Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II

Solly Ganor (1928-2020) was a Jewish Holocaust survivor from Lithuania. During World War II, Ganor’s family lived in the Kovno ghetto, facing deportations and Nazi atrocities. As the Red Army pushed westward toward the end of World War II, Ganor and his father were separated from his mother and sister Fanny, and were sent to the forced-labor camps in Germany. His mother and brother did not survive, but the rest of the family did. After he was saved from the death march by the Nisei of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion on May 2, 1945, during the Dachau Death March, Ganor worked as an interpreter for the US Army. Ganor went on to live in Israel after its formation in 1948. He joined the Israel Defense Forces, married, and had two children. He wrote and lectured about his experiences during World War II; his book Light One Candle: A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem was published in 1995.

In the book, Ganor provides a firsthand account of the Nazi atrocities of the Holocaust—one of the ways Brown offers contextualizing information about the different kinds of suffering undergone during World War II.

Gordon Hirabayashi (1918–2012) was an American sociologist of Japanese descent who practiced peaceful resistance to racist policies toward Japanese Americans during World War II. He is known for being one of the parties in the Supreme Court case Hirabayashi v. United States.

After the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hirabayashi objected to the race-based curfews and forced relocation; after receiving a 90-day sentence for his objections, Hirabayashi appealed the decision. With help from the ACLU and the American Friends Service Committee run by the Quakers, Hirabayashi’s case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled against him, underscoring wartime conditions. As a Christian, Hirabayashi was a conscientious objector to the World War II draft, becoming incarcerated in the McNeil Island Penitentiary for refusing to sign the loyalty oath which he considered discriminatory. After his release, Hirabayashi also married Esther Schmoe who, along with her father, supported him during his legal battles.

After the war, Hirabayashi earned a PhD in sociology and taught around the world. Eventually, he relocated to Calgary, Alberta, where he spent the rest of his life. In 1987, his politically-motivated conviction was overturned.

Hirabayashi’s story offers an interesting counter-narrative to the traditional understanding of what happened to Japanese Americans in the US during WWII—as an active resister of racist government policies who fought several legal battles and managed to have his case heard by the Supreme Court, Hirabayashi emerges in the book as a brave figure on the home front.

Hiro Higuchi (1907-1981) was the chaplain for the 442nd Combat Regiment Team. The son of Reverend Kwan Higuchi, he grew up in Hawaii with his four siblings. Higuchi earned a degree in divinity and worked in YMCA as a youth program coordinator and at the Waipahu Community Church. As chaplain for the 442nd before and after deployment to Europe in 1944, Higuchi provided spiritual guidance to soldiers. His letters from the front later served as a source for this book. In the postwar period, he continued his ministry as the pastor of Pearl City Community Church on Oahu. Higuchi also helped develop additional churches in Hawaii and became a chaplain for the US Army Reserve.

Higuchi’s experiences building camaraderie between mainland and Hawaiian Nisei allows Brown to discuss factions and tensions within the Japanese American community.

Susumu “Sus” Ito (1919-2015) was born in Stockton, California. During World War II, Ito served as a second lieutenant in the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion of the 442nd Combat Regiment Team. Ito took part in the rescue of the Lost Battalion in October 1944 in France. On May 2, 1945, he helped save Holocaust survivors from the Dachau Death March. Ito’s wartime photographs have been widely displayed in museums. He received a Bronze Star for his service. After the war, he earned a PhD in biology from Cornell University. Eventually, he became Professor Emeritus of anatomy at Harvard Medical School.

Fumiye Miho (1910-2014) was Katsugo Miho’s sister. Born in Hawaii, she graduated from the University of Hawaii and relocated to Japan to live there with her sister, Tsukie. After the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, Fumiye Miho could not return to Hawaii, as US borders were closed. She witnessed the American bombings of Tokyo and the nuclear strike on Hiroshima, which she miraculously missed. Miho was able to come back to Hawaii in 1947. She left Buddhism, became a Quaker, and earned a degree at Yale Divinity School like her brother Paul (Katsuso). She spent the rest of her life as a peace activist, and also worked with orphanages, as the director of a refugee center in Japan, and as a pastor in Maui.

