Most Honorable Son

“The Hershey Senior Class, 1936,” Hershey (Nebraska) Times, May 7, 1936, p. 1.

Ben recounted the immigration of his parents, their early lives in America, and how they came to move to Nebraska in an extraordinary oral history interview with the imminent Cal State, Fullerton, history professor (and now professor emeritus) Art Hansen. See Arthur A. Hansen, Center for Oral and Public History, California State University, Fullerton, Japanese American Oral History Project, October 17, 1944. Shosuke Kuroki’s fondness for gambling during his Wyoming days is drawn from the author’s interview with Reed Kuroki, the son of Ben’s oldest brother, George. Reed Kuroki, author interview, November 5, 2022.

“Taking a Sight with John Bentley,” Nebraska State Journal, April 22, 1928, p. 6.

The neighbor who looked after Ben was Margaret (Maggie) Harkness Geiken, an Irish immigrant from Belfast who had married a Nebraska farmer named Albert Geiken. “Obituary: Margaret Harkness Geiken,” Cozad (Nebraska) Local, August 29, 1950; also Ralph G. Martin, Boy from Nebraska (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishing, 1946), pp. 34–36.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, pp. 16–17.

At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, Hawaii was fixed as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) minus ten hours and thirty minutes. As a result, 7:55 a.m. in Honolulu—the moment of the Japanese attack by most accounts—was 1:25 p.m. in Washington, DC, and 12:25 p.m. in Nebraska. On June 8, 1947, Hawaii time was adjusted forward by thirty minutes to conform with the rest of the United States.

CHAPTER 2: “THIS IS URGENT”

Mike Masaoka with Bill Hosokawa, They Call Me Moses Masaoka: An American Saga (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1987), pp. 69–70.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998, unedited footage used in Most Honorable Son documentary film, Ben Kuroki Collection, KDN Films Archives.

CHAPTER 3: “THIS IS YOUR COUNTRY”

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage.

“FBI Makes Raid on ‘Little Tokyo,’” Kearney (Nebraska) Daily Hub, December 8, 1941, p. 5; “U.S. in Fast Moving Protective Measures Arrest 736 Japanese Aliens—Troops Called on Guard Duty at Defense Plants, Strategic Bridges,” North Platte Telegraph, December 8, 1941, p. 1.

“Alien Japs in Nebraska,” Hershey (Nebraska) Citizen, December 25, 1941, p. 8.

“Bonus offered first airman to hit Tokyo,” Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star, December 30, 1941, p. 1.

“Japanese of Lincoln County,” Lincoln County (Nebraska) Historical Museum exhibition, North Platte, Nebraska; for a vivid description of the backlash on the West Coast, see Susan Kamei, When Can We Go Back to America?: Voices of Japanese American Incarceration During WWII (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021), pp. 50–57.

Ben Kuroki oral history interview with Tom Gibbs, March 26, 2013, National World War II Museum.

Ibid.

The saga of Ben and Fred Kuroki’s efforts to enlist was documented in newspaper articles in the North Platte Telegraph, the Grand Island Daily Independent, and other Nebraska newspapers. See “List Men Who Have Volunteered,” North Platte Telegraph, December 10, 1941, p. 4; “American-Born Sons of Nippon Join Army Here,” Grand Island Daily Independent, December 16, 1941, p. 4; “American Sons of Japanese Parents Join U.S. Army Air Corps,” Grand Island Daily Independent, December 16, 1941, p. 5. Later in life, Ben’s memory of the timeline became fuzzy, and he described waiting up to two weeks to hear back from the North Platte recruiter before driving to Grand Island to enlist. In fact, as contemporary newspaper accounts make clear, he waited only a day before driving to Grand Island. Ben repeated this incorrect timeline in oral history interviews he gave in the 1990s and early 2000s, and this was repeated in a fifty-five-page biography crafted by Ben’s 93rd Bomb Group friend Carroll (Cal) Stewart. Author Ralph G. Martin fashioned an even more garbled account of Ben’s enlistment in his 1946 biography. See Martin, Boy from Nebraska, pp. 45–48.

“Scottsbluff Jap Arrest,” Associated Press dispatch, North Platte Telegraph, December 23, 1941, p. 6.

“Big Arrows Cut in Cane as Jap Planes Attacked Hawaii,” United Press dispatch printed in the Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal, December 30, 1941, p. 1.

Ibid.

“Japanese Turn in Radios, Cameras . . . ,” Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star, December 30, 1941, p. 2.

CHAPTER 4: ALONE

Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, eds., The Army Air Forces in World War II. Vol. 6, Men and Planes (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1949), pp. 528–32.

Ibid., pp. 530–32.

Ben discussed his basic training experiences at Sheppard Field in his interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998, for the Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage, and with Tom Gibbs, March 26, 2013, for the National World War II Museum oral history collection. Martin’s Boy from Nebraska also describes these experiences and the correspondence of Ben and his brother Fred with family members. See Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 52.

Ben Kuroki oral history interview with Tom Gibbs, March 26, 2013, National World War II Museum.

Ibid.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, pp. 55–56.

Ibid., pp. 59–60.

CHAPTER 5: “ARE YOU AN AMERICAN CITIZEN?”

Craven and Cate, Men and Planes, pp. 205–206.

Details of Ben Kuroki’s initial activities at Barksdale Field are drawn from his August 26–27, 1998, interview with filmmaker Bill Kubota for the Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage, and from Martin, Boy from Nebraska, pp. 59–60. The quote from Ben is from the Kubota interview.

Ralph Martin places Ben’s kitchen duty at Barksdale Field in a two-week period after his arrival, when he was awaiting assignment to an operational unit. See Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 60.

Craven and Cate, Men and Planes, pp. 57–58.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 61.

Ibid.

Ibid., p. 62. Martin incorrectly identifies the squadron commander as a “Major Zadalis.” His name was Stanley A. Zidiales, and he was a second lieutenant at the time. Zidiales commanded the 409th Squadron from March 26, 1942, to July 12, 1942, when K. K. Compton assumed leadership of the squadron.

Exactly how Ben was informed of the reprieve is the subject of conflicting accounts. Ralph G. Martin describes the first sergeant rousing Ben as he slept in his bunk and asking Ben if he would like to remain with the 93rd, to which Ben replied in the affirmative. At this point, in Martin’s telling, the first sergeant informed Ben that he would be remaining with the group. See Martin, p. 63. The definitive history of the 93rd Bomb Group offers a slightly different account. “The day before the group left Barksdale, the CO called Ben in again, and told him to pack his barracks bag. He was going with them to Florida,” the account reads. See Carroll (Cal) Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus (Lincoln, Nebraska: Sun/ World Communications, 1996), p. 43.

CHAPTER 6: “IN NO SENSE READY FOR CONFLICT”

“Special Task Force Given Last Touches,” Fort Myers (Florida) News-Press, May 15, 1942, pp. 1 and 3. Halverson’s secret orders called for his detachment to join the Tenth Air Force in China to conduct raids on the Japanese home islands. But a Japanese offensive in China disrupted the plan, and Halverson and his men had gotten no farther than Egypt when they received a change of orders. On June 11, 1942, thirteen B-24s of the Halverson Project (HALPRO) carried out the first US air raid on Europe when they bombed oil refineries in Ploiesti, Romania.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 64.

Ibid., pp. 65–66.

Biographical material on Chaplain James A. Burris is drawn from federal census and military records, including his 1940 draft registration card, and various newspaper articles. These include “Chaplain Asks Divorce: Wife Ruined His Career, Says Capt. James A. Burris,” Kansas City Times, August 12, 1944, p. 12, an account of Burris’s wartime marital problems that includes useful biographical information; “Major Burris Honored,” Cassville (Missouri) Republican, August 29, 1946, p. 1; and “New Chaplain Is Assigned to MacDill Field,” Tampa Tribune, May 11, 1947, p. 17.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 65.

The first German submarine was credited to the 93rd crew commanded by First Lieutenant John L. (Jack) Jerstad, affectionately known to his comrades as Jerk Jerstad. Rollin Reineck, author interview, September 23, 1991. Reineck was the navigator of the Jerstad crew, although he wasn’t aboard the aircraft when his comrades sank the submarine in the Gulf of Mexico in June 1942. Crew members later described the submarine sinking in an article for Air Force magazine. See Captain Arthur Gordon, “Dream Crew,” Air Force, October 1943, pp. 8–9. The second submarine was sunk on June 21, 1942, by the 93rd crew commanded by First Lieutenant B. F. Williams. See “B-24 Crew Cited for Sinking U-Boat on June 21 in the Gulf of Mexico,” Palm Beach (Florida) Post, July 26, 1942, p. 2; “Plane Crew Cited for Sinking U-Boat,” New York Times, July 26, 1942.

James Parton, Air Force Spoken Here (Bethesda, Maryland: Adler & Adler, 1986), pp. 168–70. Parton was General Ira Eaker’s aide-de-camp in England.

H. H. Arnold, Global Mission (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949), p. 329.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 43.

