Original subtitles

NARRATOR: When a U.S. Battalion is surrounded by Germans,

Soldiers of a segregated Japanese-American unit fight to reach them.

Pinned at the base of what they would call Suicide Hill,

No one moves when given the order to charge.

Until an unlikely hero steps up to lead the way.

NARRATOR: On June 6th, 1944,

Allied forces finally land troops in Normandy

to open the western front.

But Nazi fanatics and diehards continue to fight ferociously for survival.

D-day was a battle.

They still need to win the war.

NARRATOR: Friday, October 27th, 1944. The Vosges mountains, France.

American sergeant Shiro Kashino

leads his soldiers along a narrow path deep in the forest.

At 0300 hours they struggle to see their route.

ROBERT: It's almost unimaginable how dark it is.

The overhang of the trees, the blackness.

The total absence of any kind of city lights that would illuminate the sky

makes it seem like you're in the middle of a nightmare.

NARRATOR: Afraid the men of the 442nd regimental combat team

will lose their way in the forest,

they pin squares of white paper to their backs for the soldier behind to follow.

NARRATOR: Their mission is to rescue part of a battalion of American soldiers

completely cut off by German forces.

The other battalion is five miles away as the crow flies,

but the valleys dip and peak, to greatly increase the distance.

When they volunteered for the army,

many soldiers of the 442nd lived as detainees in incarceration camps.

NARRATOR: After the bombing of Pearl Harbor,

an executive order signed by President Franklin Roosevelt

forced Japanese-Americans on the mainland from their homes.

Anyone with 1/16th Japanese heritage is incarcerated,

Including thousands of children, the elderly and disabled.

ROBERT: The government built ten so-called permanent relocation camps

spread across the United States and these were basically army shelters.

They were big barracks with common latrines,

set in the middle of nowhere, and surrounded by barbed wire,

and this would be the home for more than 100,000 Japanese Americans

for the next three years of their lives.

NARRATOR: Japanese-Americans serving in the military on December 7th, 1941

are discharged or reassigned in February 1942.

But many young men in the camps still volunteer

when Roosevelt activates the segregated 442nd regimental combat team a year later.

ROBERT: Well you have to remember, these were boys.

They were youth ranging from 17, 18 years old to 21, 22 year old.

Some of them were patriots.

They wanted to fight to prove themselves to their country.

Some of them just wanted to get out of the camps. It was a terrible environment.

NARRATOR: After training, the 442nd fights in Italy,

and then lands in southern France.

ROBERT: They were literally dodging bullets abroad

and they knew they had to win to save their lives.

On the other hand they also knew they were representing something about themselves

and their people who were still in the camps or were still in Hawaii.

And they understood that this was a test of who they were as Americans.

NARRATOR: After their 3:00 am start,

the 442nd arrives at their jump off point in the late morning.

The unit they must rescue is still three miles away.

The lost battalion is from the 141st infantry regiment,

a sister regiment to the 442nd, within the 36th infantry division.

The 36th Division was pretty highly combat experienced by this time.

JOHN: It had led the way in the invasion of South France in August 1944.

It had plunged into the Vosges by September.

And here's where the figurative fun began to kind of end.

NARRATOR: As the 141st attacked to take hill 5-9-5,

First battalion pulls too far ahead.

Germans close in from behind and separate them from their regiment,

Cutting them off from reinforcement, resupply and relief.

NARRATOR: The encirclement kicks off the Second World War version

of the Lost Battalion saga.

JOHN: It was a term left over from World War I,

when you had a similar kind of situation,

where you've had a unit,

not really lost because loss would indicate that, you know,

they're gone, or you never know what happens to them.

No, you know precisely where they are. You just can't get to them.

NARRATOR: Lieutenant Martin Higgins establishes

a defensive perimeter to secure their position.

For three days, the cut off battalion fends off a series of German attacks.

All attempts to fight their way out, or for the regiment to fight their way in,

have failed.

NARRATOR: As their remaining rations and ammunition run low,

the situation for the Texan regiment grows desperate.

It's not clear how long they can hang on.

NARRATOR: Sergeant Shiro Kashino and the members of "I" company

fight for every advance in the forest during the rescue attempt.

As they lead the American assault, the Germans launch a fierce counter-attack.

"I" company's left flank becomes exposed.

Kashino identifies a platoon pinned by a machine gun nest on the slope above.

