Background On the morning of 7 December 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, marking the beginning of
World War II for the United States. After the attack,
Japanese Americans and those of Japanese descent faced prejudice at home. Chaos ensued in the hours that followed the Pearl Harbor attack, but the 298th and 299th Hawaii National Guard prepared for an invasion, cleared the rubble, donated their blood, and aided the wounded. However, three days after the attack, the unit's rifles were stripped from them because of the ethnicity of members; eventually those rifles were returned. At 11:30 a.m. martial law was declared, and Governor
Joseph Poindexter told President
Franklin D. Roosevelt that his greatest fear was sabotage by the large Japanese population in Hawaii. The FBI rounded up known Japanese sympathizers, Buddhist priests, language school principals and teachers, civic and business leaders, fishermen, and instructors of Judo and related martial arts. The War Department reassigned soldiers of Japanese ancestry on the mainland, had all Japanese Americans on the West Coast rounded up and placed in
internment camps around the U S, discharged those of Japanese descent from the Hawaii Territorial Guard, and had all Japanese Americans reclassified as 4-C: enemy aliens. General
Delos Carleton Emmons, appointed military governor on 17 December, supported placing Japanese Americans in internment camps and having them reclassified as enemy aliens, but he wanted to give them a chance to prove their patriotism. After General Emmons agreed to let the Varsity Victory Volunteers form, a confidential memo was sent to the War Department in early April 1942 stating that 2,000 Japanese American soldiers served, and many more who wished to serve to demonstrate their loyalty to the United States. Their desire was to organize into a fighting force to be sent to Europe or Africa to fight the Germans and Italians, but the request was later denied by the War Department.
Formation As the
Battle of Midway was well underway on 4 June 1942, 1,432 Nisei of the Hawaii National Guard boarded the U.S. Army transport USAT , formerly a
Matson liner, under the cover of night and were shipped to the mainland without saying goodbye to their family or loved ones. Under the title "Hawaiian Provisional Infantry Battalion" the week-long zigzag journey took them to a port in
Oakland where they were designated the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate) on 12 June 1942. The unit number was an indication of the Army's recently formulated plan for a modern organization for Combat Arms. Under normal prewar Army procedures, all infantry battalions were organic to the regiment they were a part of and were known as, for instance, "1st Battalion, 5th Regiment." With the new system of organization, the infantry regiment was reorganized as a headquarters with no organic battalions, but with three separate battalions attached. The headquarters was organized into three combat commands that could be dispatched on separate combat actions with units that were attached. One infantry battalion would be assigned to a combat command, with attachments from the higher headquarters reserve. The 100th, however, was not initially attached to a regiment. It came to be known unofficially as the "One-Puka-Puka" (Puka means "hole" in Hawaiian).
Camp McCoy and Camp Shelby In Oakland, the 100th boarded a train to their final destination, Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. Immediately following their arrival to Camp McCoy many of the Nisei felt animosity and distrust from fellow soldiers and military and political leaders. The 100th was quartered in tents, four soldiers per tent, which contained a bunk bed, blanket, towels, and backpack. It would be several months until the Nisei moved into military barracks. Eventually soldiers were permanently placed into military units, such as Companies A through F, and pushed through physical, marksmanship, and tactical training. Some of the white officers and NCO's appointed to the 100th were schooled in psychology and were ordered to test the recruits' physical capabilities, military capabilities, and loyalty. On one such occasion that happened to prove the loyalty and bravery of the new recruits, five Nisei soldiers received the Soldier's Medal for their rescue of several local civilians from drowning on a frozen Wisconsin lake. On one occasion, about 25 of the Japanese-American soldiers were sent to a secret training mission on a small island, Cat Island, near the mouth of the Mississippi River. Some top military officers thought that the "Jap" soldiers smelled differently, and that the Nisei soldiers would give off a similar scent. So for three months these 25 Nisei were ordered to train attack dogs to "smell Japs." The training didn't work. At Camp Shelby where 100th received its most intense and advanced training and then was sent to Camp Clairborne, Louisiana for field exercises and war games. On return from Camp Clairborne, the 100th met up with the newly formed 442nd Regimental Combat Team on 16 July. On 20 July 1943 the 100th received its battalion colors and motto, "Remember Pearl Harbor," as requested by the unit.
Africa and Italy After training at
Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, and
Camp Shelby, Mississippi, the battalion deployed from Shelby on 11 August by train to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey and then to the Mediterranean on 21 August 1943. The 100th arrived in Oran, North Africa on 2 September 1943 but was refused by
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the commander of the North African Theater of Operations.
