PROFILE: Ben Kuroki

First Japanese-American war hero, crusader for racial equality, and newspaper publisher

Copyright © 2008 by E. A. Kral

In a democratic society, an individual has the freedom and responsibility to set the limits for his or her relationship with a group. And a group is expected to protect an individual from abuses by the majority.

For his exemplary involvement with both concepts, Ben Kuroki, a Hershey, Nebraska native whose parents were Japanese immigrants, became recognized as one of America's outstanding military and civilian heroes.

While growing up on a vegetable farm near the small town located 14 miles west of North Platte, Ben was assimilated into American culture through school attendance, participation in community customs, and cooperation with neighbors. He did not experience discrimination.

After the Empire of Japan waged its surprise attack on the U. S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, and World War II began, tension existed between national security and civil liberty issues.

"U.S. intelligence in late 1941 and early 1942 was unequivocal in warning of large ongoing espionage operations controlled by the Japanese government on the West Coast," wrote former National Security Agency intelligence officer David D. Lowman, who decades later studied declassified documents.

And in his book MAGIC: The Untold Story of U.S. Intelligence and Evacuation of Japanese Residents From The West Coast During WW II (Athena Press, 2000), author Lowman also stated: "Most of the many rumors about the Japanese living along the West Coast turned out to be untrue, but practically everybody at the time believed them."

Concerns about the loyalty of residents of Japanese descent along the West Coast, where U.S. military facilities existed, resulted in the forced evacuation of Japanese Americans as well as some of German and Italian ancestry to relocation, or internment, centers in several western states.

Some critics several decades later, believing the wartime removal was not necessary, asserted there were other reasons for the treatment of Japanese Americans. For example, Peter Irons, a legal historian and author of Justice at War (Oxford University Press, 1983), argued they were interned because of "racism, war hysteria, and failure of leadership at the highest levels of government." He also asserted legal sanction of removal occurred because of failure of our nation's legal system.

Whether one terms their removal as evacuation, detention, relocation, or internment, the centers were barbed-wire compounds with guards (soldiers) carrying rifles with bayonets. Food and shelter were provided by the War Relocation Authority, and wages were paid to those who wished to work. Of more than 110,000 persons of Japanese descent held in the centers, or camps, from 1942 to 1945, over 30,000 voluntarily left to engage in outside employment.

And another 4,000 left to attend college. While they were denied admittance by some institutions of higher learning, others accepted as many as 50 evacuees. It is a matter of public record that the University of Nebraska--under Chancellor Chauncey Boucher's Administration--exceeded its quota by welcoming more than 100 Japanese Americans to its student body during World War II.

Over half a century later, out of gratitude for their treatment, about 30 of them returned in April 1999 to dedicate Nisei Plaza north of Kimball Hall on the Lincoln campus.

Japanese Americans who resided outside the states of California, Oregon, and Washington were not subject to internment. But they were frequently victims of resentment, suspicion, and discrimination once the war started.

The day of the Pearl Harbor attack, Kuroki's father urged him and his brother Fred to volunteer immediately, so they drove to Grand Island, some 150 miles to the east, and were among the first Japanese Americans to enlist in the U.S. armed forces. A week later, noted the December 18, 1941 New York Times, the Kuroki brothers recited the pledge of allegiance, and in early January 1942 departed for basic training at Sheppard Field, Texas.

In a speech 50 years later at the Museum of Nebraska History in Lincoln, Kuroki stated, "Pearl Harbor was like double jeopardy to me. I deplored the sneak attack and the heavy casualties of American servicemen. And secondly, I felt deeply ashamed of what the enemy had done and I developed a strange guilt complex." His parents had taught their cultural belief to the children: "Never do anything to bring shame onto oneself or family. Pearl Harbor was major shame."

There were some Japanese Americans who actively participated in the war effort on the side of the United States. Of about 19,000 military-aged males in the internment centers, over 1,000 volunteered to serve in the military forces. And more than 20,000 others were inducted.

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team, comprised entirely of Japanese Americans, became the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in American military history. It distinguished itself in Europe, and was involved in the 1944 liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, Germany.

In the Pacific, more than 6,000 Japanese Americans served in military intelligence, saving countless lives and shortening the war by two years, according to the intelligence chief for U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur.

Ben Kuroki became the first Japanese-American war hero, and in the process overcame various obstacles as well as racial intolerance. After basic training, he attended clerk-typist school at Ft. Logan, Colorado, followed later by assignment to the 93rd Bombardment Group at Ft. Myers, Florida.