ROBERT: Kashino was a Japanese American who grew up in Washington State,

and he was by all accounts a kind of all-American boy.

He played on the football team.

He found himself uprooted and sent to the Minidoka relocation camp in Idaho.

And I think he was impatient to get out of Minidoka,

and he saw the army as an opportunity to prove himself.

NARRATOR: Suddenly, Kashino bursts out to relieve pressure on the trapped platoon.

He rushes uphill giving the Germans a moving target.

ROBERT: Kashino distinguished himself as consistently rising to the challenge.

If that meant risking his own life for the soldiers he was serving,

he would do it and he did it, time and time again.

NARRATOR: Kashino succeeds.

He draws the German fire to himself, so the other men are able to advance.

He motions for them to loop around and take out the machine gun nest.

Still under intense fire himself,

he uses his Thompson submachine gun to cover their attack.

ROBERT: I think that kind of action both endeared him to his men

and proved that soldiers were capable of doing things,

you know, beyond their imaginations.

NARRATOR: With the Germans distracted by his fire,

the others can eliminate the machine gun nest.

NARRATOR: As the Americans fight ahead,

a German tank creeps into position above them.

The noise and chaos of the battle have masked its arrival.

Tech sergeant Al Takahashi spots the beast at the last second.

- NARRATOR: As its muzzle flares... - Feuer!

He throws himself to the side.

NARRATOR: The shell fired by the tank lands in the dirt beside Al Takahashi,

but does not explode. Thankfully it's a dud.

But had he jumped in the other direction, the impact would've surely killed him.

The Americans fight an entrenched enemy,

spurred to make any Allied advance as costly as possible.

PETER: It's relatively rare in the war in 1944

that the Germans encircle an entire Allied battalion.

And this chance now is too good for the propaganda to lose.

So, German troops are ordered to stop any rescue attempts

from the Americans of this battalion.

NARRATOR: Special mountain units are assigned to reinforce German positions.

PETER: Gebirgsjäger, or Mountain Troops,

were already founded in the First World War to defend the Austrian Alps.

They are trained to fight under severe weather conditions.

To fight at high altitudes.

The peculiarity of the Gebirgsjäger

is that they are mostly recruited from the alpine areas,

from Austria and from Bavaria.

NARRATOR: Major Franz Seebacher commands the Heeres-Gebirgsjäger battalion 2-O-1.

PETER: Franz Seebacher is a relatively young battalion commander.

He's only 26 years old when he takes over command.

He is an Austrian, initially enters the Austrian army,

later is transferred into the German Army,

and pursues a distinguished career in the Second World War.

NARRATOR: Seebacher moves into position with 1,000 men

armed with machine guns, light artillery, and mortars.

PETER: The Germans have got the maps.

They know the region, they know the strength and weaknesses of the terrain,

and they position their troops on the defense line on the top of the hills

and can fire down on the Americans in the valley.

NARRATOR: The German counter attack continues

with more tank and artillery fire.

Feuer!

NARRATOR: Trees explode around the soldiers

of the 442nd regimental combat team.

ROBERT: Without exception, every soldier I spoke to spoke about the tree bursts.

They were terrified of them.

If you can imagine being in a forest with pine trees

stretching 60, 70 feet above you, and then suddenly,

out of nowhere, artillery fire opens up and explodes in the trees,

so you're vulnerable not just to the hail of lead,

but to the branches that had been burst off by this explosion.

NARRATOR: Under intense pressure from German snipers and shells,

the Americans must withdraw.

Fall back!

NARRATOR: They halt the German counter attack,

but also cede some of the hard fought gains of the day's fighting.

It's a painful set back.

NARRATOR: Saturday, October 28th, 1944.

With their rescuers still three miles away,

Lieutenant Martin Higgins and the remains of his battalion

of the 141st infantry regiment face mounting challenges.

After four days of isolation with very limited rations, they're slowly starving.

But drinking water is their biggest concern.

JOHN: You just simply have to have access to it.

If your soldiers are dehydrating over time,

it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to keel over dead any minute

but it does mean as they're more and more dehydrated,

they become less combat effective.

NARRATOR: Just beyond their perimeter,

a muddy puddle provides their only source of drinking water.

And worse, they have to share it with the enemy.

A dead body would contaminate the supply.

So, both sides avoid shooting any one nearby.

