“The War Department announced that it would accept 4000 nisei volunteers to form a full-fledged combat team for front-line service… activated on February 1, 1943, and would consist of the 442nd Infantry Regiment… It is hard to express our emotions at this expression of faith by the President. It was as though someone had let us out of some dark place and into the sunlight again… we now had a chance to do our duty as patriotic Americans… we ran three miles to the draft board... Nearly 1000 nisei volunteered that first day... I was among the first 75.” -Daniel Inouye in his autobiography Journey to Washington, 1967
Supporters
Future Hawaii Governor Burns, Japanese American Citizens League, and some military leaders believed Nisei would fight loyally for America.
“Jack Burns wrote a letter to the newspaper declaring that he wasn’t worried at all. In his capacity as police officer, he said, and as the man charged with responsibility for civilian intelligence matters, he had yet to see or hear anything that would lessen his full faith in the loyalty of Hawaii’s Americans of Japanese descent.” -Daniel Inouye in his autobiography Journey to Washington, 1967
“The only thing I was really looking for was to create this kind of atmosphere where each individual has equal opportunity to… use that talent without discrimination for race, color, and creed.” -Hawaii Governor John Burns, 1975
(North Hawaii News, 2015)
“Mike Masaoka of the Japanese American Citizens League, leader and lobbyist… Masaoka approached the army with a proposal to form a suicide battalion of Nisei volunteers. Lest any doubt remain, they would offer their parents as hostages… When the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was formed, Masaoka became the first to volunteer and urged other Nisei to enlist as proof of their loyalty.” -Shiho Imai, History Professor, 2016
“Before they were sworn in, the Army reminded General Short that most of the ROTC students at the University were of Japanese ancestry. His reply was classic. ‘I think they are perfectly loyal . . . we should go ahead.’ … Like General Herron before him, General Short had faith and trust in these Japanese-American soldiers.” -Colonel Bert Nishimura, 442nd Veteran, 2008
Opponents
It was controversial for Nisei to fight in the U.S. military.
“I was shocked beyond expression to learn a few days ago that the Secretary of War was organizing a Jap unit in the American Army. Such a unit would not only be dangerous but it would do much to injure the morale of the men in our fighting forces and to shake the confidence of their people at home… the American people are sick and tired of this policy of pampering the Japs in these concentration camps.” -Speech by U.S. Congressman John E. Rankin of Mississippi, 2/3/1943
(Tamura, 2008)
"Members of the Congress of the United States who wanted to castrate–to sterilize, if you will–the young men of Japanese ancestry so we wouldn’t “breed like rats.” We had several United States senators who proposed that we ought to be deported after the war to some island in the Pacific and then that Pacific Island should be blown up." -Mike Masaoka of JACL National Convention in 1982
“Designed to weed out the untrustworthy Nisei soldiers and validate resistance to an all-Japanese military unit, the patriotism and dedication of the soldiers of the 100th had the opposite effect… The men of the 100th … the young Nisei had given military and political leaders more than ample reason to see the error of their earlier doubts, suspicion and prejudice.” -Douglas Sterner, author of Go For Broke, 2008
Go For Broke
Generals were immediately impressed with the 442nd living up to its “Go For Broke” motto.
“Go for broke! became the combat team motto. What did it mean? To give everything we did, everything we had; to jab every bayonet dummy as though it were a living, breathing Nazi; to scramble over an obstacle course as though our lives depended on it; to march quick-time until we were ready to drop, and then break into a trot.” -Daniel Inouye in his autobiography Journey to Washington, 1967
(Pictorial Magazine, 1951)
“Go For Broke means that you do the best what you can… you take a stand and you don’t run… don’t panic… a bullet can run faster than you.” -William Thompson, President of 442nd Veterans Club, 2016
"I cannot say, however, that their "Go For Broke" service has ever been adequately honored, but I do know that any objective appraisal of the record of this unit will place it high up in the annals of our military history… Whether in France, Italy or elsewhere, I know of no units in the American Army that fought and persevered more gallantly than did those Nisei companies and battalions." -John J. McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War