CHAPTER 7: QUEEN OF THE SEAS

I consulted several accounts about the RMS Queen Elizabeth’s wartime service. These include: Andrew Britton, RMS Queen Elizabeth, Classic Liners series (Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press, 2013); D. A. Butler, Warrior Queens: The Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth in World War II (Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 2002); Chris Koning, “Queen Elizabeth” at War: His Majesty’s Transport, 1939–1946 (Wellingborough, UK: Patrick Stephens, 1985); and The Two “Queens”—War Service of the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, Hutchinson’s Pictorial History of the War, Vol. 26, pp. 389–92. Also informative was the entry for the RMS Queen Elizabeth on the Great Ocean Liners website, accessed at https://www.greatoceanliners.com/rms-queen-elizabeth, and an article on the site about the Queen Elizabeth written by Henrik Reimertz. A fascinating wartime account of the Queen Elizabeth’s conversion from luxury liner to troop transport is “Thousands of Canadian Workers Make Queen Elizabeth Troop Ship,” The Gazette (Montreal, Canada), December 6, 1944, p. 16. The Manhattan “Super Piers” from which many U.S. servicemen departed in World War II are described in “Sailing Away,” New York Times, March 12, 2006, Section 14, p. 4. An indispensable source on trans-Atlantic convoys during the war is the Arthur Hague Convoy Database, accessed at http://www.convoyweb.org.uk/misc/index.html.

Cal Stewart’s first encounter with Ben Kuroki aboard the Queen Elizabeth was related to the author by Stewart’s son. Scott Stewart, author interview, July 24, 2023.

CHAPTER 8: “CHINAMAN BOY”

The Story of the 93rd Bomb Group (San Angelo Texas: Newsfoto Pub., n.d.), Chapter 2.

Ibid.

Rollin Reineck, author interview, September 23, 1991.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 76.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 21.

Ibid., p. 22.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 78.

Ibid.

Lieutenant George R. Kaiser, Jr., October 4, 1942, “Historical Narrative of the Four Hundred Ninth Bomb Squadron, 1942, Month of October.” Author’s collection.

CHAPTER 9: “HEY, THEY’RE SHOOTING AT US!”

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 3.

Ibid., p. 7.

Ibid.

Theodore Finnarn, author interview, August 10, 1991. An Ohio native, Finnarn was the flight engineer and top turret gunner of Thunder Bird. The tail gunner who was so shaken by his first encounter with enemy flak was Jack R. Stover, a carpenter born in Illinois and living in Northern California at the time of his enlistment. The pilot was Charles (Pat) Murphy, the son of a prominent Mississippi attorney, and the copilot was Joe Avendano, a full-blooded Apache from Southern California.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 8. The five men who died in the crash of the Big Eagle were Lieutenant William Marsh and sergeants James Detoris, Stephen Eppolito, Clayton Kammerer, and Arthur N. Torrey. The pilot of Big Eagle was Captain Alexander Simpson and his copilot was Lieutenant Nicholas H. Cox.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 14.

Ibid.

CHAPTER 10: “LOOK AT ME NOW”

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, pp. 23–24.

Ibid., p. 35.

Bill Kubota, Most Honorable Son documentary transcript.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 25.

Ibid., p. 27.

Ibid.

Ibid., pp. 27–28.

The command pilot of the dramatic flight was First Lieutenant Howard N. Young of Berkeley, California; the copilot was Second Lieutenant Cleveland D. Hickman from nearby Albany, California; and the bombardier was Second Lieutenant Anthony C. Yenalavage of Kingston, Pennsylvania. All three were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in February 1943. Young lost an arm because of his wounds, but he would be the only one of the three to survive the war. Their heroics were recounted in “Berkeley Fliers, Strangers Once, ‘Blood Brothers’ Now,” Oakland (California) Tribune, January 7, 1943, p. 10; “Local Bombardier Gets DFC; Saved Crew by Taking Over Controls of Crippled Ship,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Times Leader, February 17, 1943, p. 3; and “Local Fliers Decorated for Heroism Over Lorient,” Oakland (California) Tribune, February 17, 1943, p. 1.

CHAPTER 11: “ARE YOU SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING?”

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 77.

Ibid., p. 80.

Theodore Finnarn, author interview, August 10, 1991

Art Ferwerda interview with Bill Kubota, September 18, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage.

I’ve tapped several sources for the biographical information on 93rd pilot Richard (Dick) Wilkinson and his father, J. L. Wilkinson. Joe Avendano Duran, nephew of the 93rd pilot Joe Avendano, shared with me recollections of his conversations with Dick Wilkinson in the early 2000s that included discussions about J. L. Wilkinson’s ownership of the Kansas City Monarchs. Bill Young and Charles F. Faber have written an excellent biographical piece on J.L. that can be found on the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) website here: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/j-l-wilkinson/. Among the sources that Young and Faber tapped for their piece is an excellent profile of J. L. Wilkinson written by Sam Mellinger, “J.L. Wilkinson: He Was a Man Apart,” Kansas City Star, July 30, 2006, pp. C1, C12. J.L. was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, and his biographical sketch on the Hall of Fame’s website can be found here: https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/wilkinson-jl. Joseph A. Reaves interviewed Dick Wilkinson for his excellent story in the Arizona Republic on the eve of J. L. Wilkinson’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame: “Negro League Legends Fitting for Call to Hall,” Arizona Republic, February 25, 2006, pp. C1, C6. I gleaned additional information from several other wartime newspaper articles, including: “Sporting Comment,” Kansas City Star, August 15, 1943, p. 15, and “K.C. Owner’s Son Downed in Raid,” Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Courier, January 1, 1944, p. 12.

Ibid.

Richard L. Wilkinson census records, 1940 Selective Service registration card, 1941 enlist records, 93rd BG records.

Joe Avendano Duran, nephew of 93rd pilot Joe Avendano, talked with both Dick Wilkinson and Ben Kuroki about Dick’s acceptance of Ben as a fill-in gunner on his crew in the late autumn of 1942. In a series of conversations, text messages, and emails on January 6, 8, 11, and 14, 2022, Joe Duran shared with me the recollections of Dick Wilkinson and Ben Kuroki about how Ben had become a replacement on Wilkinson’s crew. Joseph A. Reaves also touched on this topic in his interview with Dick Wilkinson for “Negro League Legends Fitting for Call to Hall,” Arizona Republic, February 25, 2006, pp. C1, C6.

Ibid.

CHAPTER 12: A BIG CHANCE

Edward Weir interview with Bill Kubota, August 29, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 47.

Al Asch written account, quoted in Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, pp. 47–48.

Information on the physical attributes of Robert A. Johnson was drawn from his World War II Army Air Corps enlistment record. Details on his crash were drawn from newspaper articles found on the Crawford County, Iowa, IAGenWeb, under the headings “Military-World War II-News About Military Personnel-1943,” http://iagenweb.org/crawford/military/ccmilitaryww2.html, accessed on November 12, 2022. Also see Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, pp. 47–48.

CHAPTER 13: “NOW, I BELONG”

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 49.

Ibid.

The presence of the Jewish workers on the ground in Tunis is recounted in Rick Atkinson, Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2002), pp. 239–40.

Atkinson, Army at Dawn, p. 218

Recollections of Ben’s first mission are drawn from Bill Kubota’s interviews with Ben Kuroki and Bill Dawley and Ralph Martin’s account. See Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage; Elmer (Bill) Dawley interview with Bill Kubota, November 12, 1998, unedited footage; and Martin, Boy from Nebraska, pp. 91–94. Dawley said in his interview with Kubota, “The next thing I know, bang, I’m gone. A chunk of flak hit me and that was the end of me.”

As Ben recalled: “He got hit in the head and we couldn’t even help him until we got out of the flak zone and out of the enemy aircraft. [Hap] Kendall came back and was going to give him a morphine injection and I waved him off and told him not to because I remembered what they had taught me in gunner’s school in England: A morphine injection to a serious head injury could be fatal.” Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, pp. 50–51. The three members of the Ambrose crew who died in the crash landing were Lieutenants Walter R. Erness and Estell A. Martin and Sergeant Henry M. Elder.

Ibid., p. 51.

Various accounts about the 93rd’s movement from Tafaraoui, Algeria, to Gambut, Libya, all place the movement as occurring in the third week of December 1942, but they differ as to the date. The official 328th Squadron History for December 1942 lists December 20 as the date of the 93rd’s movement from Tafaraoui to Gambut. Years later, in his unofficial history of the 93rd, Cal Stewart cites December 15 as the date of the movement. See Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 51. In their official history, Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate cite December 16 as the day of the arrival of the 93rd bombers at Gambut. See Craven and Cate, eds., The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 2. Europe: Torch to Pointblank, August 1942 to December 1943 (Washington, DC: Superintendent of Documents, 1948), pp. 97–98. Other 93rd Bomb Group accounts fix December 18 as the date of the group’s arrival at Gambut after a flight that began late in the evening of December 17, and that’s what I have used.

CHAPTER 14: GAMBUT

Craven and Cate, Europe: Torch to Pointblank, August 1942 to December 1943, pp. 97–98.

Lewis H. Brereton diary entry for December 13, 1942, published as Lewis H. Brereton, Lieutenant General, USA, The Brereton Diaries: The War in the Air in the Pacific, Middle East and Europe: 3 October 1941–8 May 1945 (New York, William Morrow and Company, 1946), p. 174.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 57.