But even without a corpse, it may not be safe to drink.

JOHN: There's a recognition,

that you're going to have to get stream water, river water,

all those kinds of things where there are microorganisms that can make you sick.

So, Halazone tablets were vital to purify the water that you're drinking.

NARRATOR: Halazone is a chemical compound,

that uses chlorine to kill bacteria and parasites.

Debate over the effectiveness of chlorine

delayed Halazone's widespread use until 1944,

when research proved it safe and effective.

Two dissolved halazone tablets make a canteen of water drinkable

in about 10 minutes.

Four tablets can be used for muddy water.

It's a low tech, portable water purification system.

NARRATOR: The lost battalion's initial supply of tablets only lasted for one day.

They desperately need more Halazone, food,

medical supplies for the wounded, and batteries for the radio.

The first attempt to resupply by air failed

when cloud cover made it impossible to identify their location.

But the pilots remain determined.

- Now with the sound of P-47s in the air... - Alright, guys.

Higgins and the men get ready for the delivery of provisions.

They've prepared a visual cue to alert the aircraft of their position.

JOHN: They're going to try and signal by taking off anything

that's light colored or white colored that they can use to string together

that might catch a pilot's eye as he's flying over.

NARRATOR: The fabric creates a signal.

With the lost battalion surrounded by Germans,

the pilots must drop the canisters in the right spot.

NARRATOR: Higgins and the men watch as the containers float down from the sky.

And one by one, they land in enemy territory.

All the supplies fall into German hands.

JOHN: You talk about going from the high to the low,

Here comes the planes, here comes our supplies.

Awesome. I'm going to get to eat, I'm going to get maybe some water

and it's like, "No, I'm not getting that. My mortal enemy is getting that."

NARRATOR: Without re-supply,

the lost battalion's situation grows more desperate.

JOHN: Higgins is probably worried about the steady decline of his command.

He's got more and more people wounded.

Fewer medical supplies to take care of them.

He's probably worried about conserving his ammo. And there's the unknown.

Is help going to be able to get to you?

NARRATOR: Suddenly, the Americans in the perimeter

hear the sound of an incoming artillery shell.

(explosion)

NARRATOR: As part of the 36th infantry division,

the lost battalion is under the command of American Major General, John Dahlquist.

The 141st is pinned down, sir.

Annoyed that the 141st could not rescue their own men,

Dahlquist had called in the 442nd regimental combat team to do the job.

He continues to be frustrated by the failure of the rescue

and floundering relief attempts.

Let's go! Let's go!

JOHN: I think his impatience is pretty understandable.

He's got a battalion of his guys that's cut off.

He's got other units that need to fight their way to them.

The last thing on Earth that he wants

is one of his battalions to be destroyed, obviously for its own sake,

but this also can be devastating to a division's morale,

to its fighting prowess.

NARRATOR: To deliver essential rations and supplies,

Dahlquist plans to fire artillery shells on his own men.

Well behind the line, items like concentrated food rations,

water purification tablets and medical supplies,

are carefully wrapped and inserted into hollow shells.

You fire them into the perimeter,

because you don't really have to worry about weather

and your observers know where the isolated battalion is.

But it is, you know, a reasonably ingenious kind of solution to this,

but it's only a very temporary patch,

it's designed to get you by for a few more hours until you figure out a better way.

NARRATOR: A smoke shell lands outside the lost battalion's defensive perimeter.

It has been fired to confirm the coordinates of their camp.

With a series of adjustments from their artillery observer,

The shells start to explode overhead.

They land in the trees and spill rations on to the ground.

Once collected, the meagre supplies are shared amongst more than 200 soldiers

who continue to hold out on the hilltop.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, the rescue force continues their approach.

With little ground gained, Sergeant Shiro Kashino

and the other men of the 442nd regimental combat team

dig in for the second night of their relief mission.

In contrast to the Sergeant, Private Barney Hajiro grew up in Hawaii,

and was not incarcerated.

And unlike Kashino, Hajiro's considered a problem soldier.

ROBERT: Barney Hajiro was a fascinating character

because he had a reputation from the day he was in the army

of being both a kind of slacker and a kind of trouble maker.

He was a fiery youth who got in fist fights,

and constantly was in trouble both with his peers and with his commanders.

Okay guys. Prepare to move out.

NARRATOR: Now he and the others face another long, wet night.

