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

On May 2, 1945, following a two-week-long bloody battle, the Soviet Red Army took Berlin. Meanwhile, the 522nd, including Kats Miho and George Oiye, “found hundreds of survivors from the death march out of Dachau milling around aimlessly” (445). Many were in such poor shape that their bodies were unable to process solid food. Some “died from exposure or the effects of eating food their bodies could not handle” (445). On May 8 and 9, 1945, instruments of surrender were signed and ratified. Throughout the US, people celebrated. When Hiro Higuchi announced to the soldiers that the war was over, he “saw tears dribbling down cheeks” (447). Many were happy that it was over, grateful, but were exhausted and grim-faced: “Too much had happened. Too many friends were gone” (448). Europe was in a massive humanitarian crisis: displaced refugees, disease, and POWs. The first of the 442nd headed home in the summer.

Japanese Americans in concentration camps met the news “with relief but restraint” (449). They were “terrified by the prospect that they would never able to safely return to reclaim their remaining possessions and their way of life” (451). In some parts of the country, like Salinas, California, there was pushback against Japanese Americans returning. Groups like the Organization to Discourage Return of Japanese to the Pacific Coast sprung up. Some challenged this xenophobic effort, arguing that “[t]heir sons are making the same sacrifices as our own boys” (450).

In Japan, Fumiye Miho lived outside Hiroshima. On the morning of August 6, 1945, she saw a “flash of light unlike any light she had ever seen,” which “nearly blinded her” (453-54). The light was followed by “a towering tulip-shaped cloud,” which was “the most exquisitely beautiful thing she had ever seen” (454). She’d just witnessed the atomic bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima. For the next few days, Fumiye searched the city—now a “flat, empty wasteland” (455)—for friends. The young woman “could smell the overwhelming stench of burned flesh and see black smoke rising from the ashes” (455). She helped the survivors by pouring water “into the mouths of people with no faces” (455). The US dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9—the same day as many of the 442nd arrived back in Hawaii. On August 14 (15 in Japan), Japan officially offered its surrender. Celebrations throughout America ensued.

Fred Shiosaki left Europe in October. His brother Roy also returned home. Rudy left Italy “still hobbling from his injuries” (459). He found his parents living communally in a Buddhist church in San Jose, California. Kats Miho arrived in Hawaii in January 1946. His father was newly released from the Santa Fe camp, and his mother had sold their hotel. His parents “were scraping out a living picking macadamia nuts for a commercial farm on O’ahu” (462), like his father had done as a new immigrant. Kats reentered the University of Hawaii.