Wilmer H. Paine journal entry for December 23, 1942, published by Paine’s son as Flight Surgeon: The Journal of Maj. Wilmer H. Paine 93rd Bombardment Group Eighth Air Force (W. Paine Jr., 2006).

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 58.

Brereton diary entry for December 13, 1942, Brereton Diaries, p. 174.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 58.

Paine journal entry for December 24, 1942.

Brereton diary entry for December 25, 1942.

Paine journal entry for December 26, 1942.

Paine journal entry for December 27, 1942.

Paine journal entry for December 29, 1942; Brereton diary entry for December 31, 1942.

Paine journal entry for December 30, 1942.

Paine journal entries for December 27–28, 1942.

CHAPTER 15: BROTHERS IN ARMS

Paine journal entry for January 1, 1943.

CHAPTER 16: ON TO ITALY

Atkinson, Army at Dawn, p. 242.

Ibid., p. 245.

Ibid., pp. 253–55.

Ibid., pp. 258–59.

Ibid., p. 260.

Ibid., p. 248.

Brereton diary entry for January 4, 1943.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 97.

CHAPTER 17: BIG DEALER

Paine journal entry for January 10, 1943.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 50.

Associated Press dispatch, “Gunner Helps Bring Crippled Bomber Home by Holding Fuel Line Leak Till Hands Freeze,” Evening Star (Washington, DC), October 11, 1942, p. 23.

United Press dispatch, “Anglo-U.S. Patrols Protect Convoys,” New York Daily News, November 11, 1942, p. 22.

“Former Mines Student Killed,” Rapid City (South Dakota) Journal, January 27, 1943, pp. 1 and 6.

Paine journal entry for January 12, 1943.

Paine journal entry for January 14, 1943.

CHAPTER 18: DOUBLE TROUBLE

Paine journal entry for January 15, 1943. Also see Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 55.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 54.

Paine journal entry for January 19, 1943. Also see Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, pp. 54–55

Craven and Cate, Europe: Torch to Pointblank: August 1942 to December 1943, p. 102.

CHAPTER 19: NO END IN SIGHT

Ibid., pp. 102–3.

Details of the 93rd’s January 26, 1943, raid on the Messina port area are drawn from Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 56.

Craven and Cate, Europe: Torch to Pointblank: August 1942 to December 1943, pp. 102–03; Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 59.

Ibid.

Atkinson, Army at Dawn, pp. 291–95.

Ibid.

Major General John W. Huston, USAF Retired, ed., American Airpower Comes of Age: General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold’s World War II Diaries (Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 2002), pp. 475–76.

Ibid.

CHAPTER 20: RETURN TO ENGLAND

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 65.

Paine journal entry for January 26, 1943.

Paine journal entry for February 3, 1943.

Paine journal entry for January 31, 1943.

Paine journal entry for February 9, 1943.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, pp. 59–60.

Ibid., p. 66.

Paine journal entry for February 13, 1943.

Paine journal entry for February 15, 1943.

Paine journal entry for February 16, 1943.

Paine journal entry for February 18, 1943.

George Piburn would put his combat experience to good use training crews in the United Kingdom, and he would meet and marry a British woman, Christina Marie Swales. Piburn survived the war and returned to Southern California with Christina, but he would die young. In 1976, Piburn was living in Rancho Palos Verdes in Orange County when a teenage driver rolled their car in an accident a quarter of a mile from Piburn’s house. A nineteen-year-old girl was killed in the accident. Police were still at the scene of the accident a short time later when Piburn suffered a fatal heart attack. He was fifty-four years old. See “Crash Victim Dies of Injuries,” Press-Telegram (Long Beach, California), January 13, 1976, p. 12.

My description of the fighting at Kasserine Pass is drawn from Rick Atkinson’s detailed account in Army at Dawn and other sources. See Atkinson, Army at Dawn, pp. 339–92, and “The Battle of Kasserine Pass,” an article published by the National WWII Museum on February 5, 2018, and accessed at https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/battle-kasserine-pass.

CHAPTER 21: MISSING IN ACTION

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, pp. 67–68.

Edward Weir shared the same sentiment in a letter to his father later that week. “We expected to crash into the mountains at any minute,” Weir wrote. Edward Weir letter to his father, February 27, 1943, quoted in “Kilgore Flier Interned in Spanish Morocco; Has Narrow Escape as Big Plane Forced Down,” Kilgore (Texas) News Herald, March 28, 1943, pp. 1 and 8.

The Epting crew’s encounter with the hundred or so horsemen was described in Bill Kubota’s interviews with Ben Kuroki, Homer Moran, and Edward Weir for his Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage. Another source of information was Edward Weir’s letter to his father, cited above.

Ibid.

Edward Weir letter to father, February 27, 1943.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Edward Weir interview with Bill Kubota, August 29, 1998.

CHAPTER 22: PRISONERS IN A GILDED CAGE

My understanding of Francisco Franco’s complicated alliance with Adolf Hitler during World War II was informed by four sources: Willard L. Beaulac, Franco: Silent Ally in World War II (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986); Wayne H. Bowen, Spain during World War II (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2006); Charles B. Burdick, Germany’s Military Strategy and Spain in World War II, (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1968); and Herbert Feis, The Spanish Story: Franco and the Nations at War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948).

Beaulac, Franco: Silent Ally in World War II, p. 205.

Ambassador Carlton Hayes cable to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, January 15, 1943, published as Document 544, “The Ambassador in Spain (Hayes) to the Secretary of State,” in E. Ralph Perkins and N. O. Sappington, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, Europe, Vol. II (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1964).

Details of Ben Kuroki’s internment in Spain with thirteen 93rd Bomb Group airmen are drawn from Bill Kubota’s previously cited interviews with Ben Kuroki, Homer Moran, and Edward Weir. Also see Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, pp. 103–10.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, pp. 106–7.

Ambassador Carlton Hayes cable to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, January 15, 1943, as Document 544, “The Ambassador in Spain (Hayes) to the Secretary of State,” and Document 546, “The Chargé in Spain (Beaulac) to the Secretary of State,” in Perkins and Sappington, eds., FRUS: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, Europe, Vol. II.

Homer Moran interview with Bill Kubota, September 5, 1990.

CHAPTER 23: TUPELO LASS

James Parton diary entry for March 27, 1943, James Parton Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Ralph G. Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 134. I’ve drawn additional details about the near-crash from the Epting crew’s after-mission debriefing comments in the crew’s sortie report for the May 29, 1943, mission to La Pallice, France, found in the 93rd Bomb Group records, RG 18, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA II), College Park, Maryland.

I found this notation on the Epting crew’s sortie report for the May 29, 1943, mission to La Pallice, France, in the National Archives. 93rd Bomb Group Records, RG 18, NARA II.

CHAPTER 24: SPECIAL ORDERS NUMBER 174

James Dugan and Carroll Stewart, Ploesti: The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943 (New York: Random House, 1962), pp. 44–45; Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, pp. 127–28. At the time the Dugan-Stewart book was published in 1962, the name of the Romanian city was spelled “Ploesti.” It is now Ploiesti.

Edward Sand diary entries for June 6, 7, 10, and 14, 1943. Author’s collection.

William Gros, author interview, October 13, 1991.

Robert Lovett to General Henry H. Arnold, memoranda dated June 18 and 19, 1943, Ira Eaker Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

General Henry H. Arnold to General Barney M. Giles, directive dated June 22, 1943, Henry (Hap) Arnold Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

“Squadron History—June 1943,” 328th Squadron records, July 13, 1944. Author’s collection.

CHAPTER 25: THE BIG ONE

Brutus Hamilton diary entry for June 27, 1943, 330th Squadron, 93rd Bomb Group Records. Author’s collection.

Edward Sand diary entry for June 27, 1943. Author’s collection.

Brutus Hamilton diary entry for June 28, 1943. The officer had been a two-time Olympian and silver medalist in the decathlon at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium. The Missouri-born Hamilton was track and field coach at the University of California, Berkeley, and was in his early forties when he entered the army after Pearl Harbor and was assigned to the 93rd’s 330th Squadron as an intelligence major. Hamilton was a gifted poet and writer and kept a diary that documented the 93rd’s exploits as the air war against Nazi Germany ramped up in 1943.

Post-mission intelligence report, July 19, 1943, 93rd Bomb Group Records. Author’s collection.

Rome radio reported the deaths of 166 persons on the ground the day following the raid. Over the next several days, the official death toll rose to 700 people. A 2003 investigation launched by Rome’s municipal government concluded that the actual number of deaths in the city’s San Lorenzo district alone was more than 1,500.

Gelorme Musco’s first name is spelled inconsistently in government records and news accounts. He was born “Gelorme Musco,” according to birth and census records. In US military records, his name appears as “Jerome” and “Gelrome.” On November 13, 1943, the New York Daily News ran a feature article about the death of Musco, written by a London-based correspondent for the United Press news service, Walter Cronkite, later of CBS News fame. Cronkite’s story began, “All his life Gelrome Musco wanted to see Sicily. His parents were born there. His grandparents still live there. Gelrome today is buried in Sicily, in the little town of Cassible—but he never saw the Mediterranean isle.” See Walter Cronkite, “Bury Slain Flier on Isle He Pined to See,” New York Daily News, November 13, 1943, p. 65.

Brutus Hamilton diary entry for July 24, 1943.

Edward Sand diary entry for July 31, 1943.

