Yet a web page celebrating the feats of the Japanese-American soldiers who won battle after battle in Europe during World War II has been scrubbed from official U.S. military websites as part of President Donald Trump’s purge of programs and military history that speak of diversity, equality and inclusion.
The famed Hawaiʻi unit is no longer featured on the U.S. Army’s official website as it was up until March 5, when the web page was banished to the Wayback archive machine — a site that archives material from all over the internet.
While the Army’s website still contains a few articles about individual veterans of the 442nd found by using its search field, the web page devoted to the unit is gone.
There is no telling why the 442nd is even considered DEI and why a web page devoted to it had to be eradicated. Maybe because it praises the Japanese-American infantry soldiers for stepping up to fight racial prejudice when they joined forces with other Nisei from mainland internment camps to prove their loyalty to the U.S. after the Pearl Harbor bombing.
The web page that was removed from official military sites says: “The motto of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was ‘Go for Broke.’ It is a gambling term that means risking everything on one great effort to win. The soldiers of the 4422nd needed to win big. They were Nisei —American-born sons of Japanese Immigrants. They fought two wars: the Germans in Europe and prejudice in America.”
‘Digital Content Refresh’
The late U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye lost his right arm fighting in the 442nd when as a lieutenant he led a platoon on an assault against heavily armed German soldiers shooting down at them from a ridge near San Terenzo, Italy.
The late U.S. Sen. Spark Matsunaga was also a member of the combined 100th Battalion-442nd serving with many other Hawaiʻi men, primarily from working class immigrant families, many of whom became prominent citizens.
In a Feb. 26 memo, Sean Parnell, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, ordered the removal by March 5 of all DEI material from all military websites and social media platforms.
The subject of Parnell’s memo is “Digital Content Refresh.”
An Army spokesman told Civil Beat on Friday that the web page was “taken down in accordance with Presidential Executive Orders.”
“Articles related to the 442nd Infantry Regiment will be republished once we have had the opportunity to redesign and reorganize content to better align with current guidance,” said Christopher Surridge of the Office of the Chief of Public Affairs in an email.
“This takes Trump’s cuts to a whole new personal level,” said Honolulu filmmaker Stuart Yamane, whose father Masakichi Yamane served in the unit and was never the same after he returned. (...)
When it was activated in April 1943, the unit included about 4,000 men, most of them from Hawaiʻi. It later included about 10,000 Japanese-American soldiers.
The 442nd soldiers earned 21 Congressional Medals of Honor, 9,486 Purple Hearts and eight Presidential Unit Citations as well as the Congressional Gold Medal, the country’s highest civilian award.
Their courage has been honored in articles, photographs, books, documentaries and a feature-length film.
‘They Are Rewriting History’
“I think trying to wipe out this part of history is the worst part,” said Kaneohe resident Drusilla Tanaka. “I don’t know how you repair the damage.”
Her father, Bernard Akamine, served with the 100th Battalion-442nd in its shooting engagements all the way up Italy to the Battle of the Gothic Line, a heavily fortified German defensive line in northern Italy. The Gothic Line campaign — considered a significant Allied victory — came at the cost of thousands of American and British deaths.
“With all that is going on, this hurts the most,” said Tanaka. “They are rewriting history and that’s a sin.”
The Pentagon has not only purged the decorated Japanese-American soldiers from its official websites but it has also deleted thousands of pictures and reports praising the notable achievements of women, other racial minorities and anything that speaks of Black History Month.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned of the purges when he said “DEI is dead.” He said it is bad for camaraderie to put one group in the spotlight ahead of any other.
Juanita Allen is one of the few people I spoke with who was not upset by the Pentagon purge.
“If the Department of Defense wants to remove the 442nd from websites, be my guest,” she said. “We all know how wonderful they were. We don’t need the U.S. government to toot their horn.”
Allen’s father, Maj. William P. Wright, was one of the Caucasian officers who led the Japanese-American troops. He served through the war as executive officer of the unit’s 522nd Field Artillery Battalion.
Allen is the secretary of the Sons and Daughters of the 442nd, a Hawaiʻi nonprofit organization founded by the adult children of the veterans.
Even though the Pentagon removed the web page honoring the 442nd from its own websites, Allen says family members and supporters of the unit have at least six websites in Hawaiʻi and on the mainland with pictures and memories of its wartime achievements.
“We are apolitical,” she said. “We will not speak ill of the president or the Department of Defense. All we want to do is honor the men for what they did in the war.”
by Denby Fawcitt, Honolulu Civil Beat | Read more:
Images: US Army website before being removed.
