Letters from the 442nd

[kanowarrior]

Last year whenI had to fly out to Minnepolis and started reading this book.



Pretty amazing read actually. Published letters and correspondence edited with a timeline. These are letters that were exchanged from a medic in the 442nd Minoru Masuda and his wife. Very revealing on everyday life.

First thing I picked up on was his mention that in the 34th Division it was all the rage with both enlisted and officers to wear silk and or rayon scarves of all colors. Masuda got one that was black and had a local paesan embrodier a flower pattern on it.

There was a lot about what they ate too. They rarely ate rations unless they had to. Mostly B rations or fresh food was served up or if they were in the field and not in immediate combat situations they would first set up a large pot and start throwing in whatever they could find (he called it 'hakka'). Mostly fresh vegetables like onions and lots of chicken. The locals would provide some and some were 'scavanged'. This was sometimes supplemented with rabbit, sometimes beef or whatever else they could come up with. Everyone would throw something in. Often rations were traded off for fresh food or guys on leave would go into the nearest town and buy or trade for fresh food.

They ate lots of fresh fruit too whenever they could lay their hands on it. Didn't even care if it was ripe or not. Figs, pears, apples, plums, peaches, and many others. Once in a while they could find rice, but that was a rarity. My dad once told me that the Army gave them rice but so far I don't see that in this book. I have seen photos and newreels of them eating rice but where they got it wasn't clear.

I will post more as I get more into the book.

[davep]

Here is something along the same lines, between a Japanese Chaplin in the 442nd and his wife

libweb.hawaii.edu/libdept/archives/mss/aja/higuchi/hisako.htm

This is from the "Treasure Chest of 442nd Documents" thread
442ndrct.createforum.com/wwii-photos-maps-and-documents-f11/treasure-chest-of-442nd-documents-t637.html

[kanowarrior]

That's interesting, Minoru mentions that Chaplin in his book.

[kanowarrior]

Yesterday, Lt Kanaya and Lt Futamata had to drag out of the stockade a fella (medic) that was thrown in there by a lousy Limey MP who happened to catch him selling some PX rations. He'd been missing for three days and Kanaya finally located him through Hqtrs. It's just that he was unlucky - everyone sells or trades stuff. He just happened to get caught at it. I never told you of the narrow escape we had at Pisa when a AMG (Allied Military Government) officer saw us selling cigarettes and told us to quit or ten years in the brig would stare us in the face. We took his advice that time and took off, but that kind of thing is always going on. We're always short of money, more or less; the guy who said we'd have no use for dough overseas sure sold us a bunch of horse collars....

[kanowarrior]

Today's excerpt:

26 August 1944

The old Red Bull Division, 34th has a quaint craze for wearing silk neckerchiefs. Everybody from the Colonel down to the lowly private sport them and we've taken the fad on wholeheartedly. All of the colors of the rainbow are represented - all either silk or rayon. The GIs just go around finding them and they do. I got myself a black silk crepe with a dotted white flowerwork on it. Momoda and I are having a signorine stitch their names on ours and we're gonna connive to do so in our wanderings. we should have a scarf full, don't you think?

21 September 1944

I think I told you once of the fad of the 34th wearing neckerchiefs in all shades and colors. I wear one of ancient design in red and I hold it with a mystical ring that I bought in Florence. It has arabic figures in some weird hieroglyphics on it... I think it'll bring me luck.

[kanowarrior]

This was an excerpt from just prior to the Lost Battalion. The shelter halves he is talking about are the early opened ended ones.

October 5, 1944

Everything outside is all wet and the ground is a churned up mess of mud. And there doesn't seem to be any prospect of a let up. Thank God that we have new shelter halves we put up a couple days ago. It's shedding the heavenly water very nicely. Breakfast was a soggy mess and sick call (we were excused from it) hasn't materialized due to the rain. I guess the training program will have to be forgotten today. This rain certainly can make life miserable. Both Ike and I have our raincoats protecting the front of our tent so we can't use them. A long day inside the small tent confronts us today, just listening to the rain pattering on the canvas and the occasional thunder that rolls down from the gray leaden skies.

[kanowarrior]

November 13th, 1944

I guess you can tell by the fine point that I'm writing this with the pen that you sent me. It's just what I wanted - thanks very much. The package arrived in very good shape and has now departed into various mouths. Just now Ike... cooked up the soup. He didn't realize that a cupful isn't anywhere near one canteen cupful so it was kind of dilute. But with rice on the menu the past three days for lunch we've been eating like kings what with our collective accumulation of foonyu-zuke (pickled tofu) etc. Boy, do we consume the rice? I think you the answer already. Was it good, too! Yesterday we had fried chicken and we just sat around and picked on it to our hearts content up to our elbows in the delectable fowl, our first for a long time. Incidentally, the cookies you sent Hayashi came the same day as mine and he was both surprised and happy. It really doesn't make too much difference who receives a food or candy package because once it's opened it's community property anyway. It works swell that way - share and share alike. That's one way we have a variety of delicacies. It looks as if we feast on rice again tonight. Having just got some from the kitchen and we've some of that stuff left...