CHAPTER 26: TIDAL WAVE

Background information on Charles Stenius Young is drawn from several sources, including U.S. federal census records for 1920, 1930, and 1940, and Young’s Selective Service and army enlistment records. A fascinating source was a letter about Young from his great-niece, Kate Jensen, published as “Reader Voices: Discovering Uncle Bubba,” Deseret (Utah) News, February 10, 2010.

Background information on Ivan Canfield is drawn from U.S. federal census records for 1920, 1930, and 1940, and Canfield’s army enlistment records. Additional information about Canfield is drawn from various news clippings, including: “Gulf Coast Training Center Pins Wings on Biggest Flying Classes,” Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, January 15, 1943, p. 15; “99 Texans Decorated for Participation in Ploesti Oil Refineries Raid,” San Angelo (Texas) Standard-Times, November 17, 1943, p. 8; and “Airman’s Mother Receives His Medal for Raid,” Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, December 30, 1943, p. 4.

I separately interviewed the two Kickapoo survivors, Russell Polivka and Eugene Garner, and they agreed on most key facts. Both, for example, said that Kickapoo lost three engines shortly after takeoff, precipitating the emergency that culminated in the deadly crash. Garner described how the pilots guided the aircraft over the sea, where they dumped their bombs, before circling back to attempt an emergency landing. It was Garner’s recollection that they were airborne for more than thirty minutes before the attempted landing. Polivka said he left the nose compartment and made his way back to the bulkhead area “when I knew we were going to crash.” As the pilots attempted to land, “there was a telephone pole out in the desert and we hit that,” Polivka told me. “Cut off a wing and the next I knew everything was on fire.” Polivka said he escaped through the hole where the top turret had caved in. It was Garner’s recollection that Polivka got stuck in a window while trying to exit the burning aircraft and that he had pulled Polivka free and dragged him to a nearby railroad embankment. Garner said his burns weren’t as severe as Polivka’s because he was doused by a five-gallon can of hydraulic fluid that burst when the plane broke up. The hydraulic fluid didn’t burn easily and “insulated” him, Garner said. Ploiesti was Polivka’s first and last mission of the war. Garner returned to duty about five weeks later and flew twenty-five missions with the 93rd. One of Garner’s first missions after his return to duty was the October 1, 1943, raid on which my uncle, Technical Sergeant L. H. White, and eight crewmates were killed. Author interviews with Eugene Garner, July 17, 1991, and Russell Polivka, November 19, 1991.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Edwin Baker, One of Many, unpublished memoir dated 1982, p. 16. Baker shared his manuscript with me in the early 1990s.

The descriptions of the banter among members of the Tupelo Lass crew on the flight to Ploiesti and the singing of the “Blue Danube” waltz are drawn from Bill Kubota’s interviews for his Most Honorable Son documentary: Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998, unedited footage; K. O. Dessert interview with Bill Kubota, October 16, 1998, unedited footage; and Edward Weir interview with Bill Kubota, August 29, 1998, unedited footage.

Dugan and Stewart, Ploesti, pp. 106–7; Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, pp. 168–69.

CHAPTER 27: A HELLHOLE OF FIRE, FLAME, AND SMOKE

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Dugan and Stewart. Ploesti, p. 112.

The gunner who broke down at his waist gun was a member of my uncle’s crew, which was flying in Jerk’s Natural, tail number 41-23711, piloted by Cleveland Hickman. The crew’s regular command pilot, William F. Stein, flew as copilot. The breakdown of gunner Kermit Morris was described to me by the crew’s tail gunner on the Ploiesti raid, William G. Anderson. “Morris just wilted. [Technical Sergeant L. H. White] had to come back and take over his waist gun. Morris sat down and cried,” Anderson told me in the first of several interviews and conversations we had through the 1990s. William G. Anderson, author interview, December 17, 1991. By all accounts, Kermit Morris was never the same after the Ploiesti raid. He flew one more mission then took himself off flying status, although he remained with the 93rd in various ground duties for several months afterward. Morris continued to struggle after the war. He drank heavily and, according to public records, was arrested for public intoxication in New Mexico and California. He died in 1968 at the age of fifty. “He never was the same after the war,” his former wife told me. Tootie Summersgill, author interview, December 30, 1990.

Ben Kuroki’s descriptions of what he saw and experienced over Ploiesti are primarily drawn from his August 26–27, 1998, interview with documentary filmmaker Bill Kubota, unedited footage. Jake Epting described what he saw from the cockpit of Tupelo Lass in Dugan and Stewart, Ploesti, p. 112.

The pilot was 328th Squadron commander Joseph Tate, quoted in Dugan and Stewart, Ploesti, p. 117.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998. Ben believed the aircraft was Jose Carioca, piloted by Nicholas Stampolis with copilot Ivan Canfield. Other accounts described Jose Carioca as the aircraft that plowed into the third floor of Ploiesti’s women’s prison. Regardless of how Jose Carioca met its end, there were no survivors.

Edwin Baker, One of Many, p. 17.

Hubert Womble, author interview, November 19, 1991. Womble also provided a written account of his Ploiesti experience to author Michael Hill. See Hill, Black Sunday: Ploesti (Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Military/Aviation History, 1993), p. 66.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Ibid.

K. O. Dessert interview with Bill Kubota, October 16, 1998.

Ibid.

CHAPTER 28: THE LONGEST NIGHT

Edward Weir interview with Bill Kubota, August 29, 1998.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Brutus Hamilton diary entry for August 1, 1943.

K. O. Dessert interview with Bill Kubota, October 16, 1998.

Donald Hudspeth diary entry for August 2, 1943. Author’s collection. I spoke with Hudspeth several times during the 1990s and I formally interviewed him on July 9, 1991, and August 12, 1991. He mentioned that he kept a diary, which he then generously shared with me. Hudspeth died in Yadkinville, North Carolina, in 2012 at the age of ninety-one.

The 328th Squadron aircraft that returned from Sicily on Aug. 2, 1943 was Jerk’s Natural, the aircraft named and flown to England by John L. (Jerk) Jerstad, who died over Ploesti. The aircraft had been bequeathed to the William Stein crew, which had joined the 93rd in England in June. My uncle—my mother’s oldest brother—Technical Sergeant L. H. White was the radio operator on Jerk’s Natural. On Oct. 1, 1943, my uncle and eight other men, including William Stein, died during an attempted crash landing in southern Austria after bombing the German Messerschmitt Me-109 factory at Wiener Neustadt, Austria.

Homer Moran interview with Bill Kubota, Sept. 5, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage, Ben Kuroki Collection, KDN Films Archives.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Brutus Hamilton diary entry for August 3, 1943.

Elmer (Bill) Dawley interview with Bill Kubota, November 12, 1998.

A 328th Squadron pilot who was among the 93rd men sent to Egypt for rest and relaxation following the Ploiesti raid detailed how the men spent their time in a letter to his family. Second Lieutenant George B. Wilkinson to Dear Mother, letter dated Aug. 7, 1943. Author’s collection.

CHAPTER 29: LIMBO

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke, Wiener Neustadt, Austria, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Survey, 1947).

Parton, Air Force Spoken Here, p. 263.

Brutus Hamilton diary entry for August 7, 1943.

Donald Hudspeth diary entry for August 13, 1943.

Alva (Jake) Geron related his experiences on the Ploiesti raid and the August 13, 1943, raid on Wiener Neustadt, Austria, in two interviews with me. Alva Geron, author interviews, December 8, 1990, and August 2, 1993.

CHAPTER 30: MORAN CREW

See “Rosebud Indian School Boys Visit the Journal,” Rapid City Journal, February 7, 1933, p. 5.

Homer Moran’s basketball exploits were documented by the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader and other South Dakota newspapers. The “Wandering Sioux” photo and cutline were published in the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, January 21, 1938, p. 10. Also see “Powerful Northern Squad Coming for Two Contests,” Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, February 4, 1940, p. 10.

See “World’s Tallest Team Sets Back Wolves, 60–52,” Rapid City Journal, March 12, 1940, p. 7; “Northern Beaten 60–52; Hamline Wins; Wayne Out,” Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, March 12, 1940, p. 6.

Homer Moran, interview with Bill Kubota, September 5, 1998.

Moran recounted his path to flying B-24s with the 93rd Bomb Group in his September 5, 1998, interview with Bill Kubota. Moran’s graduation from the Victorville, California, flying school was noted in a small item in the Rapid City Journal. See “Is Pilot,” Rapid City Journal, July 31, 1942, p. 3.

CHAPTER 31: A DISAPPOINTING FINALE

Martin Bowman, Home by Christmas? The Story of US 8th/15th Air Force Airmen at War (Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, UK: Patrick Stephens, 1987), p. 41.

Biographical material on Ernst-Günther Baade is drawn primarily from Samuel W. Mitcham, Rommel’s Desert Commanders: The Men Who Served the Desert Fox, North Africa, 1941–42 (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2007), pp. 76–77, and Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944 (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2007), p. 165.

Atkinson, The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944, p. 165.

Atkinson, Day of Battle, p. 165. Also see Lieutenant Colonel Albert N. Garland and Howard McGaw Smyth, US Army in World War II: Mediterranean Theater of Operations: Sicily and the Surrender of Italy (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, US Army, 1993), pp. 374–76.

