19, Hills A and B had fallen, and the nisei had entered Bruyeres. The one good thing I recall is that our kitchen crew brought us hot meals on several occasions.”īy Oct. “A mortar barrage hit our squad where we were dug in, and the man in the hole next to me died.

“The first day, our platoon got hit by artillery and 20 guys were wounded,” Stan Izumigawa, who lives on Maui and served in A Company of the 100th Battalion, told me by e-mail. They approached Bruyeres from the west on Oct. The 100th Battalion was added to the 442nd when the newer unit reached Italy in the summer of 1944, battling up the boot and into occupied France. Army to recruit more nisei - 2,600 from Hawaii and 800 from mainland internment camps - who became the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The 100th Battalion - known as One Puka Puka - fought at Monte Cassino in Italy and lost more than half its men in five months of combat. But the Vosges mountains lay at Germany’s doorstep, and Hitler had ordered his troops to die before letting the Allies cross the Rhine River.īy the time the 442nd moved into the area, nisei soldiers already had distinguished themselves, especially those in the 100th Infantry Battalion, made up largely of Japanese American volunteers from Hawaii intent on proving their loyalty to the U.S. In hindsight, it seems clear that the Third Reich was doomed by the fall of ’44. They have names but were simply known as Hills A, B, C and D to the men of the 442nd, who fought for them during one of the most epic struggles in American military history. In “Unlikely Liberators: The Men of the 100th and 442nd,” by Masayo Umezawa Duus and Peter Duus, unit chaplain Masao Yamada said the landscape reminded him of the region around Nara, north of Tokyo.įour wooded hillocks hem in Bruyeres on the west, north and east. The D423 highway winds between the two towns, following the Vologne River, passing through tiny forest-enveloped villages built around a farm or chateau that could have come out of a fairy tale by Charles Perrault. |a JSTOR Electronic access restricted to Villanova University patrons.When I made my trip in August, I stayed 20 miles southeast in Gerardmer, which has more tourist facilities than Bruyeres.

After extensive research and interviews, she tells her tale through the voices of many: generals, privates, mothers, sons, Germans, French, issei, nisei, draftees, volunteers, kotonks, and buddhaheads. Masayo Duus has written a book that is truly remarkable, not because it so effectively affirms this lesson once more, but because she manages to tell so much more. |a The Japanese-American soldiers not only won a victory over the enemy abroad but over prejudice and injustice at home. |a Includes bibliographical references and index. |c by Masayo Umezawa Duus translated by Peter Duus.

Unlikely Liberators by Masayo Duus