In the middle of the forest there are no comfortable billets,

comfortable billets, or structures of any kind.

ROBERT: It was the end of October. It was starting to turn into winter.

It was cold, it started to rain, and their nightly routine

was to dig a trench, huddle into it,

hope they were protected against tree bursts, and just tuck in for the night.

NARRATOR: Another ongoing problem is supplying the 442nd with food.

As with the lost battalion, the rescuers also have had an unstable supply line.

The isolation and the terrain makes it difficult for trucks to reach the front.

3rd battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Pursall

calls for volunteers to retrieve rations delivered to a nearby road,

Kashino agrees to lead the supply run,

but is reluctant to depart immediately.

ROBERT: Kashino sensibly pointed out that the noise of the supply trucks

would attract the attention of the Germans.

NARRATOR: He wants to wait for an hour,

in case the Germans target the delivery location.

But Pursall disagrees and issues a direct order.

Alright guys, listen up! I need five volunteers.

ROBERT: So, he got up and gave his men the order to follow him down the trail

to the supply trucks.

NARRATOR: Kashino leads his men through the dark, quiet forest.

NARRATOR: In the distance, the supply trucks make their way up a narrow road.

Before the soldiers can advance more than 200 yards, there is a massive explosion.

NARRATOR: As Sergeant Shiro Kashino leads his men down a dark mountain path

to meet their supply trucks,

the forest around them bursts into flames.

Exactly what Kashino predicted would happen did happen.

The Germans were able to locate the troops from the noise of the supply train

and they opened fire.

NARRATOR: The soldiers of the 442nd regimental combat team

do not have time to find cover.

The barrage is too intense.

The blast injures eight men.

When the fire lifts, Kashino and the others less injured

help the wounded to the aid station.

Later, when Kashino arrives at the battalion command post,

he finds Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Pursall.

NARRATOR: Kashino calls out his commanding officer

for putting them in a needlessly dangerous situation.

Those men died out there because of you!

He adds that any of the men would rather starve

than for others to suffer the casualties caused by the order.

From a military perspective, Kashino crosses a line.

Sergeant, that's how the army works.

ROBERT: It's a complete violation of military law.

A junior ranking non-commissioned officer

cannot question the direct orders of a superior.

NARRATOR: With the attack on the supply detail,

casualties amongst the Japanese-American soldiers continue to mount

across their front, after two days of fighting to rescue

the members of the 141st infantry regiment.

And the lost battalion still remains about two miles past their present location.

ROBERT: They would advance through the dark forest,

they would meet a hail of machine gun fire, duck for cover,

and then they would crawl up the hill a little bit more.

As a result, the men really never knew where they were.

They just knew that somewhere out there someone was firing a gun at them,

and they had to keep going.

Sunday October 29th, 1944.

In the morning fighting,

the soldiers from the Japanese American unit gain a little ground

against the entrenched German defenses.

But for 36th infantry division commander Major General John Dahlquist,

this is not good enough.

Dahlquist believes that there should be more progress.

He takes the unusual step of visiting the front during the battle.

Forward! Come on!

JOHN: He does not trust his leaders.

And in that sense, perhaps he's more of a micromanager than is necessary.

JOHN: This is something that should be an incredible force multiplier,

to have a two-star general right there in the front line saying,

"Hey, you know what? I'm not just telling you guys to go forward.

"I'm leading you forward."

As barrages descend, the men are forced to take cover.

JOHN: Dahlquist never really adjusts to the reality of the moment,

of saying, "Oh, now I see what you guys are up against."

NARRATOR: Instead, he causes confusion by ignoring the chain of command.

He engages directly with the soldiers and badgers them to advance.

Finally, 3rd battalion commander,

Lieutenant-Colonel Pursall reaches a breaking point.

These are my boys!

He shouts for Dahlquist to get off his front.

For Lieutenant Colonel Pursall to turn on the General this way,

he would have to be completely at his wits end.

And from an enlisted soldier's perspective,

to see these two key authority figures bickering in this way

does nothing for your unity and morale to go forward on this mission.

NARRATOR: Within the lost battalion's defensive perimeter,

The sound of planes again fills the air,

with the goal of dispensing lifesaving supplies.

It's the third attempt to deliver goods by air drop, and it proves successful.

Food, medical supplies, and ammunition spill out from canisters.

