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"Retiring The Colors"
The Long Road Home
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Many of the young soldiers of the 522d Field Artillery Battalion had come to the 442nd after enlisting at relocation camps in the Western United States. Many Japanese-Americans who then populated the camps, as indeed do many even today, disliked the term "Relocation Camp". The hastily constructed facilities were laid out in a militaristic fashion with spartan surroundings. Around the camp was barbed wire and gun towers. While the government exercised great caution in censorship of the photographs taken of the camps, occasionally an embarrassing photo surfaced. Every effort had been expended to screen out photos that showed the Japanese interred there in the presence of army guards. But the fact remained, and a few uncensored photos proved, that these American citizens were indeed under armed guard. For all practical intents and purposes, these relocation camps were actually America's version of Concentration Camps.
As the Allied advance moved swiftly into the heart of Germany, the soldiers of the 522d once again saw similar facilities, spartan camps laid out in military fashion and surrounded by barbed wire and gun towers. The Nisei were among the first to enter the gates of the Dachau concentration camp where some of the most grotesque and inhumane medical experiments of the war were performed on living human beings...most of them Jewish. The liberation of Dachau provided a picture most of the Nisei would never forget, one that haunted them in their dreams. Under orders not to share supplies as the war was still in progress, the Nisei could not ignore the pleas of the human skeletons that paraded thankfully before them. As the Nisei handed out food from their own packs, sympathetic officers looked the other way. Sometimes, the heart demanded that one ignore orders and do what is right. Sadly, too many German soldiers had never learned this lesson, and the horrors of Dachau provided ample proof to attest to this fact.
For the 522d's Central Europe Campaign from March 22 to May 11, 1945, the 552d Field Artillery Battalion added yet another Presidential Unit Citation to the incredible record of the 442d Regimental Combat Team. Shortly after the liberation of Dachau, the unit returned to Italy to join the rest of their team.
Over the next fourteen months the 442nd remained in Italy to direct much of the post-war effort. Many of their duties after the May 9, 1945 German surrender was the guarding of prisoners of war. Immediately after the war ended, nearly 200 combat veterans of the 100th/442d (including 4 officers), volunteered for the MIS (now called MISLS - Military Intelligence Service Language School) in order to serve in the Pacific. Before the summer came to an end however, the Japanese surrendered. With the historic signing aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor on September 2, 1945, all World War II hostilities had terminated.
Without battles to wage, the focus of the Nisei unit changed. During the training phases for both the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442d RCT in the days before combat, the Nisei units had stood out for their military professionalism, pride, and military bearing. Now, in the months before the expected return home, the unit turned once again to close-order drills, spit-shines, starch, and inspections. In the early months of 1946, the emphasis increased to an even greater pitch. Not only was the 442d Regimental Combat Team going home, they were to be the ONLY returning military unit to date to be received by the President of the United States.
On July 16, 1946 the proud Nisei of the 100th Infantry Battalion/442d Regimental combat team marched proudly down Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC. It was a festive day, more than 10,000 citizens braving the rain to watch the return of the most decorated unit of World War II, perhaps the most decorated in American military history.
Dignitaries and military officials abounded. The War Department and other Federal agencies gave employees special time off to witness the return of the Nisei. The proud "Go For Broke" regiment marched up Constitution to the White House lawn where they met their Commander in Chief. As the proud young soldiers stood rigidly at attention, the President removed his hat and placed it over his heart as he passed in review. Then he presented the unit with its SEVENTH Presidential Unit Citation. As he looked out over the proud, young faces of the Japanese-American soldiers, he spoke proudly of their service.
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Following the heraldic reception in our Nation's Capitol, veterans of the 100th/442d began returning home. In August the 442d Regimental Combat Team was demobilized and inactivated. The lineage and honors have been preserved by the 100th Battalion, 442d Infantry (U.S. Army Reserve).
