A Call to Military Service
After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. banned mainland Japanese Americans from joining the military.
But, when military officials discovered a need for skilled Japanese linguists, they recruited Nisei to attend the Military Intelligence Service Language School. Japanese Americans served secretly as interrogators, code breakers, interpreters, and translators for the U.S.
The Army also recruited Nisei to fight in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team while they were still incarcerated in the camps. Joining the military was a difficult decision for prisoners. Could they fight for American values abroad while their families were imprisoned at home? Would this prove their loyalty once and for all? About 1,000 volunteered; thousands were later drafted. About 800 Japanese Americans were killed in action.
Reinforced by the combat-hardened 100th Infantry Battalion (Japanese American draftees from Hawai‘i), the all-Nisei 442nd became the most decorated unit in U.S. history for its size and length of service.
All of us can’t stay in the [incarceration] camps until the end of the war. Some of us have to go to the front. Our record on the battlefield will determine when [Japanese Americans] will return and how you will be treated.”
- Technical Sergeant Abraham Ohama, Company “F”, 442nd RCT, killed in action in 1944
In 1943, Nisei in Utah’s Topaz Internment Camp produced a 16-page booklet encouraging fellow Nisei to volunteer to serve in the U.S. military. The pamphlet’s hand-drawn cover (reproduced here) includes a message from the Volunteers of Topaz. It reads, in part: “We believe in democracy and dedicate ourselves to the furtherance of its principles...Therefore, we believe that our volunteering in the armed forces of this country is... a positive manifestation of our loyalty to the United States of America.”
