A Good Time To Remember Our `Uncommon Patriots'

ON the walls of a hall on South King Street, they are remembered. A continent away, in Bruyeres, France, they are not forgotten.

They are America's "Uncommon Patriots" - the men of the Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

These were soldiers fighting for a country that had interned most of them - sacrificing life for a government holding their parents, brothers and sisters behind barbed wire.

The 442nd emerged from World War II as the most decorated military unit for its size and length of service in U.S. military history.

On Oct. 22 of 1944, the Japanese-American 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team freed the Nazi-held town of Bruyeres in Southern France.

For 50 years, Bruyeres has remained grateful.

Bruyeres' Jeanne Rupp was fascinated as her parents told her tales of the bravery of the Japanese-American liberators. She is a school teacher who keeps the connection alive with each new group of students.

Next Wednesday, Rupp and her daughter, Isabelle, will be guests of about 25 Seattle-area Nisei (second-generation) veterans, plus wives and relatives, at Seattle's Four Seas restaurant. Rupp hopes many veterans of the 442nd can return to Bruyeres for a 50th reunion Oct. 22.

The 442nd paid a heavy price in lives to fight through the Vosges Mountains to liberate Bruyeres, Biffontaine and Belmont, then rescue "The Lost Battalion" - a unit of 800 Texans trapped behind German lines.

When World War II ended, 56 Japanese-Americans from this state had given their lives - mostly in France and Italy.

They are remembered in a photo exhibit at the Nisei Veterans Committee Memorial Hall at 1212 S. King St. - along with other Washington Japanese-Americans who died in the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War and the invasion of Grenada.

Names like John Hashimoto, Masami Inatsu, John Kanazawa, Yoshio Kato, Masao "Horse" Ikeda - all killed in action in France. They are appropriately called "Uncommon American Patriots" in a booklet compiled by Francis Fukuhara, former Nisei Veterans Committee commander.

Those who survived World War II - men now mostly in their 70s and 80s - keep the memory of Bruyeres alive.

Joe Nakatsu, 74, is one of them.

When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Nakatsu went straight to the Army recruiting office here to sign up. He was Seattle's last Japanese-American allowed to volunteer. An order came through that they could no longer be accepted. Later, in 1943, internees were allowed to join the Army.

Nakatsu's family and friends were rounded up and sent to internment camps in Idaho, California, Utah and Arizona.

Nakatsu's father, Jintaro, was very active in the Japanese community. It was decided he should be sent further away - to Posten, Ariz., while his mother, Kanoye, was sent to Minidoka in Idaho, along with his brother Sam and sisters Aiko and Yoshiko.

Time has taught us the shame of internment of Japanese-American citizens. What is difficult to understand is the intense patriotism despite this treatment. Was Nakatsu or those he served with in the 442nd bitter?

"No," he said. "Everybody wanted to prove their loyalty."

Nakatsu, a retired federal General Services Administration official who now manages the Nisei hall and runs a lunch program there for senior citizens, was a member of Company E of the 442nd.

One of his fellow foot soldiers in France was Hawaii's U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, who later lost his right arm to a German grenade in Italy. Inouye, when in Seattle, drops by the hall to renew his old friendship with Nakatsu and others.

Nakatsu returned to Bruyeres in 1984 for a 40th reunion. Others in Company E went back this July for a 50th reunion.

Much has changed since he was a young soldier advancing on Bruyeres through heavy German mortar fire that burst trees and rained wood and shrapnel.

"I remember the trees were all gone on the hill leading to town," Nakatsu said. "Now they've all grown back."

Time heals. The loyalty of our "Uncommon American Patriots" - the Japanese-Americans who served in the 442nd - cannot be questioned. The people of Bruyeres never did. No one ever should have.

Don Hannula's column appears Thursday on editorial pages of The Times.