Hundreds of students listen to second-generation Japanese-American who fought on front lines
By BECKY THOMAS
Staff Reporter
It's an opportunity most people will never get. More than 200 Cheney High School students listened last week as a Japanese-American veteran of the famed WWII 442nd division shared war stories.
Fred Shiosaki, a Spokane native, recounted his experience as a second-generation Japanese American after the attack on Pearl Harbor before sharing some of his harrowing experiences on the front lines of the war with a silent, packed Little Theater. He did this with an air of humility verging on embarrassment.
“I'll try really hard but don't snore,” he told the students. “OK?”
Shiosaki's parents immigrated to the United States in 1915. They moved to the Hillyard neighborhood of Spokane, opened a laundry and started a family. Shiosaki was in high school in 1941 when the attack on Pearl Harbor sparked massive suspicion and discrimination against Japanese Americans. Government orders forced all Japanese Americans west of the Columbia River into internment camps. Shiosaki's parents were questioned, and the family was ordered to turn in all cameras, guns and radios to authorities. Other restrictions were placed on them as well.
“Then they said, if you are of Japanese ancestry, you may not go more than 10 miles away from your home,” he said. “I was a senior in high school so that imposed some discomfort, I guess.”
After high school, Shiosaki watched his white friends disappear as they were drafted into the military. His older brother had been drafted, and when he turned 18 Shiosaki went to sign up for the draft, “fully expecting to be drafted,” he said.
The draft board classified Shiosaki as a 4C, or enemy alien, and ineligible for the draft.
Shiosaki questioned it, but was told all second generation Japanese Americans were classified as such.
“Oh, they said, you're an enemy alien. I said, hey, I was born in this country. I'm an American citizen,” he told the students. “Can you believe that?”
So Shiosaki started college at Gonzaga University, part of “kind of a motley crew” of Japanese American men among the Navy men who were studying in the commissioning program held there, until in 1943 the government announced the formation of an all-Japanese American unit. Shiosaki volunteered.
He was part of the 1st Battalion 442nd Infantry Regiment, a unit that included young Japanese Americans like himself, as well as Hawaiians and Japanese Americans who had been released from internment camps to fight.
Shiosaki told the students of the unit's battles in Italy, and later France. He told them about his friend from Spokane who died in the second day of fighting, about the sounds of battle, about the hills, cold and darkness he endured with his unit.
He didn't dwell on the gory details, but Shiosaki made it clear that the 442nd endured some terrible battles and lost many soldiers and friends. He also told them about the famous battle for the “Lost Battalion,” the event that he remembered most clearly of all his experiences in the war.
Shortly after shipping to France, the unit received a night off, complete with a hot meal, clean clothes and a bed. Then they were ordered to be ready to move out at 3 a.m. the next morning. Shiosaki remembered going out in the dark, surrounded by rain and snow, and climbing a hill with his fellow infantrymen.
“Every once in a while you'd hear a stream of profanity, which meant one of the guys had slipped and fallen in the mud,” he said to laughs from the crowd.
Things turned somber though as Shiosaki informed the students that the 442nd had been sent to rescue a battalion that was surrounded by German troops. Shiosaki remembered being ordered to move; they were thrust into a raging battle.
“I don't know how it started, but with support from the artillery, we just started to move. Stop, fire, move. And gradually, we pushed up that hill,” he said. “I remember, there's just this roar of artillery falling behind us, German machine guns…and suddenly, the whole world got quiet and you realize the Germans had fallen back. They lost the battle. Somehow we had broken them off and we were ready to rescue that lost battalion.”
The unit was acclaimed for this and other battles, and holds the distinction of being one of the most heavily decorated units in U.S. military history. But Shiosaki didn't want to dwell on the medals.
“The war didn't leave me when I got home,” he said, describing nightmares that plagued him for months. “It took a long time to finally get over that. They now have a name for this type of thing but you just had to deal with it and it takes awhile.”
He described the racial prejudice that met him on his return to the U.S. in January 1946. But he also said the end of the war brought new legislation that allowed Shiosaki's parents to become citizens, one of the proudest moments of his life.
Shiosaki's talk met with loud applause from the young audience. Afterward, he told a group of history teachers and students that the crowd was great.
“They were actively interested and I really enjoyed it,” he said. “Sometimes I put kids to sleep you know.”
Shiosaki said he speaks to student groups occasionally, and came to Cheney last year at the request of a family friend and CHS history and government teacher Bruce Abbott.
Shiosaki said he gets together with friends from the 442nd every year, but some don't want to talk about their experiences in the war.
“Some of them, I know the trauma is still there. They'd rather not think about, but I tell you, it's a catharsis to talk to kids about it and impress on them that war is hell,” he said. “It's too bad we can't solve problems another way.”
Becky Thomas can be reached at [email protected].
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