Atkinson, Day of Battle, p. 167.

Ibid., p. 168.

Garland and Smyth, Sicily and the Surrender of Italy, pp. 413–15.

Ibid., pp. 413–78.

Ibid., pp. 413–16; Atkinson, Day of Battle, p. 168.

Edward Sand diary entry for August 16, 1943.

The length of a combat tour for an Eighth Air Force heavy bomber crew member was set at twenty-five missions in the spring of 1943. The number would be increased in increments of five missions in 1944 as Luftwaffe resistance diminished, until it reached fifty missions by the final months of the war. The length of a combat tour for heavy bomber crews based in North Africa was already at fifty missions in the summer of 1943, but the 93rd, 44th, and 389th B-24 crews—the three Eighth Air Force B-24 groups temporarily based in North Africa from June to August 1943—were still governed by Eighth Air Force rules, and thus their tour of duty was twenty-five missions.

CHAPTER 32: AN ENEMY AT PEAK STRENGTH

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 149.

Ben contemporaneously discussed his reasons for flying five “bonus” combat missions with the 93rd on at least two occasions: in an interview with a Los Angeles Daily News reporter in January 1944 and in a speech before the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on February 4, 1944. The article in which Ben discussed this with the Los Angeles Daily News was reprinted as “Ben Kuroki Is in the Limelight: Dramatic Story of War Record Brings Fame on Pacific Coast,” Lincoln County (Nebraska) Tribune, January 27, 1944, pp. 1 and 8.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage.

Several 93rd men mentioned the rumors in diary entries and letters to family members in August 1943. Brutus Hamilton discussed the rumors in his diary entry for August 18, 1943. “Gen. [James P.] Hodges and Gen. [Ira] Eaker are in the Theatre and are no doubt discussing with the IX Air Force just what should be done with us. No announcements yet but plenty of rumors,” Hamilton wrote.

Elmer (Bill) Dawley interview with Bill Kubota, November 12, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage.

Ibid.

Descriptions of the 93rd’s August 26–27, 1943, return trip from North Africa are drawn from the diary entries of navigator James Reid and gunners Donald Hudspeth and Edward Sand. Author’s collection.

Homer Moran interview with Bill Kubota, September 5, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage.

CHAPTER 33: THE KILLING MONTH

In Masters of the Air, historian Donald L. Miller describes the October 9, 1943, raid on Marienburg as “the longest mission of the war up to this point.” See Miller, pp. 207–8. To be more precise, Marienburg was the “longest mission of the war up to this point” only for Eighth Air Force bombers flying from England. The one-way distance covered by the American B-17s and B-24s from their bases in England to Marienburg on October 9 was about 525 miles. By comparison, this is less than half the 1,200 miles flown one-way by the 93rd and other B-24 groups from their Libyan bases to Wiener Neustadt, Austria, on August 13, 1943. The first Wiener Neustadt raid would remain the “longest mission of the war” for US bombers based in both the European and Mediterranean theaters. By comparison, Berlin was about 500 miles one-way from the American B-17 and B-24 bases in East Anglia—less than half the distance of the first Wiener Neustadt raid.

Details about the emergency landing of Miles League in Satan’s Sister are drawn from the American Air Museum in Britain database. The entry reads as follows: “9-Oct-43 on mission to bomb Danzig U-Boat production in B-24 42-40610 ‘Satan’s Sister’ A/C took flak hits, lost engine on return, diverting to Sweden. A/C Belly landed in Rinkaby airfield, Sweden. Interned.”

The Nicholas Caruso quote is drawn from Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 250. In the early 1990s, I interviewed Caruso about his experiences with the 93rd, including the Danzig raid and his landing in Sweden. Nicholas Caruso, author interview, November 18, 1991.

The numbers of aircraft and losses on the October 9, 1943, raid by the Eighth Air Force are drawn from Kit C. Carter and Robert Mueller, eds., U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II. Combat Chronology: 1941–1945 (Washington, DC: Center for Air Force History, 1991), p. 229.

The Ben Kuroki quote is from Cal Stewart’s contemporaneous story about the 93rd’s October 9, 1943, raid on Danzig, written by Stewart in his role as the 93rd Bomb Group publicist. Cal Stewart, “Danzig Story,” Public Relations Office, Ninety-third Bombardment Group (H) AAF 104, October 9, 1943. Author’s collection.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 251.

Ibid., pp. 251–52.

Miller, Masters of the Air, pp. 208–9. Also see Gerald Astor, The Mighty Eighth: The Air War in Europe as Told by the Men Who Fought It (New York: Dell Publishing, 1998), p. 198.

Miller, Masters of the Air, p. 210.

Ibid., p. 214.

CHAPTER 34: DEATH DENIED

Ibid., pp. 234–35.

Russell DeMont, author interview, October 6, 1991.

Miller, Masters of the Air, p. 234.

Stewart, Ted’s Travelling Circus, p. 252.

Ben Kuroki and Homer Moran recalled Ben’s near-death experience on the November 5, 1943, Münster raid in their interviews with Bill Kubota. Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998, and Homer Moran interview with Bill Kubota, September 5, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage.

Homer Moran interview with Bill Kubota, September 5, 1998, unedited footage.

Moran’s account of the incident was more expansive than Ben’s. Moran said he heard the top turret guns firing “when it shouldn’t have been firing,” and so he ordered a crewman to “take a look up there to see what was happening.” Moran’s memory on this particular detail may have been faulty, as there is some question as to whether Ben’s guns would have continued firing after he lost consciousness. In any event, Moran said his order resulted in Ben being discovered unconscious, his oxygen mask torn from his face. Homer Moran interview with Bill Kubota, September 5, 1998, unedited footage.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 152.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, pp. 152–53.

Ibid., p. 153.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Ben’s later recollections about his passage from England to America are sparse. In a February 4, 1944, speech before the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Ben said he left England on December 1, 1943, and reached New York City on December 7. Ralph G. Martin offers no details of Ben’s return in his 1946 biography, Boy from Nebraska. Ben said this about his return from England in his lengthy interview with Bill Kubota: “Unfortunately I didn’t get to fly home. I had to come home by boat. It took me six, seven days to get back.” Preservation of World War II convoy records has been spotty, and I couldn’t find any documents that definitively established the date of Ben’s departure from England or his arrival in New York City. But a telegram I came across in Ben’s papers at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History supports the timetable that Ben recalled in his Commonwealth Club speech. The timestamp on the telegram that Ben sent to his brother George in Hershey, Nebraska, was “Dec 8, 1227 PM.” Ben’s telegram read as follows: “Near New York will visit Chicago probably week before arrive home—Ben Kuroki.”

CHAPTER 35: HOMECOMING

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 154.

Ibid. Ben’s quote is drawn from his August 26–27, 1998, interview with Bill Kubota.

“Warren Sees Sabotage Peril in Freeing Evacuees,” United Press dispatch in the Fresno (California) Bee, June 21, 1943, p. 2.

Ibid.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

See “Kuroki Here,” North Platte (Nebraska) Tribune, December 23, 1943, p. 1; “Ben Kuroki Is Home After War Services,” North Platte Telegraph, December 17, 1943, p. 2.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 155.

Blaine Runner’s heroics were recounted in numerous local newspaper articles at the time. See “Fire Sweeps South Part of County,” North Platte Telegraph, March 31, 1910, p. 5, and “Blaine Runner Receives Medal,” North Platte Semi-Weekly Tribune, January 30, 1912, p. 4. His height (six-foot-two) and other physical characteristics are drawn from his World War II draft registration card. Runner’s visit to Ben and gift is recounted in Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 155.

Walter Cronkite, United Press dispatch, published as “Nebraska Jap on Liberator is ‘fightingest,’” Lincoln (Nebraska) Evening State Journal, November 11, 1943, p. 1.

Walter Cronkite, United Press dispatch, published as “Nebraska Jap on Liberator is ‘fightingest,’” Lincoln (Nebraska) Evening State Journal, November 11, 1943, p. 3.

“D.F.C. Attests to His Deeds,” Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee, November 28, 1943, p. 23.

“Kuroki Has Close Call on His Last Trip to Germany,” North Platte (Nebraska) Telegraph, December 3, 1943, p. 1; “Hershey Boy Jap-American Flier For U.S.A.,” Morning World-Herald, Omaha, Nebraska, December 11, 1943, p. 2.

“Sgt. Kuroki Wants to Avenge Pearl Harbor,” North Platte (Nebraska) Daily Bulletin, December 21, 1943, pp. 1 and 7; United Press dispatch, “No Pleasure Jaunt is Raid Over Ploesti,” Columbus (Nebraska) Telegram, December 21, 1943, p. 4.

“Nebraska Notes—North Platte,” Omaha Morning World-Herald, December 23, 1943, p. 11.

“Japanese Y.P. to Honor Sgt. Kuroki,” North Platte Telegraph, December 30, 1943, p. 6.

The dispatches appeared in dozens of newspapers across the United States, including the following: Associated Press dispatch, “American-Born Jap Is Fighter,” Arizona Republic, January 4, 1944, p. 4; United Press dispatch, “Kuroki Hasn’t Yet Realized Ambition,” Columbus (Nebraska) Telegram, January 4, 1944; International News Service dispatch, “Nebraska-Born Japanese Hailed,” Omaha Morning-World Herald, January 4, 1944, p. 4; and “Sergeant Kuroki Is Hero but Still Very Dissatisfied,” Macon (Georgia) News, January 4, 1944, p. 2.

