Posted on: Wednesday, August 4, 2004

200 nisei soldiers gather here for reunion

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

A group of about 200 Americans of Japanese ancestry who served in military intelligence during World War II are in Honolulu this week for a national reunion marking the 61st anniversary of the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) Language School.

The reunion will convene at 6 tonight with an opening dinner at the Ala Moana Hotel. The dinner and a luncheon set for Saturday are booked, organizers said, but an informal gathering of some veterans, open to the public, is set for 10 a.m. tomorrow in the hotel's Ali'i Suite, 34th floor.

Another public event, a service at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, will begin at 10 a.m. Sunday.

The MIS, the precursor of today's Defense Language Institute, trained more than 6,000 nisei (second-generation Japanese-American) soldiers as interpreters and translators in the war against Japan, said Ted Tsukiyama, an MIS historian in Hawai'i.

Even before the Army lifted restrictions and enabled nisei to enlist in combat units, Tsukiyama said, "the Army found the need to fight the intelligence war against the Japanese."

"The best one to send over was the nisei," he said. "There was an Army restriction that no nisei in the service would serve in the Pacific theater against the Japanese except for intelligence. So we were the exception."

By the end of the war, more than 3,000 MIS trainees had served in the field, said Tsukiyama, who worked with the signal intelligence unit of the U.S. 10th Air Force in Burma, intercepting and translating airplane communications.

The MIS soldiers were assigned to U.S. Army, Navy and Marine units in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as to units of the British, Indian, Australian and Chinese armies, Tsukiyama said.

For years the MIS went unheralded, he said, with recognition going entirely to the famous nisei combat units, the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. However, Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, intelligence chief for Gen. Doug-las MacArthur, credited the MIS soldiers with saving countless lives; a total of 19 were killed in action, Tsukiyama said.

Notable veterans include former Gov. George Ariyoshi; former University of Hawai'i at Manoa chancellor Richard Kosaki; Yoshiaki Fujitani, bishop emeritus at Honpa Hongwanji Hawaii Betsuin; former city auditoriums director Iwao Yokooji; and Hideto Kono, former state director of business and economic development.

Keynote speakers:

• Francis Sogi, a Kona-born New York attorney who retired as a captain in the Army in 1953, will speak at the anniversary luncheon that starts at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Ala Moana Hotel Hibiscus Room.

• Retired Gen. Fred C. Weyand, who was assistant chief of staff for intelligence in the wartime China-Burma-India theater and retired as U.S. Army chief of staff in 1976, will speak at the memorial service, set to begin at 10 a.m. Sunday at Punchbowl.

For information, call James Tanabe, 677-4785.

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.