WWII troopers posthumously obtain Purple Coronary heart medals practically 80 years after deadly aircraft crash

5 Hawaiian males who served in a unit of Japanese-language linguists throughout World Warfare II had been acknowledged with posthumous Purple Coronary heart medals practically 80 years after their aircraft crashed within the last days of the battle.

The lads – Joseph Kuwada, Haruyuki Ikemoto, Kazuyoshi Inouye, Wilfred Motokane, and Masaru Sogi – had been amongst 31 killed when their C-46 transport aircraft hit a cliff whereas trying to land in Okinawa, Japan on Aug. 13, 1945. Military data point out solely two of the 31 obtained Purple Coronary heart medals, that are awarded to service members wounded or killed throughout motion in opposition to an enemy.

The Purple Coronary heart is the nation’s oldest army medal, relationship again to the time of George Washington. It has been awarded virtually two million occasions.

Researchers in Hawaii and Minnesota not too long ago found the omission, main the Military to comply with challenge medals to households of the 29 males who had been by no means acknowledged. Researchers situated households of the 5 from Hawaii, and now the Military is asking members of the family of the different 24 males to contact them so their family members can lastly obtain recognition.

“I haven’t got phrases. I am simply overwhelmed,” Wilfred Ikemoto mentioned as he choked up whereas talking of the belated honor given to his older brother Haruyuki throughout a ceremony in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Friday.

“I am simply completely satisfied that he obtained acknowledged,” Ikemoto mentioned.

The older Ikemoto was the fourth of 10 youngsters and the primary in his household to attend faculty when he enrolled on the College of Hawaii. He was a photographer and developed movie in a makeshift darkroom in a bed room at dwelling.

“I keep in mind him as most likely the neatest and most proficient in our household,” mentioned Wilfred Ikemoto, who was 10 years previous when his brother died.

On board the aircraft had been 12 paratroopers with the eleventh Airborne Division, 5 troopers in a Counter-intelligence Detachment assigned to the paratroopers, 10 Japanese American linguists within the Navy Intelligence Service and 4 crew members.

That they had all flown up from the Philippines to spearhead the occupation of Japan after Tokyo’s give up, mentioned Daniel Matthews, who regarded into the ill-fated flight whereas researching his father’s postwar service within the eleventh Airborne.

Matthews attributed the Military’s failure to acknowledge all 31 troopers with medals to administrative oversight within the waning hours of the warfare. The U.S. had been getting ready to invade Japan’s primary islands, but it surely formulated various plans after receiving indications Japan was on the brink of give up. Complicating issues additional, there have been 4 completely different items on the aircraft.

Wilfred Motokane Jr. mentioned he had blended emotions after he accepted his father’s medal.

“I am very completely satisfied that we’re lastly recognizing some folks,” he mentioned. “I believe it took a very long time for it to occur. That is the one half that I do not really feel that good about, if you’ll.”

The Hawaii 5 had been all a part of the Navy Intelligence Service or MIS, a U.S. Military unit made up of principally Japanese Individuals who interrogated prisoners, translated intercepted messages and traveled behind enemy traces to collect intelligence.

They 5 had been inducted in January 1944 after the MIS, determined to get extra recruits, despatched a staff to Hawaii to search out extra linguists, historian Mark Matsunaga mentioned.

Altogether some 6,000 served with the Navy Intelligence Service. However a lot of their work has remained comparatively unknown as a result of it was categorized till the Seventies.

Through the U.S. occupation of Japan, they served essential roles as liaisons between American and Japanese officers and overseeing regional governments.

Retired Military Gen. Paul Nakasone, who not too long ago stepped down as head of U.S. Cyber Command and the Nationwide Safety Company, introduced the medals to the households in the course of the ceremony on the banks of Pearl Harbor. Nakasone’s Hawaii-born father served within the MIS after the warfare, giving him a private connection to the occasion.

“What these Navy Intelligence Service troopers delivered to the occupation of Japan was an understanding of tradition that might take what was the vanquished to work with the victor,” Nakasone mentioned. “I am very pleased with all of the MIS troopers not solely throughout fight, but additionally in the course of the occupation.”

Throughout his analysis, Matthews additionally situated the niece of the senior officer aboard the aircraft, Capt. John H. Norton, of Marion, South Carolina. She is going to quickly be introduced the Purple Coronary heart in honor of her uncle, a 1943 West Level graduate who led the counterintelligence staff hooked up to the eleventh Airborne Division.

He hopes the ceremony in Hawaii and the opposite in South Carolina will assist different households pursue the Purple Hearts their family members earned with their service.