CHAPTER 36: MOST HONORABLE SON

See “Army Takes Over Six Bay Hotels,” Evening Vanguard (Venice, California), November 25, 1943, p. 1; “Army to Occupy Six Hostelries in Santa Monica,” San Bernardino County (California) Sun, November 26, 1943, p. 2; “Air Force Center Gives Bay Aides New Duties,” Los Angeles Times, January 2, 1944, p. C2; “Flyers’ Center Gets New Chief,” Los Angeles Times, January 15, 1944; “Army Takes Three More Santa Monica Hotels,” Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1944, p. A2; “Bay Leaguers Assist Redistribution Center,” Los Angeles Times, March 26, 1944, p. C4; “Air Wac Recruits Offered Redistribution Center Jobs,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 1944, p. B2.

Edward Bates interview with Bill Kubota, undated, 1998 or 1999, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage, Ben Kuroki Collection, KDN Films Archives.

Ibid.

“Ben Kuroki Heads for Crack at Japs,” Omaha Daily Journal-Stockman, January 19, 1944, p. 2.

Ibid.; also “Jap Gunner Returns with Air Medals,” Eugene (Oregon) Guard, January 20, 1944, p. 9.

“Network Tells Why Jap Gunner Barred from Air,” Los Angeles Times, January 27, 1944, p. 4.

“Broadcast Cancellation Bewilders U.S.-Jap Here,” Hollywood (California) Citizen-News, February 1, 1944, p. 9.

Ben Kuroki quoted in “Broadcast Cancellation Bewilders U.S.-Jap Here,” Hollywood Citizen-News, February 1, 1944, p. 9.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

CHAPTER 37: RESIST THE DRAFT

Yoshito Kuromiya and Arthur A. Hansen, ed., Beyond the Betrayal: The Memoir of a World War II Japanese American Draft Resister of Conscience (Louisville, Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 2021), p. 40.

Yoshito “Yosh” Kuromiya quoted in Susan H. Kamei, When Can We Go Back to America? Voices of Japanese American Incarceration During WWII (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021), pp. 8–11.

Yoshito “Yosh” Kuromiya quoted in Kamei, When Can We Go Back to America?, pp. 8–11.

Biographical information on Hisamitsu (James) Kuromiya and Hana Tada Kuromiya and their children is drawn from US federal census records for 1920, 1930, and 1940 and other documents. These include the federal immigration and naturalization records of Hisamitsu and Hana Kuroyima, the World War I draft registration records of Hisamitsu (by then known as James), the World War II draft registration documents of Yoshito and his older brother Hiroshi, and federal records generated in the Kuromiya family’s incarceration during World War II. Yosh Kuromiya’s memoir Beyond the Betrayal, edited by the imminent historian Arthur Hansen, was indispensable in my understanding of the ordeal experienced by the Kuromiya family.

United States. (n.d.), Personal Justice Denied: Public Hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment 1981, pp. 42–44. Retrieved April 7, 2023, from http://gdc.gale.com/archivesunbound/.

Ibid.

Martha Nakagawa, “Yosh Kuromiya, Who Resisted Wartime Draft from Heart Mountain Camp, Dies,” Nichi Bei Weekly, August 2, 2018.

Masaoka with Hosokawa, They Call Me Moses Masaoka, p. 71.

Ibid., pp. 74–76.

Yosh Kuromiya essay, “The Winters of Heart Mountain,” dated June 27, 2000, and published in Kuromiya’s memoir, Beyond the Betrayal, pp. 52–53.

Description of life at the Heart Mountain camp is drawn primarily from these sources: Yosh Kuromiya’s memoir Beyond the Betrayal; Douglas W. Nelson’s definitive work Heart Mountain: The History of An American Concentration Camp (Madison, Wisconsin: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976); Mieko Matsumoto’s article on Heart Mountain for the Densho Encyclopedia (“Heart Mountain,” Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Heart_Mountain/); and the Heart Mountain National Historic Landmark and Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation website (https://www.heartmountain.org/history/life-in-the-camp/).

Arthur A. Hansen, Barbed Voices: Oral History, Resistance, and the World War II Japanese American Social Disaster (Louisville, Colorado: University Press of Colorado, 2018), pp. 33–36.

“American Japanese Can Join Army Now,” Philadelphia Inquirer, January 29, 1943, p. 4.

Richard Reeve, Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2015), p. 159.

Barbara Takei, “Tule Lake,” Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Tule_Lake/.

Details of Yosh Kuromiya’s story are drawn from the following sources: Kuromiya’s memoir, Beyond the Betrayal; Frank Abe’s documentary film Conscience and the Constitution; the film’s Resisters.com website, accessed at https://resisters.com/conscience/the_story/characters/kuromiya_yosh.html; and Martha Nakagawa’s obituary, “Yosh Kuromiya, Who Resisted Wartime Draft from Heart Mountain Camp, Dies,” published in the Nichi Bei Weekly, August 2, 2018, and accessed online at https://www.nichibei.org/2018/08/yosh-kuromiya-who-resisted-wartime-draft-from-heart-mountain-camp-dies/.

Martha Nakagawa, “Yosh Kuromiya, Who Resisted Wartime Draft from Heart Mountain Camp, Dies.”

Reeve, Infamy, p. 157.

Ibid.

“In Memoriam: Yosh Kuromiya (1923–2018),” Kokoro Kara: Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation newsletter, Summer 2018, p. 6.

CHAPTER 38: COMMONWEALTH CLUB

Ben’s speech before the Commonwealth Club was widely covered by local newspapers and reporters for national radio networks and news agencies. Among the California papers carrying the Associated Press account were the Modesto Bee and the Petaluma Argus-Courier. See “Japanese American Sergeant’s Tolerance Plea Is Applauded,” Modesto Bee, February 4, 1944, p. 2, and “Jap American Sergeant Wins Big Ovation,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 4, 1944, p. 5. The Chicago Tribune played coverage of Ben’s speech on its front page. See “U.S. Jap Asks to Visit Tokio—in a Liberator,” Chicago Tribune, February 5, 1944, p. 1.

CHAPTER 39: “NO TURNING BACK”

See Yoshito Kuromiya and Arthur A. Hansen, ed., Beyond the Betrayal, p. 63. Yosh also wrote about his decision to resist the draft in a July 2, 2000, essay titled “The Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee (A Resisters Account),” which was later incorporated in Beyond the Betrayal, pp. 59–63. Another account of Yosh Kuromiya’s reaction to his draft notice is “In Memoriam: Yosh Kuromiya (1923–2018),” Kokoro Kara: Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation newsletter, Summer 2018, p. 6.

Yosh Kuromiya, “The Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee (A Resisters Account).”

Ibid.

Susan Kamei, When Can We Go Back to America?, p. 216.

Frank Abe, Conscience and the Constitution documentary, 2000.

Yosh Kuromiya, “The Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee (A Resisters Account).”

Ibid.

CHAPTER 40: HEART MOUNTAIN

United Press dispatch, “Jap Air Hero Hitches Ride to Broadcast,” Oakland (California) Tribune, February 23, 1944, p. 13.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Ibid.

Eichi Sakauye interview with Bill Kubota, December 6, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage, Ben Kuroki Collection, KDN Films Archives.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Ibid.

James Sakoda interview with Bill Kubota, March 4, 2000, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage, Ben Kuroki Collection, KDN Films Archives.

Jack Tono interview with Bill Kubota, n.d., Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage, Ben Kuroki Collection, KDN Films Archives.

Ibid.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Frank Abe, narration for Conscience and the Constitution documentary.

CHAPTER 41: A TURNING POINT

Brian Nilya, “James Sakoda,” Densho Encylopedia entry, accessed at https://encyclopedia.densho.org/James_Sakoda/.

Ibid.

James Sakoda interview with Bill Kubota, March 4, 2000.

Ibid.

“Kuroki Arrives in Topaz,” Topaz (Utah) Times, May 20, 1944, p. 1; “He’s Human Too, He Keeps a Charm, Likes Steak, Played Center Field,” Topaz (Utah) Times, May 19, 1944, p. 3.

“Sgt. Kuroki: Foremost An American,” Topaz (Utah) Times, May 19, 1944, p. 2.

“Residents Give Rousing Send-Off to Sgt. Kuroki,” Topaz (Utah) Times, May 24, 1944, p. 1.

Ibid.

Dorothea Lange to My dear Mrs. Kuroki, handwritten letter dated February 7, 1944, Ben Kuroki collection, Military History, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

“Angelenos Polled on Postwar Views,” Los Angeles Times, January 16, 1944, Part II (City News), pp. 1 and 3.

Ruth Kingman, February 1971 interviews, “Japanese American Relocation Reviewed, Volume II: The Internment,” Earl Warren Oral History Project, University of California, accessed at https://oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=ft1290031s&brand=default&doc.vi ew=entire_text.