In the book, Fumiye Miho represents the experience of a specific kind of Nisei—ones who embraced their Japanese identity and left the US for Japan. Brown makes it clear that this didn’t not solve the issue of belonging, however: Miho was seen as a foreigner in Japan, remaining an outsider just as she had been in the US. Ironically, her decision to move to Japan is one of the reasons her father was arrested on suspicion of having treasonous ties to that country.

Katsugo “Kats” Miho (1922-2011) is one of the main figures in Facing the Mountain.

The second-generation son of Japanese American parents, he was born in Maui and had seven older siblings. At the time of Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack, Miho was in his first semester at the University of Hawai'i and a member of the Hawaii Territorial Guard. His father, a first-generation Japanese non-citizen, was arrested, taken away from the family, and incarcerated at multiple concentration camps.

Miho and his brother Katsuaki enlisted in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in early 1943. Katsuaki died in a truck accident while training. In May 1944, Miho went to Europe with 442nd and provided artillery support as part of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion. In 1945, he helped liberate the Nazi German Dachau death camp.

After the war, Katsugo Miho returned to Hawaii and was reunited with both parents. He re-entered university specializing in law and remained active in the Japanese American community. In the 1950s, Miho entered local politics, eventually getting elected to the State House, serving as a judge in Family Court, and working for the Housing Authority. He married Laura Iida, and the couple had four children.

George Oiye (1922–2006) was born in Montana and had three other siblings. After the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, some of Oiye’s family was placed in camps: his married sister gave birth in the Manzanar camp in California. George was able to enlist in 1943, trained at Camp Shelby in Mississippi, and joined the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion. He participated both in the 1944 Lost Battalion rescue in the Vosges Mountains of France and the liberation of Nazi German concentration camps, earning a Bronze Star for his service. Oiye was also a photographer whose work has significant documentary value. After the war, Oiye graduated from the California Aero Tech institute, became an engineer, and had two children with Mary Sumie Toyoda.

Fred Shiosaki (1924-2021) was a veteran of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II.

After the war, he was Spokane Air Pollution Control Authority’s founding director. He also worked for the Washington Water and Power Company leading the environmental program.

Shiosaki’s family ran a successful laundry business in Spokane, Washington. They were able to stay in the city rather than be interned after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attacks because Spokane was outside of the exclusion zone. Shiosaki enlisted in the army in 1943, training with the 442nd at Camp Shelby in Mississippi. He participated in the rescue of the Lost Battalion in 1944, and was one of only 17 soldiers from K Company (of 180 men) who were in fighting shape after this combat operation. Shiosaki earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for his service.

After the war, Shiosaki earned a degree in chemistry and eventually became a chemist for the City of Spokane. As chairman of the Washington State Ecological Commission, he focused on environmental work. He married Lily Nakai, with whom he had two children.

In the book, Shiosaki’s experiences are an important window into the inner lives of Japanese American soldiers who served in WWII. Using novelistic techniques, Brown describes Shiosaki battling within himself the urge to murder a POW as retribution for the earlier murder of a fellow US soldier. Resisting this impulse helped Shiosaki retain his humanity in extreme circumstances.

Rudy Tokiwa (1925-2004) was a World War II veteran of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and, later, a political activist. Tokiwa grew up in a family of first-generation Japanese farmers outside of Salinas, California. He had five siblings. As a teen, he spent time in Japan to improve his knowledge of the Japanese language. During the War, his family was relocated to Poston camp in Arizona.

Tokiwa enlisted in the army, but sabotaged his Japanese language proficiency test to avoid working for Military Intelligence. He joined the 442nd as a runner carrying messages between field commanders and headquarters. Tokiwa participated both in the rescue of the Lost Battalion and the breaking of the Gothic Line. He was wounded late in the war with shrapnel and used crutches for the rest of his life. Tokiwa received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his service.

After the war, Tokiwa became the Western Regional Director of the Boy Scouts. He also successfully lobbied for an official apology for the incarceration policy from the US government.

In the book, Tokiwa gives readers a sense of how wartime experiences would haunt the young men Brown writes about for the rest of their lives. After killing his first German soldier, Tokiwa looked through the man’s wallet and found photographs of children—the realization that he had just killed not a faceless enemy but a father stayed with Tokiwa.