Hawaii - James Michener [534]
ON SEPTEMBER 22, 1943, the Triple Two looked forward across the bow of their transport and saw rising in the misty dawn the hills of Italy, and Sergeant Goro Sakagawa thought: "I'll bet there's a German division hiding in there, waiting for us to step ashore."
He was right, and as the Japanese boys climbed down out of their transport to invade the beaches of Salerno, German planes and heavy artillery tried to harass them, but their aim was wild and all the units made it without casualty except one crop-headed private named Tashimoto, who sprained his ankle. The gang passed the word along with the acid comment, "Wouldn't you know it would be a guy from Molokai?"
Salerno lay southeast of Naples and had been chosen because it provided a logical stepping-off place for an encircling movement on Rome, some hundred and fifty miles distant, and on the day of landing, the Two-Two-Two started the long march north. The Germans, knowing both of their coming and of their composition, were determined to halt them. A specific order had been issued by Hitler: "To defeat the little yellow men who are traitors to our ally Japan and who are being cruelly used as propaganda by their Jewish masters in America, is obligatory. If these criminal little men should win a victory, it would be strongly used against us. They must be stopped and wiped out."
The Japanese boys from Hawaii did not know of this order, and after they had met one line of massive German resistance after another, they concluded: "These krauts must be the best fighters in the world. This is a lot tougher than they told us it was going to be." If the Two-Two-Two gained three miles, they did so against the most formidable German resistance: mines killed boys from Maui, tanks overran fighters from Molokai; gigantic shells exploded among troops from Kauai; and dogged, powerful ground forces contested every hill. Casualties were heavy, and the Honolulu Mail began carrying death lists with names like Kubokawa, Higa, and Moriguchi.
The furious efforts of the Germans to halt and humiliate the Japanese boys had an opposite effect to the one Hitler wanted; Allied war correspondents, both European and American, quickly discovered that whereas other fronts might not produce good stories, one could always get something exciting with the Two-Two-Two because they were the ones that were encountering the best the enemy could provide. Ernie Pyle, among others, marched for some days with the Hawaii troops, and wrote: "I have come to expect our American boys to continue fighting in the face of great odds, but these short, black-eyed little fighters are setting a new record. They continue slugging it out when even the bravest men would consolidate or withdraw. They form a terrific addition to our team, and dozens of boys from Texas and Massachusetts have told me, 'I'm glad they're on our side.' " So Hitler's determination to hit the Japanese so hard that they would be forced to collapse in shame, backfired because they fought on in glory.
Once Ernie Pyle asked Goro Sakagawa, "Sergeant, why did you push on against that cluster of houses? You knew it was crowded with Germans."
Goro replied in words that became famous both in Italy and America: "We had to. We fight double. Against the Germans and for every Japanese in America." Reported Pyle: "And they're winning both their wars."
September, October, November, December: the beautiful months, the months of poetry and rhythm, with nights growing colder and the soft mists of Italy turning to frost. How beautiful those months were when the boys from Hawaii first realized that they were as good fighting men as any in the world. "We fight double," they told themselves, and when they came to some Italian town, bathed in cloudless sunlight, standing forth against the hills like an etching, each tower clear in the bright glare, they attacked with fury and calculation, and