It all buys Lieutenant Martin Higgins and his men some relief.

JOHN: It's gotten better. It's gotten more manageable, but it is not at an end.

You hope in that time,

that friendly forces are going to be able to fight their way to you.

Until that happens, your crisis has not ended.

NARRATOR: In the meantime, Sergeant Shiro Kashino

and the soldiers of 3rd battalion of the 442nd

have fought to close in on the lost battalion.

They face another advance across treacherous terrain.

At the end of the ridge, just over a mile away,

Higgins and his men wait for rescue.

But to get there, third battalion must clear the slope.

The dug in German soldiers exact a toll for every gain.

Even as they try to ascend, the German fire closes in from all around them.

NARRATOR: After trying to outflank the Germans,

members of the 442nd regimental combat team have stalled along a narrow front,

in their quest to reach the lost battalion.

ROBERT: The battle was really one of inches,

and they were almost helplessly pinned down.

And not knowing where the next explosion would come from,

not knowing where the next grenade would be thrown,

not knowing where the next machine gun fire would open up.

Fix bayonets now!

NARRATOR: An order comes down the line: Fix bayonets.

A bayonet is a knife blade attached to the end of a military rifle.

Soldiers train to wield bayonets in a thrusting motion

to cause deep and fatal internal wounds.

But they're rarely used.

JOHN: A lot of people would rather be in a gunfight than a knife fight,

because a knife fight is very personal, and very much physical and all that,

versus just trading bullets with someone in the abstract.

The bayonet is really the desperation kind of weapon.

An officer gives an order to fix bayonets only under

the most desperate circumstances.

NARRATOR: As the soldiers attach the blades,

they discover that any discernible movement attracts a hail of bullets

from the German defenders above.

NARRATOR: Trapped and exposed, more men are shot,

including sergeant Shiro Kashino.

ROBERT: We don't know a lot except that he was constantly exposing himself to fire,

and at a certain point he was wounded for the third time within a matter of days

NARRATOR: Barney Hajiro sees that his platoon leader is bleeding.

He insists that Kashino seek medical care.

Years later Hajiro would tell me, almost with incredulity that, you know,

"Here I am, I'm a private and I'm telling a sergeant he's gotta go back,"

and he was amazed that Kashino, who had never turned away from any challenge,

must've been so wounded that he in fact did go back.

NARRATOR: Overlooking the ridge, Major Franz Seebacher

observes the American forces amassing below.

The Americans don't receive a lot of support from the air

or support of armor or artillery.

They are fighting like the Germans.

A battle of attrition and both sides are low on ammunition and men.

In the end, it is a brutal place to fight.

NARRATOR: But Seebacher knows he has no choice.

They must protect these heights of land,

to have any chance of halting the Allied advance before they reach the Rhine river.

Still pinned down on the ridge by heavy machine gun fire from above,

the Americans receive the order to charge.

But for an instant, no one, including Private Barney Hajiro, advances.

ROBERT: Hajiro told me many years later that you can't go backwards,

you can only go forwards.

He looked at his men, he saw that they were pinned down,

he knew that they would all die on that hill if they didn't do something.

NARRATOR: With his Browning automatic rifle ready,

Hajiro locates extra ammunition

and turns to his assistant B.A.R. man, Private Takeyasu Onaga.

Onaga tells Hajiro to take his P-38 if he gets shot.

ROBERT: Hajiro remembered that very vividly,

that a look of sadness just crossed his fox hole buddy's face.

And it was probably in that split second before Hajiro stood up

and started leading the charge.

NARRATOR: With Hajiro in the lead, the rest of "I" company follows.

ROBERT: I think the best part of him came out in battle,

and it's one of those strange circumstances that men can be tested,

and find within themselves resources that they never knew they had.

And I think that was very true of Barney Hajiro.

NARRATOR: Men are immediately cut down by machine gun fire and artillery blasts.

Close on the heels of his friend, Assistant B.A.R. man Onaga

stops to lift a tree that has fallen on a fellow soldier.

Onaga then continues his advance up the hill,

targeting enemy soldiers with a grenade.

Without warning, a bullet rips into his throat.

Hajiro sees his friend fall.

ROBERT: I think he was angry. I think he was horror stricken,

and also remember he was losing his ammunition man.

So he knew he had a magazine to make his point,

and he ran like a mad man firing all the way.

