The Journey of the Kashiwagi Siblings Bob, George, June and Tom Christine Umeda Incarceration to Liberation

Tatsu and Frank Kashiwagi George, Robert and Chiyo Kashiwagi - Hayward, CA

Amache, Colorado – Granada Relocation Center

100/442 nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) U. S. Army made up of Americans of Japanese ancestry 442 nd Infantry Regiment 100 th Infantry Battalion 552 nd Field Artillery Battalion 232 nd Combat Engineer Company

1943 volunteered 442 nd RCT, 552nd Field Artillery Battalion George Kashiwagi

1943 volunteered – 442 nd Infantry Regiment, 1 st Platoon, Company K Robert Kashiwagi

November U.S. Army Nurses Corps Iseko June Kashiwagi

drafted General Patton’s, 3rd Armored Battalion, (tank division) Tom Kashiwagi

552 nd Field Artillery Battalion - Fastest/most accurate fire - US Army

Late April forward observers – opened path through enemy positions – supported 7 different Army Divisions/units

April 29, 1945 Liberation of Dachau Sub-Camp by 552 nd Field Artillery Battalion

552 nd liberates sub-camps at Dachau George (552 nd ) takes down the German flag after the opening of the gates to Dachau Tom (3 rd Armored) supports 552nd Brothers meet at Dachau George gives the flag to brother, Tom for safe keeping

“Unintentional Liberators” “We weren’t supposed to be there” Staff Sgt. George Oiye

Helping Dachau Survivors Photo by Lt. Sus Ito

Seeing Asian Soldiers on “death” march to Dachau Ernie Hollenback – Asian looking soldiers in American uniform racing towards Dachau Yanina Cywinska – blindfolded – heard men speaking in unfamiliar English – Hawaiian Pidgin. Surprised to see very short Asian soldiers in US uniforms.

S. Donald Shimazu “To this day, there are some who are beginning to say Dachau never happened, and there’ll be those who will try to distort things in the future, too. But we were there, and we saw it. We saw the people with our own eyes. And so if anybody says it never happened, we will say they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Biggest Ironies of WW II WWII – idealized as a war of democracy over fascism yet ironic that some of the liberators were American people of color. 552nd members volunteered/drafted from incarceration centers. Buchenwalk liberated by African American soldiers few weeks before Dachau.

Tom and George meet each other after VE Day

George Kashiwagi, Tom Kashiwagi, Bob Kashiwagi

Resource and References “Go For Broke” – 1982, Go For Broke, Inc. Go For Broke National Education Center, LA, CA U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, LA, CA Museum of Tolerance, New York “552 nd Vets bear witness to Dachau horror” – Star Bulletin, Hawaii Liberation of Dachau by Japanese Americans 552 nd Field Artillery Battalion 442 nd RCT April 29,1945 – Burt Takeuchi Personal accounts: Robert and Tom Kashiwagi