CHAPTER 42: HONORABLE SAD SAKI

Gordon (Gordy) Jorgenson was killed in action on Biak Island on June 7, 1944, and the news was published in local newspapers later in the month. See “Two Lincoln County Boys Killed in Action,” Sutherland (Nebraska) Courier, June 29, 1944, p. 2. Details of Gordy Jorgenson’s death and the Hershey memorial service that followed can be found in “Hershey News,” Lincoln County (Nebraska) Tribune, July 13, 1944, p. 4.

Ben told the story of the 1944 taxi incident a number of times over the years. With the passage of time, he sometimes recalled the incident as occurring in Salt Lake City rather than Denver. Ben’s first recollection of the incident that I could find was published in a United Press dispatch in November 1945 and it fixed the location as Denver, so that’s what I have used. The United Press dispatch was published as “Nisei Veteran Forbidden Taxi Ride in Denver,” Portage (Wisconsin) Daily Register and Democrat, November 7, 1945, p. 8. In an essay for a 1985 book—Chester Marshall’s The Global Twentieth: An Anthology of the 20th AF in WW II—Ben was quoted describing the incident as having occurred in Salt Lake City.

Carroll “Cal” Stewart, Ben Kuroki: The Most Honorable Son, short biography of Ben Kuroki, self-published and undated, p. 20.

Ken Neill interview with Bill Kubota, September 27, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage, Ben Kuroki Collection, KDN Films Archives.

Colonel Warren L. Williams to Dear Sergeant, letter dated September 27, 1944, Ben Kuroki collection, Military History, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Carl Curtis interview with Bill Kubota, September 3, 1998, and Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage, Ben Kuroki Collection, KDN Films Archives.

Secretary of War Henry Stimson to My dear Mr. Deutsch, letter dated November 16, 1944, Ben Kuroki collection, Military History, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Ben Kuroki oral history interview with Tom Gibbs, March 26, 2013, National WW2 Museum, and Ken Neill interview with Bill Kubota, September 27, 1998.

CHAPTER 43: TINIAN

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, eds., The Army Air Forces in World War II, Vol. 5. The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945 (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1948), pp. 546–56; Charles Griffith, The Quest: Haywood Hansell and American Strategic Bombing in World War II (Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 1999), pp. 167–74.

Craven and Cate, The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945, pp. 558–60; Griffith. The Quest, pp. 176–77.

James M. Scott, Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2022), p. 133.

CHAPTER 44: DÉJÀ VU

Griffith, The Quest, p. 198.

Ben Kuroki letter from “Somewhere in the Marianas,” published in “Ben Kuroki Writes,” Lincoln County Tribune, North Platte, Nebraska, March 1, 1945, p. 2.

CHAPTER 45: FIREBOMBING TOKYO

Craven and Cate, The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945, p. 614.

Ibid., pp. 615–17.

Ibid., p. 617.

Hap Arnold to Curtis LeMay, cable dated March 11, 1945, Henry H. Arnold Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, DC.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Ben Kuroki interview with Arthur A. Hansen, October 17, 1994, Center for Oral and Public History, California State University, Fullerton, Japanese American Oral History Project.

Boy from Nebraska, pp. 182–83.

Ibid.

Ibid., p. 183.

Ibid., p. 185.

Ibid., pp. 185–86.

CHAPTER 46: WOUNDED ENEMY

“Sergeant Ben Kuroki Returns After Taking Part in Bombing of Tokyo,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 23, 1945, p. 4.

“Sgt. Ben Kuroki B-29 Crewman in Raids on Tokyo,” United Press dispatch, McCook (Nebraska) Daily Gazette, May 2, 1945, p. 5.

James M. Boyle, “How the Superfortress Paced the Attack Against Japan,” Air Force Magazine, December 1964, pp. 63–69.

Ibid.

Craven and Cate, The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945, p. 650.

Ibid., p. 636.

US Strategic Bombing Survey, The Effects of Air Attack on the City of Nagoya (Washington, DC: Urban Areas Division, June 1947), p. 12.

Craven and Cate. The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945, p. 650.

CHAPTER 47: A WAR WITHOUT MERCY

John Glusman, Conduct Under Fire: Four American Doctors and Their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese 1941–1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), pp. 318–19.

Ibid., p. 401.

Citation of Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster awarded to Technical Sergeant Ben Kuroki, 680th Bombardment Squadron, 504th Bombardment Group, Air Corps, United States Army, General Orders No. 37, Aug. 19, 1946, 504th Bomb Group Records, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Microfilm Reel B0674. The citation for this DFC—Ben’s third—reads in part: “The skill, airmanship, and accurate gunnery displayed by Sergeant KUROKI, veteran of repeated assaults against the Japanese homeland, reflect great credit on himself and the Army Air Forces.”

Ibid.

Haywood S. Hansell, Jr., USAF Ret., The Strategic Air War Against Germany and Japan: A Memoir (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, US Air Force, 1986), p. 233.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, pp. 189–90.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Glusman, Conduct Under Fire, p. 388.

Ibid., p. 403.

Ibid., p. 405.

The ten members of Black Jack Too who were executed on June 28, 1945, were: First Lieutenant Woodrow B. Palmer, pilot and aircraft commander; Second Lieutenant Owen P. Walls, copilot; Second Lieutenant Robert F. Dailey, navigator; First Lieutenant Don A. Coulter, bombardier; Sergeant Henry T. Farish, Jr., engineer; Master Sergeant Eugene J. Prouty, radar operator; Staff Sergeant Willard M. Chapman, radio operator; Staff Sergeant Cleveland T. Niles, gunner; Sergeant Peter Sabo, gunner; and Sergeant Charles A. Meisler, gunner. The crew member who died of injuries on the ground was Sergeant Joseph W. Romanelli, gunner. Also executed were two survivors of a 40th Bomb Group B-29 (42-24984) shot down on May 29, 1945: Lieutenant Richard M. Hurley, pilot, and Sergeant Elgie L. Robertson, gunner. More information on the executions, including photographs of the men as well as investigative reports and witness statements, can be found at the website of the 444th Bomb Group at https://www.444thbg.org/sabopete.htm.

The members of the Indian Maid crew were: Captain Edward Fishkin, aircraft commander, KIA; Flight Officer Alfred V. Boulton, copilot, KIA; Second Lieutenant Gerald J. McIntosh, bombardier, KIA; First Lieutenant John Meehan, navigator, POW, died in captivity; Staff Sergeant John Driapsa, engineer, KIA; Flight Officer William H. Moore, T-137750, radar operator, KIA; Sergeant Henry W. Sutherland, radio operator, POW, died in captivity; Sergeant Osmond J. Hannigan, central fire control, POW, died in captivity; Sergeant James N. Fitzgerald, right gunner, POW, executed on July 20, 1945; Sergeant Harvey B. Kennedy, Jr., left gunner, POW, executed July 20, 1945; and Sergeant Joseph G. Kanzler, tail gunner, POW, died in captivity. The source of this information is the Flight Safety Foundation’s Aviation Safety Network website, https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/162894; another source is the website of the Empire (Michigan) Area Museum Complex and the page dedicated to local native Warren Aylsworth, a B-29 pilot in World War II, http://empiremimuseum.org/docs/aylsworth.pdf.

CHAPTER 48: OUT OF LUCK

Craven and Cate, The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945, pp. 641–42.

Ibid., p. 642.

Ibid., p. 654.

Ibid.

Ronald Schaffer, Wings of Judgment: American Bombing in World War II (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 140. Schaffer carefully and powerfully explores the moral and ethical dimensions of the American bombing campaigns of World War II.

Craven and Cate, The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki, June 1944 to August 1945, pp. 654–55. Also see Schaffer, Wings of Judgment, pp. 140–41.

Biographical information on Technical Sergeant Harold J. (Hal) Brown is drawn from various sources, including “Broadcasting Goes on Combat Mission,” Broadcasting, August 20, 1945, p. 68.

CHAPTER 49: UNSCRIPTED ENDING

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 191.

Ibid.

Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998.

Jim Jenkins interview with Bill Kubota, August 8, 1998.

President Harry S Truman radio statement announcing the atomic bomb strike on Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945, RG 111, Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, Moving Images Relating to Military Activities, NARA.

CHAPTER 50: A GREATER CAUSE

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, pp. 194–95.

Ben Kuroki interview with Arthur A. Hansen, October 17, 1994, Center for Oral and Public History, California State University, Fullerton, Japanese American Oral History Project.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 200.

Ibid., p. 201.

Ibid.

“Brushed-Off Japyank Seeks Own Vet Group,” United Press dispatch dated November 4 and printed in the New York Daily News on November 5, 1945.

Ralph G. Martin would author or coauthor more than two dozen books over his career, but Boy from Nebraska was his first and it feels rushed and sloppy in places. Martin opens by describing Ben’s postwar homecoming as occurring in January 1946. He ends the book with Ben’s postwar homecoming occurring two months earlier, shortly after Ben’s appearance on the Report to the Nation radio show—an event that occurred on Saturday night, November 3, 1945. Ben’s military records, which I obtained from the National Personnel Records Center under the Freedom of Information Act, show he was discharged from the army on February 16, 1946. It’s unlikely that Ben was in Hershey on a furlough in January 1946, only days before his discharge, as Martin writes. Indeed, all available evidence suggests that Ben’s first trip home after his return from the Pacific took place sometime between November 5 and November 20, 1945.

Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 203.