NARRATOR: The soldiers of the German 201st mountain batallion

hold steady against the American attackers.

PETER: It's undoubtedly unnerving to see

men coming up the hill, screaming and shouting.

This is a situation when the war gets purely emotional

and totally unpredictable.

NARRATOR: Pinned down for days,

the stalemate breaks and taking prisoners isn't a priority.

Private Barney Hajiro continues his charge up the hill,

and locates another machine gun nest.

ROBERT: A BAR weighs 15 or 20 pounds, you're wearing you're helmet,

you're carrying this equipment. You're running up a steep hill.

I don't know how he did it.

You have to have a rush of adrenaline that just powers you through these things.

NARRATOR: He continues to climb, but as he approaches a third machine gun nest,

his luck runs out.

ROBERT: Barney just felt this bullet rip through his arm,

and he had to fall but by that time you know his men were behind him,

they were taking out the Germans.

What he set out to do he accomplished. That is lead this charge up the hill.

NARRATOR: The medic wants to send Hajiro down to the first aid post,

but he refuses.

NARRATOR: He lost his BAR, but his fighting spirit was still there,

he said, "If I had a gun I would've kept firing".

- Get outta here! - I'm okay! I'll keep fighting!

NARRATOR: In the end, Hajiro acknowledges the gravity of his injury

and agrees to withdraw, though he refuses help.

ROBERT: He wanted to make sure that the people who needed help more than he did

could get it,

and I think it's a kind of badge of honor to be the last man

and to make sure that everybody else is taken care of before you are.

NARRATOR: After losing Shiro Kashino and Barney Hajiro, along with numerous others,

the 442nd pushes the Germans back.

But they've not yet made contact with the lost battalion.

The next morning, on Monday, October 30th,

a patrol of Japanese-American soldiers advances through the woods.

ROBERT: The battlefield was deserted, there was a strange calm,

and so they inched forward,

not knowing exactly what to expect,

being afraid that maybe there were machine guns awaiting them.

Maybe there was more mortar fire.

NARRATOR: They discover a communications wire and decide to follow it.

When you've got two friendly units in such close proximity, it's always dicey.

I think now also within the forest, given what's happened for almost a week,

I think that only adds to the stress level.

NARRATOR: They detect movement and ready themselves.

A figure emerges from behind a tree.

It's a fellow American from the lost battalion.

ROBERT: Mutt Sakumoto, who was the first one to encounter the Los Battalion,

didn't know what to say and so he just sort of fumbled and said,

"Hey, you guys want some cigarettes?"

And that turned out to be a just a great, humble,

wonderful acknowledgement of what both sides had been through.

A cigarette was just a great relief after the horrors they had experienced.

NARRATOR: After seven days of isolation,

the surviving members of first battalion, 141st infantry regiment, are rescued.

Of the original 274 soldiers, 211 descend the hill,

Including 32 wounded.

NARRATOR: There's much press coverage,

but the images released by the United States Army

do not acknowledge the role of the Japanese-American soldiers

who sacrificed so much.

From the segregated 442nd, 52 are killed during the mission

and 280 are wounded.

Their casualties likely exceed the number of men rescued.

Two weeks later, Major General John Dahlquist orders the 442nd assembled

to award a presidential unit citation for the action.

He's angry when the number of soldiers present was lower than he expected.

One of his officers has to inform him:

"That's all that's left of the 442nd, sir."

After he recovers, Sergeant Shiro Kashino continues to fight.

He will earn a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars,

and six Purple Hearts for his service.

While nominated for a Distinguished Service Cross,

He's wrongfully convicted by court martial and stripped of his rank

and disqualified for the medal.

More than 50 years later, a military investigation clears Kashino's name.

ROBERT: His fellow soldiers petitioned the army

for some recognition after many years,

which he finally got, but unfortunately about six months after he died.

NARRATOR: While Private Barney Hajiro

is nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor,

He receives the Distinguished Service Cross instead,

because of his Japanese heritage.

It would take more than 55 years for the American government

to acknowledge that he had rightfully earned

the nation's highest military award.

It was conferred on June 21st, 2000 by President Bill Clinton.

By the end of World War II,

the 442nd regimental combat team proves to be

one of the most highly decorated units in the United States Army.

They would return to Italy to break the Gothic Line in the spring of 1945,

while the war in Europe still raged on.