Hung Wai Ching tells the story of Colonel Albert Kuahi Brickwood Lyman, in charge of military engineering, when asked if he could use the Nisei responded: "Only 169? Bring more and I'll use them all." A few months later, Lyman was promoted to Brigadier General, the first local person to attain that rank. Aside from Hung Wai, who instigated the formation of the VVV, there were people like Ted Tsukiyama, Ralph Yempuku, Shiro Amioka, Yutaka Nakahata, Henry “Hank” Oyasato, Unkei Uchima.
The young Nisei were stationed at Schofield Barracks and called themselves the VARSITY VICTORY VOLUNTEERS. They built barracks, put up barbed wire fencing, smashed rocks at the quarry in Waianae Mountain range and performed other menial tasks for nearly a year.…show more content… 1, 432 men and 29 officers commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Farrant Turner left the islands for an unknown destination. They arrived on June 10, 1942 in Oakland and two days later they got their name, 100th Infantry Battalion: The One Puka Puka has started on its way to legend and begins its training in Camp McCoy Wisconsin. The 100th Battalion (Separate) is activated on June 12, 1942. Not assigned to a regiment, it is an orphan battalion. On January 6, 1943 the 100th Battalion left Camp Mc Coy for the South and after two days in a train, reached Camp Shelby Mississippi. The training was superb and the very impressed US Army allowed the creation of a Japanese American Regiment which became the 442nd…show more content… “No scene in Honolulu during World War II has been more striking, more significant, than that at the territorial capitol grounds on Sunday.
It was not alone the size of the crowd, somewhere between 15,000 and 17,000, and said by the old timers to be the largest that ever massed between the gateways of old Iolani Palace.
It was not primarily the formal ceremonies by which the territorial government and the city government and individual speakers honoured the 2,600 young Americans of Japanese ancestry who have been taken into the United States Army to form combat units.
It was most significantly, the evident pride of the families and friends of these young Americans; their pride that the youths are entrusted with the patriotic mission of fighting for their country and the Allied nations.
This pride, this gratification that, after more than a year of our World War II, Americans of Japanese ancestry are now being enrolled as soldiers, to serve in the combat units, on the firing line; these emotions brought a tremendous outpouring of fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, as well as thousands of other races than