In August 1942, the 409th Squadron of the 93rd Group was ordered overseas, but Japanese Americans in the Air Corps were to be left behind in the states. So Kuroki begged his squadron adjutant Lt. Charles Brannan to arrange for him to be included for overseas duty at a base in England. Even as a clerk, he was elated to be part of the first B-24 Liberator bomb group, and a part of the U.S. Army 8th Air Force.

When his squadron badly needed aerial gunners, he volunteered and was sent to gunnery school for two weeks, learning how to use .50 caliber machine guns. Then on December 12 of that year he was assigned to a B-24 combat crew piloted by Lt. Jake Epting of Tupelo, Mississippi. Thereafter, Kuroki served as tail turret gunner for the duration of the war.

Fifty years later, Ben recalled, "For the first time since Pearl Harbor, I felt that I belonged. Words cannot describe how great it felt to be accepted and respected. There was no bigotry among crewmen. Nobody questioned your religion or your ancestry."

A combat tour of 25 missions was the usual limit for bomber crews during World War II before rotation home occurred. But due to the danger during the early years of the war in Europe, life expectancy for crewmen was about 11 to 15 missions.

On one mission in North Africa, Ben's plane ran low on fuel and crash-landed in Spanish Morocco, and the entire crew was captured by Spanish native police and interned. Kuroki escaped but was recaptured, then flown to Madrid, where U.S. State Department authorities obtained his release and returned him to his base in England.

Not long after, Ben volunteered to participate in the longest and largest mass low-level bombing attack in air history on August 1, 1943. From a base in Libya, a force of 178 unescorted B-24 Liberators flew 1,200 miles to bomb German oil resources at Ploesti, Romania. Nearly one-third failed to return during the 13-hour round-trip mission, and only two out of nine planes in Ben's squadron returned safely.

The task of turret gunners was very dangerous and uncomfortable, reported historian Stephen E. Ambrose in his book The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew The B-24's Over Germany (Simon & Schuster, 2001). There was not enough room for them to wear a parachute, the bitter cold and wind sometimes "covered them and their guns with a thin veil of frost," and because their electrically heated flight suits sometimes malfunctioned, they wore additional layers of bulky clothing, making for awkward and slow movement.

His tour of 25 missions completed, Kuroki returned to England. But he requested another tour of duty. Doctors finally agreed he could fly only five more missions--which he did in honor of his brother Fred, who could not serve overseas.

On his 30th mission in the European theater of operations, flak blasted open his turret, the plexiglas cut his face, and the oxygen mask was punctured. Ben reported a crew member from Superior, Wisconsin then held a new oxygen mask to his face until safe return to England.

Kuroki was sent home to Nebraska for rehabilitation leave in December 1943, was appreciated and respected for what he had done, and was subject of a War Department-approved feature in the December 21 North Platte Daily Bulletin.

In early 1944, he was on rest assignment with other airmen in California. A scheduled appearance on the NBC radio network's Ginny Simms Show was cancelled at the last minute, but he did appear on the program several weeks later.

On February 4 he spoke before a large gathering of the exclusive Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, where at the close he received a standing ovation for almost ten minutes. Some historians believe his speech was the turning point in West Coast bitterness.

The next day, an Associated Press release reported he had asked this country to respect loyal Americans of Japanese ancestry, and quoted him as saying that despite his uniform and medals "I don't know for sure if it's safe to walk the streets of my own country." It also reported he had asked military officials for an assignment in the Pacific.

Kuroki was subject of a February 7 article in Time magazine as an American war hero, and was one of several airmen featured in Bud Hutton and Andy Rooney's Air Gunner published by Farrar and Rinehart in 1944. And as part of a public relations assignment for the War Department, he visited internment centers in Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming to encourage volunteers and draftees to join all-Nisei units.

By the end of that summer, he began training at a B-29 Superfortress air base at Harvard, Nebraska, and requested help from important national leaders because regulations forbid Japanese Americans from flying in the Pacific theater of operations. Telegrams were sent on his behalf from Monroe Deutsch, vice president of the University of California, Chester Howell, editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, and Ray Lyman Wilbur, former president of Stanford University, all of whom had been present during Ben's Commonwealth Club speech. Kuroki also asked for help from Carl Curtis, U.S. Senator from Nebraska, when at his home in Minden.

Telegrams were sent to Secretary of War Henry Stimson and two top generals. Finally, after Secretary Stimson made an exception to the regulation in November 1944 "by reason of his splendid record," Kuroki became the first and only Japanese American to serve in active combat with the Air Corps in the Pacific.

