Thread by @danielmkim

1/22. Almost 300k Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders have served in our nation's military. Of those, 36 are Medal of Honor recipients. Today for the #AAPIHM thread, we honor a soldier who was court-martialed for fighting, yet still received the MoH, Barney Hajiro.

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2/22. Hajiro was born in Maui as the 2nd of 9 children, & worked as a stevedore in Oahu to help support his family. Like many Hawaiian men, he was drafted after Pearl Harbor; like almost all Hawaiians of Japanese descent, he served in the HI Territorial Guard, predecessor to

3/22. the Hawaii Army National Guard. Military governor Delos Emmons disarmed, then disbanded the Territorial Guard, but also lobbied the War Department to form a provisional infantry battalion so that Japanese Americans in Hawai'i could prove their loyalty.

4/22. Thus was born the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate). Hajiro volunteered, but was not initially accepted. When the 442nd Regimental Combat Team stood up in Jan 1943, Hajiro enlisted & joined them at Camp Shelby, MS, for basic training. The 442nd, contrary to popular

5/22. belief, was not an accordiant unit. Like any other military unit, conflicts arose, specifically between soldiers from Hawai'i vs. Mainlanders. The Hawaiians saw Mainlanders as aloof & stingy, & derided them as "kotonks," the sound either a coconut or a Mainlander's head

6/22. makes when it hits the ground. Mainlanders viewed Hawaiians as crude, & mocked the pidgin English many spoke. Mainlanders called them "Buddhaheads," a play on the Japanese word for pig, buta. Intramural fights behind barracks broke out nightly after lights-out, with both

7/22. sides gambling on the outcome. Enter M Company's Private Hajiro, who, though small in size, made a name for himself as a "classy boxer," not a brawler. The fighting stopped abruptly midway through training, when Colonel Charles Pence, the 442nd's commander, organized

8/22. dances at Camps Jerome & Rowher, internment centers in Arkansas, between Japanese American women there & his soldiers. For the first time, Hawaiians saw with their own eyes what they'd refused to believe, that their own country would incarcerate its citizens. Hawaiians'

9/22. appreciation of kotonks skyrocketed, fighting replaced by a shared determination to fight to be recognized as Americans. In 1944, the 442nd deployed to Italy, where it linked up with the 100th Bn, which had been fighting for almost a year. On 5 June, the regiment secured

10/22. the outskirts of Rome, whose liberation the following day was eclipsed by events in France. Later that summer, Hajiro broke up a fight between an Italian man & a 442nd soldier. Hajiro was tried by summary court-martial & sent packing to I Company, 442sd.org/history/gfb-bu…

11/22. leaving the only Army home & buddies he'd known. Hajiro being Hajiro, his sense of humor & nose for finding beer helped make new friends, including Mainlanders Takeyasu Onaga & Ei'ichi Haita, who kept him out of further trouble. On 30 September, the 442nd landed in

12/22. Marseilles, assigned to the "T patchers" of the Texas National Guard's 36th Infantry Division. They fought north, up the Rhone valley. On 19 October, I Company & 2nd Battalion of the 442nd supported attacks on hills outside Bruyères simply named A, B, C, & D. Hajiro, who

13/22. despite his size wielded a 20-pound Browning Automatic Rifle, at one point led just 1 other soldier in an ambush of an 18-man German patrol, killing or capturing 16. The aforementioned Haita, Hajiro's assistant gunner, reportedly couldn't keep up with Hajiro's profligate

14/22. use of ammo. On 23 October, the 1/141 Infantry was cut off near Biffontaine. Germans repulsed repeated efforts to relieve the Texans. The 442nd drew the assignment to attack towards the 141st on 27 October, with its 100th & 3rd Battalions in the lead. The mountainous

15/22. terrain made both movement & communications difficult. Dense fog covered the valleys to a point where most soldiers had to grab another's webbing to not lose contact. Colder rain than anything the 442nd had seen in Italy, turned the ground into a encyclopedia.densho.org/Rescue_of_the_…

16/22. muddy quagmire. German 88mm shells exploded among the tall trees, "tree busts" that are more or less accurately depicted in the Bastogne episode in "Band of Brothers," causing heavy casualties. At 1430, I & K Companies were ordered to fix bayonets & charge up what would

17/22. later be named Suicide Hill, which lay between their regiment & the 1/141. German snipers & machine guns gutted both companies to a point where privates like Hajiro now led squads of 2-3 men, not the usual 12. After fighting up 100 meters of

18/22. cleared ground, Hajiro found himself about 10m ahead of I Company, drawing fire as he advanced. Alone, he singlehandedly killed 2 machine gun teams, then spotted & killed 2 German snipers. In the process, he was shot 4 times, in the face, shoulder, & arm. He refused

19/22. medical evacuation until every other more seriously wounded soldier went first. "I couldn’t run backward," he said later. "I had to run forward. That’s the job of a soldier." While recuperating back in the US, he received the Distinguished Service Cross.

20/22. After the war, England honored him with the Military Medal. He lived quietly with his wife & son on Oahu, until Senator Daniel Akaka of HI spearheaded a review of valor awards to Asian Americans during World War 2. In 2000, President Clinton authorized upgrading Hajiro's

21/22. DSC to the Medal of Honor, 1 of 4 awarded for the Vosges Mountains campaign alone. 21 other Japanese American recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross also saw their awards upgraded to the MoH. Hajiro's award begins at 20:54.

22/22. In 2004, the French government established him as a member of la Légion d'honneur, in the grade of Chevalier. Hajiro is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, aka "the Punchbowl," next to his wife, Esther. Go for broke, Barney. See you in Fiddlers Green.

Continuing the #AAPIHM thread here, with the perspective from another Medal of Honor received for actions at the opposite end of the Vosges battle. #GoForBroke

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