Lieutenant General Mark Wayne Clark, commanding the
United States Fifth Army, accepted the offer, and the 100th became a part of the
133rd Infantry Regiment,
34th Infantry Division, in place of the regiment's 2nd Battalion that had been assigned to guard General Eisenhower's headquarters in Oran, North Africa, and took part in training with white soldiers. On 19 September, the 34th Division sailed from Africa to southeast of Naples, with the 100th with them. The unit were to fight in the
Italian Campaign and entered combat on 29 September 1943, near Salerno in Southern Italy. The unit advanced in 24 hours for a week against strong enemy resistance which allowed them to take Benevento, an important rail center and road intersection. The 100th crossed the Volturno River three times, taking on heavy German machine gun fire and rocket launchers before driving the German force even further north. The battle commenced in January. Here they earned their nickname the "Purple Heart Battalion." At night, A and C companies passed their way through the river reaching the wall where the enemy was located and held their ground under intense fire into the next day. B Company was met with heavy machine gun fire as their cover by the smoke screen was blown away leaving only 14 of the original 187 men in B Company to reach the wall. The 100th again was pulled back into reserve and replaced by British and Indian soldiers after nearly taking Cassino. War correspondents calling the 100th's soldiers "little men of iron" and the "purple heart battalion." There were over 50,000 allied casualties in the battle. Casualties took the 100th's numbers from 1300 5 months prior to nearly 500. Cassino didn't fall until 17 May. After Cassino, the 100th began to receive its first replacements from the 442nd. The battalion was later awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation (later redesignated the Presidential Unit Citation) for its actions on 26–27 June.
Anzio, Rome, and the 442nd In March 1944, the 133rd Infantry's 2nd Battalion rejoined the regiment, but the 100th Battalion still remained perpetually associated with the 34th Infantry Division. Following Monte Cassino, the 100th was soon deployed at the Anzio beachhead on 26 March 1944. The allies held a beachhead that spanned inland going a few miles inland. The battlefield at Anzio was very similar to battlefields in World War I as there was a large stretch of land between both opposing forces declared as "
No Man's Land" and both sides didn't go on a large-scale offensive. The sides only fought at night. During the day, soldiers slept. The fall of Monte Cassino finally led to the end of the stalemate on 17 May 1944. On 23 May the allies went on the offensive to drive the Germans north. However, the allies needed more information about the enemy, so the 100th was ordered to capture a German soldier. Lieutenant
Young-Oak Kim, a Korean American born in Los Angeles, California, and Nisei PFC Irving Akahoshi from the 100th volunteered for the mission and captured two German soldiers. On the push to Rome, Lanuvio, the final German stronghold, fell to the 100th Infantry Battalion. "We had been sitting and living in foxholes at Anzio some 63 days. Then the big push out and the capture of Rome. They (100th Battalion) wiped out the last heavy German resistance we met some 12 miles south of Rome and then it was practically a walk into the city." The 100th was ordered to stay at the roadside on 4 June 10 kilometers from Rome. They watched other troops march by and never saw Rome.
Demobilization and rebirth The 442nd RCT was inactivated in Honolulu in 1946, but reactivated in 1947 in the
U.S. Army Reserve. It was mobilized in 1968 to refill the
Strategic Reserve during the
Vietnam War, and carries on the honors and traditions of the unit. Today, the 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry, is the only ground combat unit of the Army Reserve.
Saipan,
Guam, and
Washington. The only military presence in
American Samoa consists of the battalion's B company. In August 2004, the battalion was mobilized for duty in Iraq. Stationed at
Logistics Support Area Anaconda in the city of Balad, which is located about 50 miles northwest of
Baghdad. Lt. Colonel Colbert Low assumed command of the battalion only a few weeks after the battalion arrived at Logistical Support Area Anaconda. In early 2006, the 100th had returned home. One soldier was killed by an
improvised explosive device attack. Four members of the battalion were killed in action, and several dozen injured, before the battalion returned home. During the year-long deployment, one of Charlie Company's attached platoons, discovered over 50 weapons caches. Unlike the soldiers of World War II who were predominantly Japanese Americans, these soldiers came from as far away as Miami, Florida, Tennessee, Alaska and included soldiers from Hawaii, Philippines, Samoa and Palau. For their actions in Iraq the unit received the
Meritorious Unit Commendation. The unit was once again
deployed in 2009. and was assigned as an element of the
29th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. Nominally deployed to
Kuwait, it conducted patrols into Iraq, leading to two fatalities; those patrols consisted of more than a million miles of driving conducting
convoy duty. During the unit's deployment, several dozen of the unit's American Samoan servicemembers became
naturalized U.S. citizens while in Kuwait. In October 2021, C Company officially moved from American Samoa to
Joint Base Lewis–McChord in Washington. • Headquarters and Headquarters Company, at Fort Shafter (HI) • Charlie Company, 100th Infantry Battalion, at
Joint Base Lewis–McChord (WA) • Delta Company, 100th Infantry Battalion, at Fort Shafter (HI) • Echo Company, 100th Infantry Battalion, in Barrigada (Guam) • Detachment 1, Echo Company, 100th Infantry Battalion, in
Tanapag (
Saipan) • 740th Forward Support Company, at Fort Shafter (HI) ==Recognition==