“News Around the Clock,” New York Daily News, November 23, 1945, p. 52.

CHAPTER 51: FIFTY-NINTH MISSION

Details about New York City’s McBurney YMCA around the time that Ben lived there are drawn from “Takes New Post,” Eau Claire Leader, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, December 17, 1944, p. 4.

Cal Stewart, “Ben Kuroki’s 59th Mission,” Sunday World-Herald Magazine, Omaha, Nebraska, February 24, 1946, p. 32.

Ibid.

Mike Masaoka with Bill Hosokawa, They Call Me Moses Masaoka, p. 157.

“Charge: Wounded Nisei Treated Like PWs: Japanese American Veterans Forced to Travel in Hold of Navy Transport Hayes,” Pacific Citizen, March 23, 1946, p. 1.

“Nisei Veterans Will Speak at Salt Lake Fete,” Pacific Citizen, Salt Lake City, Utah, March 23, 1946, p. 2.

Eric L. Muller, “Draft Resistance,” Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Draft_resistance.

“Nisei War Hero Hits Japanese Americans Who Fight the Draft,” Wyoming Tribune, November 3, 1944.

“Segregated Veterans,” Pacific Citizen, Salt Lake City, March 23, 1945, p. 4.

“Gen. Bradley to Issue Statement on Appointment of Minority Group Personnel in Regional Offices,” New York Age, May 18, 1946, p. 3.

International News Service dispatch, “Women Are Urged to Lead in Rebirth of U.S. Democracy,” Buffalo (New York) News, January 27, 1947, p. 7; and United Press dispatch, “Women Are Warned Radio, Movies Are Threat to U.S.,” Sacramento (California) Bee, January 27, 1947, p. 4.

Westbrook Pegler, syndicated column, “American Veterans Committee Invites Watchful Attention,” Lancaster (Pennsylvania) New Era, February 20, 1946, p. 6.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 22, 1946, p. 24.

“Masaoka, Kuroki Will Speak Tuesday at New York JACL Meet,” Pacific Citizen, March 23, 1946, p. 8.

For a fuller understanding of the work and impact of Pearl S. Buck and her East and West Association see Robert Shaffer, “Pearl S. Buck and the East and West Association: The Trajectory and Fate of ‘Critical Internationalism,’ 1940–1950,” Peace & Change 28, no. 1 (January 2003).

CHAPTER 52: A PATH IN PEACE

Ben Kuroki–Shige Kuroki interview with Frank Abe and Frank Chin, January 31, 1998, Frank Abe Collection, Densho Digital Archive.

“Nisei from Nebraska,” New York Times, November 3, 1946, p. 167.

“Greek Actress, Jap American to Give Education Week Talks,” Press and Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, New York, October 22, 1946, p. 3.

“Ben Kuroki, American, Visits O’Neill,” The Frontier, O’Neill, Nebraska, December 12, 1946, p. 1.

“Senator Taylor Wants Law on Equal Rights,” Evening Star, Washington, DC, February 3, 1947, p. 18.

“Nisei Hero Scores U.S. Intolerance,” Berkshire Evening Eagle, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, February 17, 1947, p. 9.

“Haven’t Killed Fascism, Jap-American Asserts,” Press and Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, New York, February 18, 1947, p. 5.

Ibid.

“Gettysburg Students Hear Nisei War Ace,” York (Pennsylvania) Daily Record, March 10, 1947, p. 32.

“Says Yank Vets of Jap Ancestry Face Prejudice,” Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) Times, March 4, 1947, pp. 1 and 4.

Ibid.

“Ben Kuroki, Nisei War Hero, Now G.I. Freshman at U. of N.,” Lincoln Evening Journal, June 24, 1947, p. 3.

CHAPTER 53: PUBLISHER, REPORTER, EDITOR

York (Nebraska) Republican, June 8, 1950.

Dickson Terry, “Operation Democracy,” The Everyday Magazine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 18, 1950, Part 5, p. 1.

Ibid.

This account of the beginning of Ben’s journalism career was drawn from several sources, starting with the Operation Democracy Edition of the York Republican, June 8, 1950. Also helpful was Cal Stewart’s booklet-length biography of Ben Kuroki, Ben Kuroki: The Most Honorable Son (Lincoln, Nebraska: Nebraska Printing Center, 2010), pp. 26–27; other information was brought to my attention through the knowledge and generosity of Cal Stewart’s son, Scott Stewart, beginning with a telephone conversation on July 24, 2023; finally, I found useful material in the article by Dickson Terry, “Operation Democracy,” The Everyday Magazine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 18, 1950, Part 5, p. 1. Terry garbles details about Ben’s life before 1950, but his quotes from Ben and description of the events of Operation Democracy mesh with the accounts of Cal and Scott Stewart.

Associated Press dispatch published as “Floods Strike Southeast Nebr. After Heavy Rains,” Beatrice (Nebraska) Daily Sun, July 10, 1950, p. 1; “Helps at York Flood,” Nebraska Signal, Geneva, Nebraska, July 13, 1950, p. 1.

“Editors Again Go to Kuroki’s Aid,” Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star, July 14, 1950, p. 8.

Cal Stewart, Ben Kuroki: The Most Honorable Son, pp. 26–27.

“Ben Kuroki Sells York Republican,” Omaha Morning World-Herald, January 12, 1952, p. 6

“He Writes His Editorials as He Fought—With Gusto,” Detroit Free Press, May 6, 1960, p. 22.

“Williamston Editor Firm, Will Not Bow to Council,” Lansing State Journal, October 21, 1960, p. 7.

“Japanese to Honor Brother Who Shot Down Bigotry,” Detroit Free Press, June 29, 1964, p. 1.

Julie Kuroki, author interview, October 8, 2023. Based on her conversations with her mother, Julie had a different view of the financial success of her father’s Michigan venture. For the growth and well-being of his daughters, “he literally gave up a flourishing publishing business that he owned and he had built from the ground up,” Julie told me.

CHAPTER 54: HIDDEN HEROES

Julius Gius, “Editor’s Notebook: Sad Farewell to the Herald-Trib,” Ventura County (California) Star-Free Press, August 22, 1966, p. 22.

“They Made My Blood Boil,” Ventura County Star, February 24, 1967, p. 19; also “The Day an Enemy Sub Shelled State Coast,” Ventura County Star, February 24, 1967, p. 19.

Julie Kuroki, author interview, October 8, 2023.

Ibid.

“Congress Approves Payments to Japanese American Internees,” Ben Kuroki letter to the editor published in the Los Angeles Times, August 13, 1988.

Charles F. Brannan to Col. Ray Ward, President, Air Force Association, letter dated March 24, 1990. Ben Kuroki papers, Military History, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Fred Thomas, “War Hero Says Bigotry Fight Not Yet Won,” Omaha (Nebraska) World-Herald, December 7, 1991, p. 3; “War Hero’s Dogged Determination Pays Off,” Associated Press dispatch, Beatrice Daily Sun, Beatrice, Nebraska, December 7, 1991, p. 3.

“The Hidden Heroes,” New York Times, December 7, 1991, p. 22.

Stewart, Ben Kuroki: The Most Honorable Son, p. 28.

CHAPTER 55: RECKONING, REMEMBRANCE, AND REWARD

Arthur Hansen, author interview, August 23, 2023.

Ibid.

Ben Kuroki interview with Arthur A. Hansen, October 17, 1994, Center for Oral and Public History, California State University, Fullerton, Japanese American Oral History Project.

Scott Stewart, author interview, July 24, 2023.

The biographical material on Frank Abe and his father, George, is drawn from Frank Abe’s interview with journalist Elaine Ikoma Ko. See Elaine Ikoma Ko, “Frank Abe’s Search for an Authentic History,” North American Post, November 14, 2021, https://napost.com/2021/frank-abes-search-for-an-authentic-history/.IalsodrewsomebackgroundinformationfromFrankAbe’scurriculumvitaeonhisResisters.com website.

Ben Kuroki and Shige Kuroki interview with Frank Abe and Frank Chin, January 31, 1998, Densho Digital Archive, Frank Abe Collection.

Ibid.

Frank Abe email to the author, October 17, 2023.

Carroll “Cal” Stewart, Ben Kuroki: The Most Honorable Son, p. 30.

“Text of speech by Ben Kuroki at the DSM ceremony, Cornhusker Hotel, Lincoln, Nebraska, August 12, 2005,” Ben Kuroki collection, Military History, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

“Text of speech by Ben Kuroki at luncheon hosted by the University of Nebraska Journalism & Mass Communications Department, August 13, 2005,” Ben Kuroki collection, Military History, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Ben Kuroki’s remarks at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum event are also preserved in the folder of speeches in the Ben Kuroki collection, Military History, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Julie Kuroki, author interview, October 8, 2023.

Joe Avendano Duran, author interview, June 22, 2022.

Ibid.

EPILOGUE

Ben Kuroki to Noriko Sanefuji, October 23, 2013. Ben Kuroki collection, Military History, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Julie Kuroki, author interview, October 8, 2023.

The history of the transformation of the Heart Mountain camp and the surrounding land is drawn from two sources: the website of the Heart Mountain Irrigation District at https://hmid.us, and Mieko Matsumoto, “Heart Mountain,” Densho Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Heart_Mountain/.