442nd Regimental Combat Team

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The 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) was organized on March 23, 1943, after more than
a year during which Americans of Japanese descent were declared enemy aliens, 4-C, by the
U.S. War Department. It had taken all that time plus several key events to convince the
Roosevelt Administration that these men should be allowed to enter combat for their country.
Eventually, the 442nd, joined the combat-hardened 100th Infantry Battalion (first Japanese
American Unit in WWII), comprised of Japanese American draftees from Hawai'i, became the
most decorated unit in U.S. military history for its size and length of service.

The 100th Battalion/442nd RCT, in just over one year, compiled an astonishing combat record.
But this segregated unit, almost entirely comprised of Japanese Americans, suffered an
equally remarkable number, about 800, killed or missing in action. They won seven
Distinguished Unit Citations, including one awarded personally by President Harry Truman who
said, on July 15, 1946, "You fought the enemy abroad and prejudice at home and you won." In
addition, after an exhaustive survey of individual awards from WWII, twenty moreMedals of
Honor were awarded, bringing the total to twenty one. Over 4,000 Purple Hearts, 29
Distinguished Service Crosses, 588 Silver Stars, and more than 4,000 Bronze Stars were
awarded to the men of the 442nd RCT for action during WWII.

The heroism and combat record of the 100th/442nd were quickly acknowledged by the general
population of the Territory of Hawaii. On the mainland, however, the veterans found an uneven
receptionperhaps because they returned in relatively small numbers to widely separated
locations, notably on the West Coast but also to campuses and cities spread across the
nation.

Source: Authored by Franklin Odo, University of Hawai'i at Manoa (ret.)

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