Based at Tinian Island, he was a turret gunner on a B-29 nicknamed "Honorable Sad Saki," and piloted by Lt. James Jenkins. While with the 484th Squadron, 505th Bombardment Group, 20th U.S. Army Air Force, he participated in 28 missions over cities on mainland Japan.

While in the Army Air Corps barracks at Tinian, he nearly lost his life in July 1945 when a drunken squadron member shouted "Tojo and Kuroki...damned Japs" and stabbed him with an Army-issue knife. Master sergeant Russell Olsen of New York stepped between the assailant and Kuroki, who was then taken to the hospital for two dozen stitches to his scalp. Sixty years later, in an August 13, 2005 Lincoln /NE/ Journal Star article, Kuroki was quoted as concluding, "Olsen prevented further attacks and probably saved my life."

By war's end, he had completed 58 missions in air combat, and had achieved the rank of Technical Sergeant. He had also been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross three times and the Air Medal with five oak leaf clusters. In September 1945, he returned to the United States, and after a short visit with his family and friends at Hershey, he met with several top military leaders at New York City, and gained the attention of the media.

In an address on October 29th at the New York Herald Tribune Forum on Current Affairs held at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Ben stated, in part, "Not only did I go to war to fight the fascist ideas of Germany and Japan but also to fight against a few Americans who fail to understand the principles of freedom and equality upon which this country was founded." His speech was later reprinted in the January 1946 Reader's Digest. During a nationwide radio broadcast of American Town Meeting of the Air on November 22nd, he also stated, in part, "I've got one more mission to go. There is still the fight against prejudice and race hatred. I call it my 59th mission, and I have a hunch I won't be fighting alone."

By coincidence, present during the American Town Meeting was Carroll "Cal" Stewart, the Nebraska native who had served as public relations officer for the 93rd Bombardment Group and had known Ben for about one year. After the war, Cal became a long-time journalist in the state.

After Kuroki was discharged on February 10, 1946 at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, he continued his crusade--with assistance from the Pearl S. Buck East West Association, founded in 1942 to improve cultural exchange and understanding between Asia and the United States--by staging a one-man nationwide speaking tour to various organizations and schools. It was financed by his savings from military pay and some proceeds from biographer Ralph G. Martin's book Boy From Nebraska: The Story of Ben Kuroki (Harper Brothers, 1946). Later, Martin became author and co-author of over 25 books, many of them biographies of politicians and celebrities such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill's mother, John F. Kennedy, and Helen Keller.

During his lectures in Idaho, Ben met his future wife Shige Tanabe, and they married August 9, 1946 at Pocatello. After depleting his personal funds for his 1 1/2-year crusade, he attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from June 1947 to June 1950, earning his bachelor's degree in journalism in three years.

With money borrowed from his brother Fred, he owned-edited-published the weekly York [NE] Republican from June 8, 1950 to January 10, 1952. Members of at least a dozen newspapers, including Cal Stewart of O'Neill, helped Ben publish his first issue, a 40-page edition titled "Operation Democracy." In a June 12, 1950 Time article about his journalistic venture, he was quoted as saying, "This couldn't happen in any other country."

A month later, his publishing business was damaged after a record 13-inch rainfall on July 8th created the worst flood in the history of York, the only time high water from the nearby Big Blue River has reached the downtown area. After newspaper friends helped during the recovery, he expressed appreciation in subsequent editions, and published letters of support received from individuals statewide and worldwide.

From January 1952 to November 1954, he was editor of the Daily Bulletin at Blackfoot, Idaho, then worked as a reporter for the North Platte [NE] Telegraph-Bulletin for one year.

For the next ten years, he distinguished himself as owner-editor-publisher of the weekly Williamstown [MI] Enterprise, and earned a "best editorial" award from the Michigan Press Association. From 1965 to 1984, he worked for the Star-Free Press at Ventura, California, becoming its first Sunday editor and news editor before retirement.

It is thought that Ben was the first Japanese American to publish a newspaper intended only for English-language readers.

After World War II ended, the United States occupied Japan and portions of Germany for several years, helping both nations rebuild and establish a democratic form of government. In Japan, women were also given the right to vote for the first time in its history.

In early 1945, the War Relocation Authority began to release internees from the centers, and in 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed the Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act to compensate those who had suffered economic losses. About $28 million was eventually paid through provisions of this Act.

