Just Americans: How Japanese Americans Won a War at Home and Abroad
This excellent volume on Japanese Americans' participation in World War II focuses on the combat units. The independent 100th Battalion was raised in Hawaii, the 442d Regimental Combat Team on the mainland and largely from the detention camps, and the two units' different backgrounds and experiences made for a good deal of rivalry and ill feeling at first. In time they merged and, exhibiting formidable mastery of infantry combat, compiled a combat record in Italy and France that it would be an understatement to call distinguished. Although Asahina doesn't cover the intelligence work of Japanese Americans in the Pacific, that is compensated for by detailed description of the behind-the-scenes politics involved in organizing the units and procuring amnesty for their members' relatives, and of the pro-Japanese stand of soldier-journalist S. L. A. Marshall. A valuable volume of new material on Japanese Americans in WWII that is likely, unfortunately, to be one of the last published while many Japanese American veterans are still alive.Roland GreenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.