ANTI TANK COMPANY, 442ND REGIMENTAL COMBAT TEAM
The late Staff Sergeant Toro Hirose was born in Los Angeles, CA. As the result of Executive Order 9066, his family was interned in Manzanar, California. He was a grocery store clerk when he was inducted in the US Army on November 5, 1941 and was assigned to Fort MacArthur, California and Fort Riley, Kansas. Hirose volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, assigned to the Anti Tank Company, trained at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and served in five campaigns in Italy and France. He was awarded many medals including the Combat Infantryman’s Badge and Glider Badge. The Anti Tank Company was the only unit of the 442nd which participated in the invasion of southern France by gliders.
Hirose was discharged on November 19, 1945 and married Hanako Tamura a year later in Washington, DC, where he worked for the Byron S. Adams Printers for 17 years and the federal government for 20 years.
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RANGER TECHNICAL SERGEANT GRANT J. HIRABAYASHI
MERRILL’S MARAUDERS - BURMA
Ranger Technical Sergeant Grant J. Hirabayashi was born in Kent, Washington. His family was interned in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps on December 4, 1941 and subsequently entered the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Camp Savage, MN, where he volunteered for the Merrill’s Marauders. Operating behind enemy lines in Burma, this Special Forces Brigade liberated Myitkyina, which had an all weather airport and was the gateway to the Burma Road to ship supplies from India to China. Following the deactivation of the Merrill’s Marauders, Hirabayashi was assigned to the British Air Force in New Delhi, India, and subsequently to the China theater.
Discharged in 1945, he serve in post war Japan, obtained a Bachelor and also a Master’s degree and served in various US government departments, including the National Security Agency.
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1st LIEUTENANT JOSEPH Y. KIYONAGA
COMPANY M, 442ND REGIMENTAL COMBAT TEAM
1st Lieutenant Joseph Y. Kiyonaga, born in Hawaii, was an ROTC cadet, and graduated from University of Hawaii. He volunteered for the 442nd RCT as a private, was assigned to Company M, the Heavy Weapons unit, trained in Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and fought in Italy and France. Lt Kiyonaga received a battlefield commission as a 2nd Lieutenant.
Follow his discharge from the US Army after WW II, he attended the University of Michigan Law School, married Bina Cady, and, following a brief stay in Hawaii where he taught English at the McKinley Veterans School, obtained a Masters Degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1949 and served in senior executive level positions in Asia and Latin America.
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COMPANY E, 442ND REGIMENTAL COMBAT TEAM
Tech 4 Yeiichi Kuwayama was born and raised in New York City. A graduate of Princeton University. Kuwayama was inducted into the US Army about one year before Pearl Harbor was attacked. He served in the Coast Artillery at New York Harbor, was subsequently transferred to a US Army hospital, and volunteered for the 442nd when it was activated in 1943, assigned to its Medic Unit and trained in Camp Shelby, MS. He served as a Medic in Co. E in the campaigns in Italy and France. He was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry, Purple Heart, French Legion of Honor, Knight Cross of Military Valor (Italy) and Combat Medic Badge.
Following his discharge, he obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School, was the US General Manager for Nomura Securities in New York City, and was a specialist in the US Securities and Exchange Commission and an official of the Office of Foreign Direct Investment of the US Department of Commerce.
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SERVICE COMPANY, PUBLIC RELATIONS
442ND REGIMENTAL COMBAT TEAM
Tech 4 Mike M. Masaoka was born in Fresno, CA. He graduated from the University of Utah where his skill as a debater won All American ratings. He was appointed as Executive Secretary of the Japanese American Citizens League in 1941. When war broke out his family was incarcerated in the Manzanar internment camp in California and his wife, Etsu Mineta Masaoka, was interned at Heart Mountain, Wyoming.
He advocated the formation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and was the first to volunteer. Four other brothers followed him, one being killed in the rescue of the trapped Texas battalion in the Vosges Mountains of eastern France. Following his discharge from the Army, he served as the JACL representative in Washington, DC. He “spearheaded the drive to eliminate race as a consideration in American naturalization laws” and influenced US policy to develop Japan into “America’s largest overseas trading partner.”
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STAFF SRGEANT HIDEYUKI NOGUCHI
HEADQUARTERS COMPANY, 442nd REGIMENTAL COMBAT TEAM
Staff Sergeant Hideyuki Noguchi was born near Sacramento, California. Following his graduation from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in electrical engineering, he was drafted in 1942 and trained at Camp Robinson, Arkansas. His parents were sent to the Tule Lake internment camp, California.
Noguchi volunteered for the 442nd RCT, trained in Camp Shelby, Mississippi, arrived in Italy on June 7, 1944, and participated in the Rome-Arno campaign. He then served in the liberation of Bruyeres and other towns in the Vosges Mountains of Eastern France, including the rescue of the trapped Texas battalion. He returned with his unit to Italy to fight in the Po Valley campaign, Italy. Following his discharge, he settled in Washington DC serving a career as an engineer with the radio licensing department of the Federal Communications Commission.