slowly disappeared.

  The following day Major General John Dahlquist came face-to-face with the losses suffered by the 442nd. The entire combat team had been summoned to another farm field, freshly covered in snow. Again the men stood in neat rows, bundled up and motionless. One more night’s sleep had no discernible effect on their exhaustion. Dahlquist faced the 442nd, the two white stars on the front of his helmet gleaming in the winter-gray light. Only a few hundred stood before him. He scanned the ranks before turning to Miller.

  Accounts of their exchange vary to some degree. But all witnesses agree that Dahlquist once again was angry. Hadn’t he ordered the entire 442nd to assemble so he could read its Presidential Unit Citation and pin awards on winter coats? He asked Colonel Miller why he hadn’t assembled the entire regiment. “This is all that is left of the 442nd, sir,” replied Miller.

  Some men present that day say that shock washed across the general’s face. They almost took grim solace in witnessing the exchange with Miller. Dahlquist could not ignore how much 442nd blood had been shed in the Vosges campaign in less than one month.

  Dahlquist made his comments to the assembled troops, read the citation, and then pinned awards on the lapels of young soldiers standing in motionless rows. Some looked up at the taller general with unblinking eyes when he stood in front of them. Others stared straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to Dahlquist. A few looked away. Dahlquist shook the hand of each, before moving on to the next man as an aide pulled another award for bravery out of the box he cradled in his hands.

  The implications of the 442nd’s mission to reach what became widely known as the “Lost Battalion” would not be lost. An army analysis undertaken shortly after the war was a blunt postmortem—what led to Higgins’s men becoming surrounded, how effective was Dahlquist’s command of the mission to reach them, and what price was paid by the 442nd? The mission was characterized by “a very evident lack of any clear cut plan either on the part of the regiment or the Division in the initial phase. . . . The action of the 141st Infantry in not closing all battalions in forward assembly areas in the first day of the operation is not understandable as there was no scarcity of motor transportation or hindrance by division.”2

  The analysis was equally critical of the working relationship between Dahlquist and his corps commanding officer. “At one time in the regimental command post the Corps Commander and Division Commander both made suggestions as to methods of operation that were completely unrelated.”3

  Just as damning, the entire operation was hamstrung because mountainous terrain reduced the effectiveness of tanks. Unit journals and after-action summaries delicately referred to the unavailability of armor, sometimes hinting that commanders refused to take their tanks off reinforced roads and into the waterlogged undergrowth. The analysis, however, concluded, “The use of armor was at best haphazard. . . . The major derelictions of armor were more the fault of infantry in not understanding and planning with armor than it was a lack of aggressiveness on the part of the armor.”4

  Of all the battalions used to reach Higgins’s men, the postbattle analysis praised the 442nd in particular. “No mention of this operation can be complete without words of praise for the splendid work of the Japanese American (442nd Infantry) Regimental Combat Team. The spirit of cooperation with the units of the 36th Division, the aggressive, determined and relentless drive of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, was in a large measure responsible, not only for the relief of the 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry but for the success of the entire operation.”5

  After the lightning advance north from southern France in a few weeks, the 36th Division advanced only ten miles over the next month following the events of the last week in October.

  ON CHRISTMAS EVE, GEORGE SAKATO; JIM OKUBO; LIEUTENANT Colonels Hanley, Pursall, and Singles; and the rest of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team looked forward to a hot turkey dinner near Nice, France. Colonel Charles Pence had recovered from his wounds and returned to command the 442nd as it established a defensive position in the Maritime Alps on the France-Italy border.

  The 442nd had been reassigned to southern France and left the Vosges Mountains on November 19. The regiment had suffered 261 additional casualties in the first two weeks of November before the ridge was finally cleared of Germans. According to the 442nd October and November operations reports, 856 men had been killed or wounded in battle during the Vosges campaign. The 442nd required a relatively modest convoy of about forty trucks to transport the remainder of the regiment to southeastern France.

  In the French Alps they had dug in for the winter, guarding the extreme right flank of the Sixth Army. The 442nd had been temporarily assigned to this backwater of the war where minimal enemy action was expected. Patrols periodically engaged the enemy, and Germans sometimes fired artillery from Italy across the border into the 442nd. However, the battered 442nd was to rest, recover, and assimilate hundreds of replacements into its thinned ranks. The assignment became known as the “Champagne Campaign.”

  Higgins’s men were given only a few days’ rest before they were sent back to the front line in the Vosges Mountains to join the push toward Germany.

  THE MOST THAT MARTIN HIGGINS COULD HOPE FOR ON CHRISTMAS Eve when he arrived in Szubin, Poland, was a Red Cross package that hadn’t already been looted by his German guards. Higgins was a prisoner of war. He and seventy-seven others, the entire Company A, 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry, had been captured in the Alsace two weeks earlier. In the five weeks since the 442nd had broken through to the 1/141, Higgins’s Company A had advanced about twenty miles.

  In early December the American offensive had reached the eastern side of the Vosges. A number of towns and villages in the remaining Vosges foothills were in their path toward the Rhine River and the German border. On December 9 Higgins’s unit approached the outskirts of Sigolsheim, a battered village of largely vacant buildings by that point in the war. He opted to consolidate his men in the small town rather than fight a larger enemy force supported by tanks in the foothills. Then, similar to the episode on the ridge, the battle plan unraveled.

  Company B, led by Higgins’s friend Lieutenant Harry Huberth, took “friendly fire” from American units, suffering unexpected casualties. Huberth wasn’t able to protect Higgins’s left flank
, as Higgins had expected. Dating back to their days as cavalry soldiers in California, Higgins had always been able to rely on Huberth. Also, for unknown reasons, Company C had never left the line of departure, making Higgins’s other flank vulnerable. Finally, a communications team that was expected to lay wire from battalion headquarters to Higgins’s position never appeared. Higgins had to use runners to reach battalion headquarters at a time when he couldn’t spare a single man. His company once again had become the isolated spearhead, virtually surrounded, and in danger of being destroyed.

  On December 10, the Germans swept one house clear after another until they reached Higgins and his men, who had been herded into the southwest corner of the village. Enemy fire pounded the house Higgins had commandeered. Shrapnel from a German tank hit Higgins in the knee. He maintained command from an upstairs bed. By midafternoon Company A was surrounded and nearly out of ammunition. Higgins made the only decision he could: surrender his men to the Germans so they could take their chances in a prisoner-of-war camp somewhere in Germany or farther east.

  Higgins’s enlisted men were sent to one POW camp in Germany, while Higgins and his officers were shipped to the officers-only section of Oflag 64 in Poland. When he arrived, perhaps there was a Red Cross Christmas package or two still unopened. If so, it would contain plum pudding, boned turkey, deviled ham, small sausages, strawberry jam, candy, cheddar cheese, nuts, canned cherries, and twelve bouillon cubes. A few personal items would include chewing gum, playing cards, cigarettes, tobacco, a pipe, a washcloth, and two postcards of American scenes.