In 1952, the United States law prohibiting Japanese aliens from becoming naturalized citizens was changed, and Ben Kuroki's father became naturalized at the age of 80 because "it added to his dream, the American dream," stated Ben.

In August 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed HR 442, a reparations act approved by the U.S. Congress that provided payment of $20,000 to each of the surviving Japanese Americans who was evacuated, relocated, or interned during World War II--along with a signed apology from the U.S. President on behalf of the American people. More than $1.6 billion was expended for this purpose until the period of reparations ended in 1998.

To date, no reparations have been granted to the smaller number of German and Italian Americans who also were interned at centers.

During his December 6, 1991 speech at the Museum of Nebraska History, Kuroki had given reasons why the war against bigotry still goes on. And in his closing remarks, he applauded the reparations act of 1988 which, he noted, came at a time when a large federal budget deficit existed. And he said, "I believe this could not have happened in any other country in the world. Congress did not just give lip service to the meaning of democracy."

The next day, exactly 50 years after Pearl Harbor, a New York Times editorial titled "Hidden Heroes" argued that a special tribute is owed to the largely unremembered Americans of Japanese descent who exhibited uncommon courage and sacrifice during World War II. Prominently reviewed were the accomplishments of the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team and of Hershey, Nebraska native Ben Kuroki, who was called "an authentic hero."

Sixty years almost to the day after the Japanese government surrendered to end World War II, Ben Kuroki received the U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal, which is awarded for exceptionally meritorious service to the government in a duty of great responsibility.

After a two-year effort nationally by many persons, including significant involvement by the staff of E. Benjamin Nelson, U.S. Senator from Nebraska, he was presented the Medal in an August 12, 2005 ceremony at Lincoln, Nebraska. In part, the citation stated, "Technical Sergeant Kuroki's service during the period 1 August 1942 to 1 August 1945 was above and beyond the call of duty, accomplished in both combat theaters of World War II, while serving with four separate Air Forces, totaling 58 combat missions ...Throughout this entire period, he overcame many acts of prejudice and earned the nickname 'Most Honorable Son'."

At the ceremony, he responded, "Receiving this Medal so many decades after the fact is truly incredible. I had to fight like hell to fight for my country, and now I feel completely vindicated."

It is the third highest-ranking military honor behind the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross. Among the first recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal in 1918 was General John J. Pershing, Commanding General of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe during World War I.

Kuroki also received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on August 13, 2005, a day after the DSM ceremony. He was honored by U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House on June 29, 2006 and May 1, 2008. The Ben Kuroki Scholarship Fund #10074 with the University of Nebraska Foundation was established in 2006. His war memorabilia are preserved at the Smithsonian Instutution in Washington, D.C.

Aside from sources already cited for readers are lengthy profiles by Cal Stewart published in the February 24, 1946 Omaha Sunday World Herald Magazine and the June 8, 1950 York [NE] Republican and the Winter 2004 issue of Bomber Legends, the latter published in Ramona, California, and his booklet The Most Honorable Son: Ben Kuroki (Nebraska Printing Center, 2008). Helpful also are articles in the January 1992 Nebraska State Historical Society Newsletter, the December 7, 1991 and August 11, 2005 Omaha World Herald, and August 11, 2005 Los Angeles Times, and the August 13, 2005 and August 2, 2007 Lincoln Journal Star, and the September/October 2007 Nebraska Life.

And a one-hour documentary about Ben Kuroki's war years, which was produced by William Kubota and titled Most Honorable Son (KDN Films and Nebraska Educational Telecommunications, 2007), was telecast nationwide by PBS on September 17, 2007.

Born at Gothenburg, Dawson County, Nebraska in 1917, one of ten children of Shosuke "Sam" and Naka Yokoyama Kuroki, he moved a year later with his family to a farm near Hershey in Lincoln County, where he attended the Hershey Public Schools, graduating from Hershey High in 1936, where he was vice president of his senior class. From 1934 to 1939, he was a member of the Japanese-American baseball team at North Platte, and helped with the family farm until joining the military service at age 24.

Ben and his wife, now residents of Camarillo, California, have raised three daughters, two of whom became kindergarten teachers and the other a college librarian, and enjoy their four grandchildren.

For more information, consult "900 Famous Nebraskans" on the Internet at www.nsea.org or www.beatricene.com/gagecountymuseum or www.nebpress.com.

NSEA

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PROFILE: Ben Kuroki

First Japanese-American war hero, crusader for racial equality, and newspaper publisher