[kanowarrior]

November 18, 1944 the 442nd was detached from the 36th Division and was sent to Nice, France. Places where I double spaced I've skipped paragraphs. My intention here is only to highlight points that I thought gave some kind of insight to the daily life of a soldier and not details like his family life or trivial stuff. If you want to read far more than I post here buy the book! I highly recommend it. Or you can borrow my copy when I finish with it.

November 26, 1944

It's been such a long time since I've written to you that it's hard as hell to start. Here it's evening and the kerosene lamps are lit in the aid tent and it's taken me all day to write this...

Frist of all, the main reason I couldn't write was that we'd been on the move as our usual wont. I can't tell you yet, at any rate, we've done some traveling.... At one town that we bivouacked close to, Kozuma (incidentally he's back now and in good shape) and I went to the standard carnival in this town....

Kozuma went crazy on the Skooter (remember in Playland) where everybody goes bumping each other's tiny cars. We had great fun bumping the gals brave enough to ride, as everybody else was. The carnival was just like the ones at home - there were so many cute children riding their miniature rides, all dressed up, just like dolls; very pretty these French infants.


There are many English-speaking people in Nice and that's a great boon anda relief to us who up till now, more or less relied on the sign language. But when I went into a shop and said "Ave-vou-" and she said, "what was it you wanted?" I felt very foolish indeed. After that I used English practically all the time.


I must say that in Nice money meant nothing - nothing at all. Everything is priced ridiculously, but the GIs are buying the place out. We got much more for our money in Italy, so actually we're not getting paid as much I guess. For example, the above meal (ie: I skipped that paragraph, he talks about a restaurant he ate at in Nice) in American money cost me $4.50 or 225 francs. It was worth it really to me, but can I picture myself eating at home $4.50 worth - but of course, that's America.

[kanowarrior]

I'm going to skip back a few letters today because I missed part of one where he is describing food again. Still in France under the 36th Division:

November 15th, 1944

Speaking of breakfast, we don't have the kitchen bringing up hot chow now - we're reduced to the 10 in 1 rations, but Kotoku from the kitchen has come up to keep coffee for the casualties and he's good enough to take charge of our meals, too. Good thing that. But, the fellas all pool their talents and manual labors to help out. What a helluva time I had preparing and cooking the fried potatoes. There's a cow here and to relieve the poor beast of any complications, Pat the litter bearer, did a little work on the faucets and we had fresh milk with our cereals. Unpasteurized, un-tuberculin tested though it may be, it was very welcome. Who knows, we may expect to make our own ice cream soon. Yesterday, the boys got their mitts on some cabbage - very good, it was too.

The fact we're so close to the actual front lines stymies our nightly ukulele and guitar sessions, but we play it in the daytime. When we've our rolls on the floor all stretched out in the night and the candles burn low, the usual bull session starts up over the myriad subjects that these usual conferences bring up. This is one good part of the day, and I enjoy it very much, this interchange and argument of ideas and events.

[kanowarrior]

If you noticed he doesn't write very much about combat. Soldier's were under under orders not to write home about certain things and that was one of them. Besides if they had much of it would have been censored out. It almost seems like they never had contact with combat at all although they were usually stationed just a few hundred yards from it. I never did understand what my dad used to tell me when he said he was fortunate in that he was usually not on the front line. Being in a heavy weapons company he was typically about 50 yards behind the front line supporting troops with a light machine gun. I guess now he meant he never had to stare the enemy in the face much and not face the heavy fire. He would never talk about that anyway, to many bad memories.

December 1, 1944

The radio's going full blast down here in the Capt's room. He got it yesterday from somewhere for about $100, I think. It's a small five tube job, but it does a pretty darn good job. Right now we've a German program and a soprano's hitting it up in an operatic solo. Just awhile ago we all crowded in to listen to Berlin Sally give us the news in her silken-voiced best propaganda manner. She's got a pretty good program with American music. The commentator - "George" gave a news summary of the Western Front with emphasis on Allied losses and setbacks. Then there was a period in which they tolled off some names of Allied dead that died in German hospitals. Although calculated to undermne the morale, I don't think that it is too effective and we do get a kick out of listening to it.

...I took a hot bath yesterday - actually a hot bath! What an utterly delicious sensation. What's the difference that Higgins and I shared the tub squatting and grinning at each other in a few inches of water. We reveled in the hot tub and scrubbed each other's backs and were just as happy as two kids. And you should have seen the hue of the water after we'd washed ourselves off (and with fragrant Camary, too - Higgins contribution) - you couldn't see the immersed portions of the anatomy at all in the murky gray water. But we rinsed ourselves off in more of the fresh hot water and just poured it over ourselves still squatting like grinning Buddhas, with a canteen cup. But when I got out, I just up and shaved off my mustache that I'd nursed along the past two weeks...

