As we saw in the last section, World War II was an intense episode in
American history. The number of men leaving home as volunteers
or in the draft to go fight overseas left few able bodied men at home
to work in the factories, farms and shipyards to produce everything
needed for the war to be well fought. Imagine the number of food
supplies needing to be produced, the bullets, the rifles, airplanes,
tires, jeeps, uniforms, machine guns, helmets, submarines, battleships
and aircraft carriers. This list does not even begin to cover
all the needs of the American war effort.
Still to this time, America was very
segregated, both by race and gender. The
"place" of the women was in home and the place of people who were not
white -- was away from white people. Bt the demands and stresses
of World War II began to shuffle these cards. All of the sudden,
women were needed to go to work in the factories. African
American men, who had been kept to serving as cooks and other menial
jobs in the military (remember Dorie Miller from the Pearl Harbor
section) were needed and called upon to form special units in the
military; even to serve as fighter pilots - the most revered position
in the military!!! And American Indians, the natives of this
land were even employed to military service. Many volunteered,
from the
Indian Reservations that they and their families
had been left on generations before. And what about Japanese
Americans themselves? The group who had been targeted for
separation and removal to
internment camps across the western United States.
These men will have the chance to volunteer with other Japanese
Americans from Hawaii to form their own regiments in the Army, and
becoming some of the most decorated soldiers of the war.
The purpose of this section is to highlight some of the groups
mentioned above, and their heroic contributions to the saving of
America during World War II. These are all "minority"
groups, which means that they are obviously not in the majority.
To begin, look at the poster to the left. This poster is a
drawing known as "Rosie
the Riveter." Rosie the Riveter is a famous image
that shown throughout this time in American history as a symbol to
women to roll up their sleeves and get to work in the factories.
"We Can Do It!" was a slogan used to inspire women who were accustomed
to working in the home or in small family ventures to go outside those
realms and to join the work force. It was women showing their
strength as a sex and as Americans that would help ensure the fighting
men overseas would have everything that they needed to keep American
families safe from invading Japanese of German forces.
"In
spite of adversity and limited opportunities, African Americans have
played a significant role in U.S. military history over the past 300
years. They were denied military leadership roles and skilled training
because many believed they lacked qualifications for combat duty.
Before 1940, African Americans were barred from flying for the U.S.
military. Civil rights organizations and the black press exerted
pressure that resulted in the formation of an all African-American
pursuit squadron based in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1941. They became
known as the Tuskegee Airmen.
"Tuskegee Airmen"
refers to all who were involved in the so-called "Tuskegee
Experiment," the Army Air Corps program to train African Americans to
fly and maintain combat aircraft. The Tuskegee Airmen included pilots,
navigators, bombardiers, maintenance and support staff, instructors,
and all the personnel who kept the planes in the air.
The military
selected Tuskegee Institute to train pilots because of its commitment
to aeronautical training. Tuskegee had the facilities, and engineering
and technical instructors, as well as a climate for year round flying.
The first Civilian Pilot Training Program students completed their
instruction in May 1940. The Tuskegee program was then expanded and
became the center for African-American aviation during World War II.
The Tuskegee Airmen overcame segregation and
prejudice to become one of
the most highly respected fighter groups of World War II. They proved
conclusively that African Americans could fly and maintain
sophisticated combat aircraft. The Tuskegee Airmen's achievements,
together with the men and women who supported them, paved the way for
full
integration of the U.S.
military" (www.nps.gov).
Although the successes of the
Tuskegee Airmen did not solve the racial problems of America between
white and black, it did go a long way to paving the path to
integration of the military. The sacrifice of these men proved
to millions that skills, intelligence and patriotism are not based on
skin color.
"composed of
mainland Japanese Americans and Japanese Americans from Hawaii. It is
the 442nd that coined the motto "Go for Broke!" and upheld those words
throughout their entire time of service in
World War II.
Soon after the bombing of
Pearl Harbor,
all Japanese Americans were
reclassified
to 4-C (Enemy Alien) and were not allowed to
enlist
in the U.S. military. Even though not one case of spying or espionage
was recorded. The Japanese Americans on the West Coast were relocated
and
incarcerated
in
internment camps
which were located in various wasteland areas in the western United
States. Many of the people who were relocated were American citizens.
The Japanese Americans in Hawaii weren't subjected to this treatment
because they made up a significant portion of the local work force and
incarcerating them would have a disastrous effect on the economy.
However, in January 1943,
President Roosevelt
and the War Department decided to allow these Japanese Americans to
volunteer in an all American-Japanese regiment to fight for their
country in World War II. Although they were viewed with fear and
suspicion, these Japanese Americans stepped forward without hesitation
to serve their country.
In May 1943, approximately 1,500
volunteers from the mainland and 3,000 from Hawaii assembled for
training at
Camp Shelby,
Mississippi. They trained in the surrounding hills and swamps and in
May 1944, left for combat duty in Europe. One month later, they
arrived in Naples, Italy and later joined up with the 100th Infantry
Battalion. By this time, the 100th had been fighting for nine months
and lost over 900 men out of the 1300 that they had started with.
