Colorado’s Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, announced last week that he has introduced legislation to rename the Denver Post Office Stockyards Station after a World War II Medal of Honor recipient named Pvt. George T. Sakato. It was an excellent choice and a welcome reminder of two related episodes in American history that should not be forgotten.
It is a story of bigotry and injustice directed at a group of Americans singled out for their looks and last names – and the incredible courage with which members of that group responded. It was an episode that all Americans should understand with both pride and regret.
In the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States labeled Japanese-American men as enemy aliens. Then, in early 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the exclusion and removal of any and all people from a military area. What was then called the War Department then designated the entire West Coast a military area and more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans were hauled off to detention camps where most were held until the war’s end.
They were men, women and children. The vast majority had not done anything to warrant such treatment and two-thirds were natural-born American citizens. Many lost property as a result of their captivity.
There were nine detention camps in seven different states. One was the Granada Relocation Center (also called Camp Amache) near Granada, Colo., in the Arkansas River Valley some 20 miles east of Kansas. And while these evidenced nothing like the horrific conditions discovered in places such as Dachau or Auschwitz, they were in fact concentration camps.
The response from Japanese-Americans to such mistreatment was patriotic and heroic. In February of 1943, the U.S. government reversed its policy forbidding Japanese-Americans from serving in the military. One of the results was the creation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team – George Sakato’s outfit.
The 442nd fought in Italy, France and Germany. They were banned from fighting in the Pacific Theater, although no similar restriction was placed on Americans of German or Italian ancestry. And, over the course of the war, some 14,000 men served in the unit.
All told, the Japanese-Americans of the 442nd were awarded multiple Presidential Unit Citations, 560 Silver Stars, 4,000 Bronze Stars, a dozen Croi de Guerre and more than 9,000 Purple Hearts. One component of the 442nd took so many casualties it was nicknamed the “Purple Heart Battalion.”
Twenty-one men of the 442nd – including Sakato – received the Medal of Honor. Adjusting for its size and length of service, it was the most decorated unit in American history.
And all that happened while those men’s families were imprisoned back home.
Sen. Gardner is right to recognize such service – and to indirectly acknowledge the United States’ shameful treatment of loyal Americans. Plus, he is in good company. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill giving each surviving internee $20,000 – and an apology.
As to the hysteria in 1942, the website www.history.com says that during World War II, there were 10 Americans convicted of spying for Japan. None were of Japanese ancestry.
