…uvers gave cause for another tale of frustration. Mits was then in Charlie Company. The company was leading the battalion on a night march and the lead platoon had difficulty finding the cut-off road leading back to camp. It eventually did find it but as it turned out, it was the wrong one, so the whole battalion ended up marching an extra couple of miles before reaching camp late at night. The men of Charlie vented their anger at Mits for letting…

…uction and/or distribution of any text, documents or images for private or commercial use. Please contact the 100th Infantry Battalion Veterans organization or the copyright holder to obtain such rights. Ownership All content, including but not limited to photos, narrative, and video in this website have been used with permission by the owners. The owners maintain full copyright of their original content and any reproduction herein. Disclaimer The…

…with 1,300 men, and five months later, only 521 remained fit to fight. An example was C Company.  It had started with 170 men and after Cassino, only 23 remained.  By this time, war correspondents were referring to the 100th as the “Purple Heart Battalion.” Among those severely injured at Cassino was Major James Lovell. Recently released from the hospital, he was a welcome sight to his exhausted men. Word spread quickly through the ranks — “The M…

…our buck seargent [sic]. In fact, he is the most unpopular non-com in the company. I’m in hutment no. 3 and we’re all a jolly bunch. The only egg we didn’t like moved out. One fellow is from the mainland, the rest are Hawaii boys. (14 boys in all) We argue about practically everything, make an argument if there isn’t any, and we’re probably the noisiest hut in the company. Once in a while its [sic] quiet, the boys are writting [sic] or reading le…

…here you find nothing but swamp marshland & majority of the population is com– posed of Negroes. The town of Hattiesburg is quite big from what I see when we passed thru there on our way down. At least 40,000 in population. But the recreation facilities & accommodations are far inferior to the ones in Sparta. On our way down we passed thru the out skirts [sic] of Illinois, St. Louis & Memphis, but was disappointed because it wasn’t what I expecte…

…tinguished Service Cross, Purple Heart, and the Combat Infantry Badge.  He is buried at Punchbowl Cemetary. In a 2007 interview, Anita Korenaga spoke about her memories of her brother: http://archives.starbulletin.com/2007/11/12/news/story04.html Her handwritten notes about him were preserved with his profile in the Echoes of Silence project.: https://www.100thbattalion.org/wp-content/uploads/Nakamine-Shinyei.pdf…

…f Company B, were called together to receive their final instructions from company commander, Capt. Sakae Takahashi. “He gave each of us a shot of whiskey,” recalls Kawashima. “And he told us that we were about to enter into a different kind of battle. By that he meant that digging a hole, the usual foxhole, would be for nothing because we were going into the forest and the artillery and mortar shells would not reach the ground but would hit the t…

…ing in Camp McCoy, Wisconsin- when Kenneth used to worry a lot that he’d become completely bald well before reaching an acceptable age for such eventualities. So he had an idea. At the end of a training day, when most of the boys had already hit the sacks, he’d sneak back into the barracks latrine, patting drops of a particular hair lotion on the few locks of remaining hair, in the hopes that it would induce growth. Failing that, the special appli…

…es while working on his “hobby”-making cement pots in his workshop to sell commercially. Of his past, he says: “If I knew I was coming back (from the war), I would choose to go through the same experiences. But in those days …” Suddenly that faraway look appears in his eyes, like it appears in the eyes of many who returned from the war. He is remembering too much. In general, the men don’t talk much about the past, preferring to save their reflect…