The troops of the 442nd Regiment fought in eight major campaigns in
Italy, France and Germany, including the battles at Belmont, Bruyeres
and Biffontaine. At Biffontaine, the unit fought perhaps its most
famous battle, the "Rescue of the Lost Battalion". In this bloody
confrontation,
the 442nd unit lost more than 800 troops to rescue 211 members of the
Texan 1st Battalion of the 141st Regiment. There were also numerous
accounts of
individuals who displayed
incredible valor
while attempting to advance their positions and rescue wounded
comrades.
In less than two years of combat, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team
earned more than 18,000
individual decorations
including one Medal of Honor, 53 Distinguished Service Crosses, 588
Silver Stars, 5,200 Bronze Star Medals, 9,486 Purple Hearts, and eight
Presidential Unit Citations (the nation's top award for combat units).
In June 2000, President Clinton awarded an additional 20 Medals of
Honor to members of the 100th Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat
Team. This was the result of a
re-examination
of the files of dozens of Japanese-American soldiers to see if any of
them might have been denied awards because of possible
prejudice.
One of these
recipients
was Hawaii's U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye, whose right arm was shattered
by a
grenade
while successfully destroying three German machine gun nests"
(www.thinkquest.org).
The video to the left
is a trailer for movie: "Only the Brave." The movie is about the 442nd
Infantry Regiment.
Navajo Code Talkers:
"Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, Iwo Jima: the Navajo code talkers took
part in every assault the U.S. Marines conducted in the Pacific from
1942 to 1945. They served in all six Marine divisions, Marine Raider
battalions and Marine parachute units, transmitting messages by
telephone and radio in their native language -- a code that the
Japanese never broke.
The idea to use Navajo for secure communications came from Philip
Johnston, the son of a missionary to the Navajos and one of the few
non-Navajos who spoke their language fluently. Johnston, reared on the
Navajo reservation, was a World War I veteran who knew of the
military's search for a code that would withstand all attempts to
decipher it. He also knew that Native American languages--notably
Choctaw--had been used in World War I to encode messages.
Johnston believed Navajo answered the military requirement for an
undecipherable code because Navajo is an unwritten language of extreme
complexity. Its syntax and tonal qualities, not to mention dialects,
make it unintelligible to anyone without extensive exposure and
training. It has no alphabet or symbols, and is spoken only on the
Navajo lands of the American Southwest. One estimate indicates that
less than 30 non-Navajos, none of them Japanese, could understand the
language at the outbreak of World War II.
Early in 1942, Johnston met with Major General Clayton B. Vogel, the
commanding general of Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet, and his staff
to convince them of the Navajo language's value as code. Johnston
staged tests under simulated combat conditions, demonstrating that
Navajos could encode, transmit, and decode a three-line English
message in 20 seconds. Machines of the time required 30 minutes to
perform the same job. Convinced, Vogel recommended to the Commandant
of the Marine Corps that the Marines recruit 200 Navajos.
In May 1942, the first 29 Navajo recruits attended boot camp. Then, at
Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California, this first group created the
Navajo code. They developed a dictionary and numerous words for
military terms. The dictionary and all code words had to be memorized
during training.
Once a Navajo code talker completed his training, he was sent to a
Marine unit deployed in the Pacific theater. The code talkers' primary
job was to talk, transmitting information on tactics and troop
movements, orders and other vital battlefield communications over
telephones and radios. They also acted as messengers, and performed
general Marine duties.
Praise for their skill, speed and accuracy accrued throughout the war.
At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer,
declared, "Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have
taken Iwo Jima." Connor had six Navajo code talkers working around the
clock during the first two days of the battle. Those six sent and
received over 800 messages, all without error.
The Japanese, who were skilled code breakers, remained baffled by the
Navajo language. The Japanese chief of intelligence, Lieutenant
General Seizo Arisue, said that while they were able to decipher the
codes used by the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps, they never cracked the
code used by the Marines. The Navajo code talkers even stymied a
Navajo soldier taken prisoner at Bataan. (About 20 Navajos served in
the U.S. Army in the Philippines.) The Navajo soldier, forced to
listen to the jumbled words of talker transmissions, said to a code
talker after the war, "I never figured out what you guys who got me
into all that trouble were saying."
In 1942, there were about 50,000 Navajo tribe members. As of 1945,
about 540 Navajos served as Marines. From 375 to 420 of those trained
as code talkers; the rest served in other capacities.
Navajo remained potentially valuable as code even after the war. For
that reason, the code talkers, whose skill and courage saved both
American lives and military engagements, only recently earned
recognition from the Government and the public" (www.history.navy.mil).
Above -- Pfc. Preston Toledo and Pfc. Frank
Toledo, Navajo cousins in a Marine artillery regiment in the South
Pacific, relay orders over a field radio in their native tongue.
The video to the left is a music
video that tells the story of the Navajo Code Breakers.
Disclaimer: All images contained
in this web-site are either personal property, or found in the public
domain. For public domain images, the image is linked to original
source. All written material is the intellectual property of the
author, unless noted by citation and written in green text.
