or:


Nisei linguists in World War 2 performed vital services yet their contributions remain virtually unknown, and knowledge of them is in danger of being irretrievably lost. This would be tragic for the nation as well as for their families and the Japanese American community. Your help is urgently needed to complete a book about key people in the MIS program: the first graduates of the Army's language school.

General Willoughby, Mac Arthur's Chief of Intelligence, noted:

6,000 Nisei in the War of the Pacific saved over


Nisei intelligence contributions ranged from battlefields to the highest levels of military strategy, from hourly reports on enemy troops in the jungle a hundred yards away, to the Imperial Navy's Z Plan, the translation of which resulted in Japan's disastrous defeat in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the greatest naval battle of all time.

DIFFICULTIES

Their situation was difficult. Their loyalty to the United States was questioned. Their relatives, who lost homes and farms and were interned behind barbed wire, often condemned the Nisei linguists as traitors for collaborating with the oppressive U.S. government. They looked like the enemy and were in danger of being shot by our own soldiers. Many MIS were assigned singly or in very small groups, so did not even have the support of other AJAs, or a commander directly responsible for their safety.

They had to come to terms with the fact that they were battling their own ancestral culture, the nation from which their parents had come; some MIS had gone to school in Japan, and had brothers and other relatives serving in the Japanese armed forces.

Finally, few people, then or now, have any idea of what they did or what they went through. Their activities, and their very existence, were secrets. Unlike their justly acclaimed brothers. who fought in Europe, MIS Nisei received no accolades, no welcoming parades. Even the 420 Navaho 'Code Talkers' are better known to the public than the 6000 Nisei linguists. Orders not to talk continued in effect for over thirty years. Today their stories remain largely unknown, even to their own families, and certainly to the Ame4can people.

FIRST CLASS

To preserve information about the origin of the Military Intelligence Service language program I am preparing a book about the first class, which graduated from the hastily organized school at San Francisco's Presidio in April 1942. It was the most important of all MIS classes, and struggled under the greatest handicaps.

As the trailblazer, it paved the way for subsequent military language activities. The outstanding performance of the first Nisei linguists persuaded the Army to continue and expand their use, and they were borrowed by the Navy, Marines, and the armed forces of other Allied nations. Their example inspired the postwar establishment of the permanent Defense Language Institute at Monterey.

Yet this first class labored under severe difficulties. Makeshift facilities, shortage of teaching materials, and housing in an old aircraft hangar, were obvious hindrances. Less apparent but extremely disturbing was the atmosphere of anti- Japanese hysteria following the Pearl Harbor attack: California was not a comfortable place for Nisei to be. Students at the Presidio had to concentrate on a difficult language, preparing for a secret mission, while their families were losing their property and their freedom.

In addition, as one veteran recalled, "we in the first class faced blunt discrimination within the Army". Promised promotions were not received, officers wondered if they really could be trusted, and caucasian GIs, unfamiliar with people of Asian ancestry, taunted the first MIS translators with racial epithets.

PROCEDURE

The San Francisco hangar in which the first class lived and studied has been preserved, and the National Park Service is attempting to reconstruct its World War 2 furnishings. But what about its occupants, the pioneering students who labored there half a century ago?

This book focusses on these first graduates. I hope to include a photo of each one, a biographical sketch, and at least a brief summary of deceased veterans' service; more information is being sought from those still living.

This method differs from that of two government historians who also study the MIS: McNaughton and Haller. Their work, and other publications such as Harringtons's Yankee Samurai, and Crost's Honor by Fire, provide overviews of the entire 6000 linguists. I am concentrating on a small but strategic seqment, approaching them as distinct individuals, to document not only their experiences but also to learn about their feelings and motivations, which are important for other Americans to understand and appreciate.

In the few publications that do focus on the MIS there are no first person accounts by members of the first class, and few references to them by others: BOOKS: Harrington's Yankee Samurai, 1979; Crost's Honor BY Fire, 1994; and Falk and Tsuneishi's MIS in the War Against Japan.1995. COMMEMORATIONS: The MISLS Album, 1946, John Aiso and the MIS. 1988; The Pacific War and Peace, 1991; and Secret valor 1993; Japanese Eyes —— American Hearts, 1998. MEMOIRS and BIOGRAPHIES: by Chan, Ige, Ishimaru, Mashbir, Nishimura, Oguro, Shellum, Weckerling, and Yorimoto. This is also true of four films and videos.

Although this book is not intended to be read through at one sitting, it will have poignant, moving stories, particularly in the extended oral histories.

A St. Louis warehouse fire in the 1970s destroyed the Army's relevant WW 2 records, but 42 first class graduates have been located or accounted for. I've interviewed 16 of the 18 survivors, and am trying to arrange interviews with the other two.

Much more remains to be done: finding relatives or friends of the dead, transcribing and editing interviews, having the veterans review their transcripts for corrections and additions, copying photos and documents, seeking additional information about the veterans from people who knew them, finding a publisher, getting the manuscript ready for publication, etc.

It would help greatly to have a few volunteers to assist in these tasks, working with Japanese American organizations and newspapers, and searching through online data bases like Bigfoot, and Broderbund's Family Tree Maker. An example of a lead I haven't been able to follow up was provided by Dr. McNaughton. He found a set of 1942 questionnaires with "thousands of Army Nisei names" in the National Archive's new branch in College Park, Maryland.

In addition to new information, the scant existing data should also be rechecked, because even the basic sources can be wrong. This is indicated, for example, by two errors regarding a member of that Presidio class: my father, who was one of the two caucasian graduates. His name and his parents' occupations have been wrong in every mention of him, going back to the first MIS reference, in 1946. There is even disagreement about such basic data as the number of Nisei graduating in that first class: reports vary from 45 to 35 (40 seems the most likely).

Few other groups in America's melting pot society have contributed so much under such difficult conditions. Dedication, character and heroism seem in short supply today, but much could be learned from the Military Intelligence Service Nisei. These immigrants' sons, who served so admirably in the little known World War 2 language program, contributed to preserving Western democracy —— and saving private enterprise.

Evidence of their unique, little known chapter in the nation's multicultural history is fading rapidly and, without prompt action, will be irretrievably lost. More than half of the first class graduates are deceased; the survivors are in their eighties. This is a now-or-never project, a race against time. Your assistance is urgently needed.