Darling, please dig up my camera - my ski camera - and box it up good and send it to me tout de suite, will you? I've been thinking about it for some time now and just now made up my mind. I don't know why I didn't ask you for it before. Try to get the 620 film for me, too, will you? Any kind, but Verichrome preferred. I've been told that a request from a soldier helps in getting the films. If so consider this an urgent one and the more I can get the merrier...

[kanowarrior]

December 9, 1944

I've got all my Xmas shopping done (just like home) because I was fortunate in being able to go in with the chaplain ie: same guy Dave mentioned beginning in these posts) one day. I've sent pipes off to Roy, Yone, Sat and Dr. Rising. Also small bottles of perfume are on their way to Setsu, Ruth and Skigeko. I sent Mom a print neckerchief or scarf. I didn't forget you, either. One flat package has all the postcards I've been accumulating once they prohibited the mailing, but now they've lifted it....

Christmas packages are still coming in and mail has been held up because of them. That is why I haven't heard from you for some time now. But they get here eventually. Mayme had another package for me (the third one, incidentally) and she'd sent me hoarded packs of cigarettes, pocket-books and candy. How like her to be generous. A surprise package from the residents of Block 10 came too (Block 10 is probably one of the blocks from the internment camps back in America holding Japanese Americans for the duration of the war) ,with some nice contributions. I sent them a thank you note yesterday. Packages are nice, but I wish those letters would get here in a hurry....

I don't think I told you, but we had movies the other night at a hotel annex down the road a ways. They even showed a double feature. We trooped down there early enough to get front row seats and eagerly anticipated the films, 'Janie' and 'Princess O'Rourke' were on the menu and they were both tasty dishes. Did you see either or both of them? The films were a welcome break to give us an evening's entertainment. We're suppose to get more, but as yet that rumor's been unfulfilled.

I'll be taking a two day break now as I will be at the Holcomb battle. When I get back I'll start posting again.

[kanowarrior]

I find this first paragraph especially interesting. I had always heard about this happening with the combat soldier, but Masuda worked in the Field Hospital. You think he would know alot more about casualties than most.

December 14th, 1944

...By the way, I received the Star Tribune and enjoyed it very much. A couple copies of the Irrigator also came and in one the casualty list from Hunt was printed. It also had pictures. Yohei was killed on the 17th - I found out today, he was the first KIA in his company. And he just a brand new replacement, too. That casualty list made me acquainted with some facts I hadn't known of some friends that I hadn't known where injured. It's funny, isn't it, that we're in the same outfit and we have to hear from the home paper about some of our injuries.

Kuge bought himself from films in town and he's been having a field day snapping the camera at everybody. Onodera'd bought a camera using 116 and this beat-up thing really got a workout. Some (I should say most) came out very nicely and I'll be sending them home as soon as we can get the reprints which have already been ordered. You should be getting another set of prints (did I tell you this already?) from Kuge's gal friend to whom he sent some negatives...

The Collecting Company drivers were good enough to squeeze some rice for us out of their kitchen and so it's gonna be eats tonight. Everything's prepared and we're only waiting for the others to come back. The funyu shoga [Japanese ginger], umeboshi [plums], nori [seaweed], and ebi [shrimp] are sitting patiently on the floor just waiting to be consumed. What heaven that'll be - eating funyu on hot rice!

[kanowarrior]

I find this letter interesting as Masuda mentions brothers serving in the same outfit. Just like dad who discovered near Marseille that his brother was there. He had no idea till one day he heard somebody call his name out and he was very confused as to who it could have been here in France. Turned out to be his brother standing in front of him. Dad had no idea Toku was even in the Army much less in France with him. Both survived the war, but both are now deceased.

December 18, 1944

The other night we got our beer rations and we drank it up in comradely fashion with the proper amount of noise and singing. Tsuka and I wielded the guitar and uke respectively and we went through the whole repertoire in boisterous fashion. It still amazes me the number of songs I know now. And then after that we had one terrific time, while I tried to teach Kuge and Momoda the jitterbug, polka, schottische, conga, rhumba, one step, two step, three step, lindy hop and waltz. You can imagine in this small crowded room. We went to sleep tired and happy that night.

For tonight, the chaplain has arranged a Xmas party for the children of this and the surrounding area. After seeing the beaucoup and beaucoup of candies stacked up in our kitchen for distribution, I can see that there'll be plenty of happy kids tonight. There'll probably be a program, too, and I'm gonna help dish out the candies. I like that job.

This morning while at sick call and taking care of a patient, I noticed Momoda making a card out for a GI who said he was from Washington. I looked at him with a healthy Washingtonian curiosity and glanced at his card. It read "Sagami, Waka." He turned out to be Yohei's brother. We had quite a chat. It's too bad when brothers have to be in the same outfit and worry up about one another....