US Army honors Nisei combat unit that helped liberate Tuscany from Nazi-Fascist forces in WWII

ROME — The US military is celebrating a little-known part of History of World War IIhonoring the Japanese-American unit of the U.S. Army that was key to liberating parts of Italy and France, even as the troops’ families were interned at home as enemies of the state following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

The descendants of the second generation of “Nisei” soldiers traveled to Italy from different parts of the United States (California, Hawaii and Colorado) to tour the places where their relatives fought and attend a commemoration at the US military base at Camp Darby before the 80th anniversary. Friday of the liberation of nearby Livorno, in Tuscany.

Among the participants were cousins ​​Yoko and Leslie Sakato, whose parents served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which became the most decorated unit in the history of the U.S. military for its size and length of service.

“We wanted to follow in his footsteps, find out where he fought, where he was, maybe see the territories he never talked about,” said Yoko Sakato, whose father, Sgt. Henry Sakato was in the 100th Battalion, B Company that helped liberate Tuscany from Nazi-Fascist rule.

The 442nd Infantry Regiment, including the 100th Infantry Battalion, was composed almost entirely of second-generation American soldiers of Japanese descent, who fought in Italy and southern France. Known for its motto “Go For Broke,” 21 of its members received the Medal of Honor.

The regiment was organized in 1943, in response to the War Department’s call for volunteers to form a segregated combat unit of the Japanese-American Army. Thousands of Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) answered the call.

Some of them fought while their relatives were interned in camps that were established in 1942, after Pearl Harbor, to house Japanese Americans who were considered to pose a “public danger” to the United States. In total, some 112,000 people, 70,000 of them American citizens, remained held in these “relocation centers” until the end of the war.

The Nisei commemoration at Camp Darby was held a week before the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Livorno, or Livorno, on July 19, 1944. Local residents also marked the anniversary this week.

In front of family, military and civilian officials, Yoko Sakato placed flowers at the monument in memory of Pvt. Masato Nakae, one of the 21 Nisei members who received the Medal of Honor.

“I felt close to my father, I felt close to the other men I knew growing up, the other veterans, because they had served, and I really felt a kinship with the military that is here,” he said.

Sakato recalled that his father named some of the areas and towns in Tuscany where he had fought as a soldier, but always in a very “naive” way, while talking to children.

“They were young, it must have been scary, but they never talked about it, neither he nor his friends,” Sakato said of his father, who died in 1999.

Her cousin Leslie Sakato’s father fought in France and earned a Medal of Honor for his service. “It was like coming home,” he said of the commemoration.