Private First Class George Okazaki

     It wasn’t long after his introduction into agricultural work that George watched the U.S. plunge into war following the deadly raid on Pearl Harbor. Although his father hailed from the land of America’s new enemies, George and his siblings likely felt no fear. It was the rolling fields of central California that they called home, not this distant and foreign empire that attacked their country. The attack left the United States scrambling for soldiers and in its wake, George received the telegram notifying him he had been drafted. Part of the first wave of Nisei to be drafted after the attack, he shipped off in February of 1942 and passed basic with high qualifying marks for the M1 Garand and the Thompson submachine gun. Although not much is known about his life in the army after basic training, he likely bounced around many midwestern camps and bases like the many other Nisei the army could not decide what to do with. Only a few months after he completed basic, however, George did learn that the rest of his family had been removed from their country home and forcefully interned by the U.S. government at the Gila River prison camp sitting in the middle of the hot Arizona desert. Although not experiencing internment himself, the shock and irony of having his family imprisoned by the government he was serving purely for their race likely affected him as strongly as it did the thousands of other Nisei in the same position.

     Sometime between its creation in the spring of 1943 and the journey to Italy, George joined the 442nd Regimental Combat Team as it trained for battle in the European theater. Raised to full strength following well-received reports of the 100th Battalion’s success under the 34th Infantry Division, the segregated 442nd quickly came to full power as Japanese-Americans like George traveled to swell its ranks. Assigned as a rifleman to G Company in the 2nd Battalion, he and the regiment left for Nazi-occupied Europe in May of 1944. First seeing combat in Tuscany when finally joined with the 100th Battalion, George and the united 442nd began making their way alongside the 5th Army as it pushed out of Rome. The fighting was tough and the 442nd suffered severe casualties throughout that first summer in Italy. In doing so, however, George and the 442nd began making a name for themselves as gallant fighters and before long were reassigned to yet another front, this time in Central France.

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     Now fighting under the 36th “Texas” Infantry Division, George, a seasoned combat veteran, found himself trading the mountainous passes of Italy for the forested foothills of the Vosges. Part of a crucial 7th Army advance to push U.S. forces through the German border, the 442nd supplemented a weak and undermanned 36th Division to meet the division’s primary objective of taking the town of Bruyeres. Like the rest of the Vosges, Bruyeres had been turned into a fortress town bolstered with a strong German garrison using several heavily fortified outposts dotting the landscape. For the assault, occurring in mid-October, George and his battalion were assigned the dangerous task of taking out Hill 503, a forested mound embellished with concrete bunkers resting at the northern entrance to the city. Even with its many obstacles, the battalion performed exceptionally. Beginning their attack the morning of October 19th, George and G Company performed a skillful flanking maneuver to pincher the German forces on the opposite side of the hill while two other companies assaulted from the front. The attack threw the Germans off their balance and within a couple of days had entirely demolished the defending force. The battalion earned its first Presidential Unit Citation for the action and set the stage for the successful capture of Bruyeres and the victory at Biffontaine when it defeated a flanking force of German bicycle troops trying to surround the 100th Battalion.