Author: A.A. Smyser
Publisher: Honolulu Star Bulletin, 6/15/1977
Puka Puka Parades, August 1977, vol. 31 no. 6
A.A. Smyser sums up Club 100’s 35th anniversary/reunion and the history of the 100th. Editor’s Note: The following is from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin of June 15, 1977, and is reproduced with permission from Mr. A. A. Smyser, a friend of Club 100 for many years.
A QUIET REUNION last weekend provided a footnote to history:
After 35 years at the front and cen ter of the stage, the men of Hawaii’s famous World War II Nisei fighting units are, collectively speaking, get ting ready to move to the sidelines.
They changed Hawaii.
Nationally and locally they de stroyed the racist World War II myth that Americans of Japanese ancestry would be loyal to Japan in stead of America.
They paved the way for Statehood for Hawaii.
Then in the post-World War II years they turned politics in Hawaii upside down and spread the power to groups like their own that had been kept on the outside.
Now when they get together they talk of retirement. Many are re tired already.
THE FIRST of the two all-Nisei fighting units was the 100th Infantry Battalion, formed in June, 1942, and hastily shipped out of Hawaii while the Battle of Midway was still in progress.
To some Army planners the exit was a relief. In case the Japanese fleet stormed on from Midway to in vade Hawaii, there would not be ra cial confusion between the Japanese invaders and American soldiers of Japanese ancestry. Nor would the local AJA soldiers have a chance to be disloyal and aid the enemy.
But to others the formation of the AJA unit was a relief for other rea sons. They had a dream that a com bat unit of soldiers of Japanese ancestry might acquit itself in such a way that never again could anyone justifiably question the loyalty of America’s AJAs.
That dream came true.
The men of the 100th Infantry Battalion, 5,000 in all fulfilled it with the most outstanding combat record of any American fighting unit — three presidential unit citations, more than 2,600 individual decora tions, a low in AWOLs and disciplinary problems — but at the price of more than 300 deaths in combat in Italy and France and more than 1,700 Purple Hearts for wounds (these in addition to the other deco rations).
Last weekend’s reunion was a 35th anniversary gathering of Club 100, the fraternal group composed of veterans of the “One Puka Puka” fighting unit.
IN 35 YEARS the club members have gone on to such roles as the first two brigadier generals of Japa nese ancestry in the U.S. Army, a U S senator (Spark Matsunaga), state legislators, members of the ju diciary, successful businessmen and civil servants — roles that would have been hard for AJAs to win be fore World War II.
Though some joined the Republi can Party, many joined the late John A. Burns in his revitalization of the Democratic Party in the early 1950s and made possible the Demo cratic sweep to statewide domi nance.
At the reunion banquet Saturday night at the Hilton Coral Ballroom, the main spoken tribute to the unit’s World War II service was an un scheduled and spontaneous thanks delivered by former State Rep. Dorothy Devereux after the formal program had ended.
But if retirement was on their minds, the Club 100 members had examples of successful practitioners in their main speaker, Retired Brig. Gen. Kendall J. Fielder, 81, and his introducer, Hung Wai Ching, 71. In 1942, Ching, then a YMCA leader, and Fielder, then an Army intelli gence officer, were two of the people to speak up on behalf of the loyalty of Hawaii’s AJAs, resist the intern ment camp example of California, and persuade the Army to create the AJA fighting units — the other being the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
Club 100 members averaged 24 years old in 1942. They average 59 now — grayer, thicker around the waist in some cases, and thinner of hair.
BUT ASIDE from the war, few have died — which they know won’t be true of the next 35 years — and retirement is seen as a beginning, not an end.
Club 100 offers popular courses in ballroom dancing and bonsai rais ing, also in golf.
When the speeches ended Saturday night, and the orchestra took over, the dance floor was alive — and rock music didn’t thin it out.
Proclaimed one member: “We know how to live!”
Editor’s Note: The following is from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin of June 15, 1977, and is reproduced with permission from Mr. A. A. Smyser, a friend of Club 100 for many years.
Club 100’s Anniversary
A QUIET REUNION last weekend provided a footnote to history:
After 35 years at the front and cen ter of the stage, the men of Hawaii’s famous World War II Nisei fighting units are, collectively speaking, get ting ready to move to the sidelines.
They changed Hawaii.
Nationally and locally they de stroyed the racist World War II myth that Americans of Japanese ancestry would be loyal to Japan in stead of America.
They paved the way for Statehood for Hawaii.
Then in the post-World War II years they turned politics in Hawaii upside down and spread the power to groups like their own that had been kept on the outside.
Now when they get together they talk of retirement. Many are re tired already.
THE FIRST of the two all-Nisei fighting units was the 100th Infantry Battalion, formed in June, 1942, and hastily shipped out of Hawaii while the Battle of Midway was still in progress.
To some Army planners the exit was a relief. In case the Japanese fleet stormed on from Midway to in vade Hawaii, there would not be ra cial confusion between the Japanese invaders and American soldiers of Japanese ancestry. Nor would the local AJA soldiers have a chance to be disloyal and aid the enemy.
But to others the formation of the AJA unit was a relief for other rea sons. They had a dream that a com bat unit of soldiers of Japanese ancestry might acquit itself in such a way that never again could anyone justifiably question the loyalty of America’s AJAs.
That dream came true.
The men of the 100th Infantry Battalion, 5,000 in all fulfilled it with the most outstanding combat record of any American fighting unit — three presidential unit citations, more than 2,600 individual decora tions, a low in AWOLs and disciplinary problems — but at the price of more than 300 deaths in combat in Italy and France and more than 1,700 Purple Hearts for wounds (these in addition to the other deco rations).
Last weekend’s reunion was a 35th anniversary gathering of Club 100, the fraternal group composed of veterans of the “One Puka Puka” fighting unit.
IN 35 YEARS the club members have gone on to such roles as the first two brigadier generals of Japa nese ancestry in the U.S. Army, a U S senator (Spark Matsunaga), state legislators, members of the ju diciary, successful businessmen and civil servants — roles that would have been hard for AJAs to win be fore World War II.
Though some joined the Republi can Party, many joined the late John A. Burns in his revitalization of the Democratic Party in the early 1950s and made possible the Demo cratic sweep to statewide domi nance.
At the reunion banquet Saturday night at the Hilton Coral Ballroom, the main spoken tribute to the unit’s World War II service was an un scheduled and spontaneous thanks delivered by former State Rep. Dorothy Devereux after the formal program had ended.
But if retirement was on their minds, the Club 100 members had examples of successful practitioners in their main speaker, Retired Brig. Gen. Kendall J. Fielder, 81, and his introducer, Hung Wai Ching, 71. In 1942, Ching, then a YMCA leader, and Fielder, then an Army intelli gence officer, were two of the people to speak up on behalf of the loyalty of Hawaii’s AJAs, resist the intern ment camp example of California, and persuade the Army to create the AJA fighting units — the other being the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
Club 100 members averaged 24 years old in 1942. They average 59 now — grayer, thicker around the waist in some cases, and thinner of hair.
BUT ASIDE from the war, few have died — which they know won’t be true of the next 35 years — and retirement is seen as a beginning, not an end.
Club 100 offers popular courses in ballroom dancing and bonsai rais ing, also in golf.
When the speeches ended Saturday night, and the orchestra took over, the dance floor was alive — and rock music didn’t thin it out.
Proclaimed one member: “We know how to live!”