Honor before Glory

NONFICTION

Slighted heroes

Honor before Glory
By Scott McGaugh
304 pp. Da Capo

Reviewed by William C. Crawford

American exceptionalism often plays out through our sordid treatment of our most loyal but vulnerable citizens. The US under attack often creates opportunity for our wrongly maligned patriots to erase, without doubt, any question as to their commitment to America.

The imprisonment of solid Japanese-American citizens during World War II is now a well-known if seamy chapter in our history. I recently visited the museum at the windswept former internment camp in California known as Manzanar. One of the most telling if ironic features on exhibit there were the faded photos of young Japanese-American GIs in uniform returning to Manzanar to visit their captive parents.

The heroic stories of Nisei soldiers in the European theater and Burma are only recently an emerging theme in the annals of World War II history. Honor before Glory brings long overdue light to the little known heroism of Japanese-American youth battling the Nazis in the mountaintop forests of eastern France.

Scott McGaugh has produced a highly readable, well documented narrative about the much-decorated 442nd Regimental Combat Team which paradoxically featured Nisei soldiers commanded by round-eyed American officers. The book is concise, well-illustrated, and it offers a vivid account of the perilous rescue of a “lost” American battalion surrounded by Germans during the Allies’ push toward Berlin in the fall of 1944.

McGaugh does an excellent job of meshing the battle narrative with the personal backstories and exploits of a few of the Nisei heroes. Some died during this daring rescue attempt while others survived to eventually unlock chilling oral narratives about this long overlooked combat saga.

The veterans of the 442nd returned home as heroes to a hostile, conflicted America that often treated them more like lepers than patriots. My own less than welcoming return from Vietnam paled in comparison to the indignities heaped upon the young warriors of the 442^nd.

These vets were denied services in barbershops and restaurants, and most were not afforded membership in the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Employment opportunities were severely proscribed with many well-educated Japanese-Americans being forced into lower paid occupations such as gardeners and landscapers.

The irony of their mistreatment is that the soldiers of the 442^nd were the most decorated unit of their size in World War II. Also, the unit suffered the highest per capita American casualty rate due to the onerous missions to which they were assigned.

They were awarded more than 18,000 decorations for valor, including 21 Medals of Honor. These awards came about in a military structure that was far from supportive of their Nisei comrades in arms. President Obama only recently upgraded some of the then grudgingly awarded Silver Stars to Medals of Honor.

The real strength of this book is the impeccable narrative describing the nearly impossible rescue of the lost Americans battalion told through the eyes of 3-4 Nisei heroes. McGaugh combed through more than 100 oral accounts by Japanese-American grunts and their Anglo officers. The vivid tale told through the riveted eyes of these unlikely GIs makes for chilling reading. This book offers up considerable potential for a cinema rendition.

The volume drives home a recurrent theme from American warfare. The Tuskeegee Airmen and the Navajo Code Talkers come quickly to mind. In times of national emergency, some of our most persecuted citizens step forward to serve heroically beside our best and bravest. However, their sacrifices often are quickly forgotten in favor of a virulent American exceptionalism embodied in nativist prejudices and misguided contempt for other human beings. Arab-American GIs are now discovering this pathological tendency once again.

William C. Crawford is a former combat photojournalist in Vietnam. His essay about Japanese internment, “Shedding a Tear for America,” is included in his new book, Just Like Sunday on the Farm, available on Amazon.com.