Thread by @danielmkim

1/19. Today in the #AAPIHM thread, the battle of the Vosges from another POV, & one of the bravest men I've ever had the honor to meet. George "Joe" Sakato was born in Colton, CA, 3rd of 7 children to a couple who owned a barber shop & bath house. When FDR signed Executive Order

https://twitter.com/danielmkim/status/1663236700460531733

2/19. 9066, the Sakatos were given a choice of being "interned," or moving to the Zone of the Interior (landlocked states). They chose the latter & moved to Glendale, AZ, where relatives already lived. By sheer luck, their new address north of the train line exempted them from

3/19. internment, but Japanese Americans living south of the tracks were not. Joe & one of his brothers sold produce to the War Relocation Authority, which ran the nearby camp in Poston. Joe was drafted in 1944 & wanted to join the ddr.densho.org/interviews/ddr…

4/19. Army Air Force, only to be told on the train to basic training, "You're in the infantry now." Joe, like all Japanese American soldiers, trained at Camp Shelby, MS. In a bit of notoriety, he took part in a bar fight between white & Asian soldiers that started over a racial

5/19. slur, then spilled onto several blocks along Main St in Hattiesburg. Since the 1st group of men who'd formed the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) were already overseas, Joe & his cohort didn't have as much of the kotonk/Buddhahead rivalry, because they knew they were

6/19. destined to be replacements for the RCT's growing number of casualties. They arrived in Naples in September 1944 as the regiment was preparing for Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France. Joe was assigned to E Company, 2nd Battalion. loc.gov/item/afc200100…

7/19. From Marseilles, the regiment traveled by train, truck, then foot to an assembly area outside Épinal in the Vosges mountains. Joe is 2nd from the left in this photo, which shows what a week of rain had done to the roads. On 15 October, the RCT attacked towards Bruyères.

8/19. The map of the battle is from my dog-eared copy of Robert Asahina's "Just Americans," a fantastic & detailed history of the 442nd. It doesn't show the knee-high underbrush the 442nd slogged through, or pine trees so close together that the forest seemed like a jungle.

9/19. 2nd Bn ran into heavy resistance, fighting both Germans & freezing rain while still only wearing summer-weight uniforms. At night, older soldiers told Sakato & the other replacements to add overhead cover to their foxholes, protection from shrapnel ndajams.omeka.net/items/show/105…

10/19. from tree bursts, artillery exploding among the trees. By 18 Oct, the 3rd day, the RCT had advanced 3km, just the edge of Bruyères. The Germans counterattacked, but 2nd Bn finally took Hill B after an 8 hour fight that left dozens of casualties. At Hill D on the 19th,

11/19. Joe took 2 prisoners, 1 of whom surrendered his P38 pistol, a prized souvenir. Joe's newfound penchance for being as heavily armed as possible (Thompson submachine gun, pistol, & grenades) in the thick forest earned him the nickname "Machine Gun Joe" in E Company.

12/19. It would take another 5 days for the RCT to reach Biffontaine, just 5km to the east of Bruyères. They came off the line to rest on 24 Oct, but were sent back to rescue the "Lost Battalion," 1/141 Infantry, on the 27th. By the 29th, 2nd Battalion & Joe found themselves

13/19. northwest of 1/141 at Hill 617. They had taken heavy casualties while attacking the German flank. They were also low on ammo. Joe assaulted with his squad leader, Saburo Tanamachi of Texas,through 2 German positions, killing 5 & capturing 4 before

14/19. Tanamachi was killed. Enraged, Joe led a 1-man charge that the rest of 3rd Platoon had no choice but to follow. Out of ammo for his Thompson, Joe killed 3 more Germans with a captured rifle. When he ran out of ammo for the rifle, Joe killed 3 more with the pistol he'd

15/19. taken from a prisaoner the previous week. The last few Germans he engaged were just 10 meters away. At the cost of 8 dead & 10 wounded, 2nd Battalion took Hill 617 by dusk on 29 October, thanks in no small part to Joe's solo attack. The next day, Joe's war ended when

16/19. he was almost directly hit by a mortar shell, which threw him 6 feet away from his position & bounced him twice. He was evacuated back to Marseilles, then the US, where he learned he'd been nominated for the Medal of Honor, but it had been cmohs.org/recipients/geo…

17/19. downgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross. Joe settled in Denver, working for the Postal Service to supplement his disability pension. On 21 June 2000, President Clinton would award him the Medal of Honor for which Joe had originally been nominated after Hill 617.

18/19. Joe's award begins at 30:13. "I'm no hero," he said after receiving the MoH, "but I wear it for the guys that didn't come back." No, Machine Gun Joe, you truly are an American hero.

19/19. Joe made a permanent change of station move from Denver to Fiddlers Green on 2 December 2015. He was buried with full military honors at Denver's Fairmount Cemetery. I'm deeply honored & humbled to have briefly met him once, at the @gfbnec in Los Angeles. Be Thou At Peace.