9/1/2015 - Under hospice care, a very special American passes away at his home in Camarillo, California at the age of 98, a technical sergeant during WWII who wins a Distinguished Service Medal, a Distinguished Flying Cross with two oak leaf clusters, an Air Medal with five oak leave clusters, a Presidential Unit Citation, a Good Conduct Medal, an American Campaign Medal, a World War II Victory Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with one silver and three bronze campaign stars, and a Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two bronze campaign stars for flying 30 combat missions over Europe (at a time when 25 missions gets one sent home) and an additional 28 combat missions over Japan ... Ben Kuroki.
Kuroki
Part of a family that will have ten children, Ben Kuroki is born to Japanese immigrants Shosuke (in America he will call himself Sam) and Naka Yokoyama Kuroki on May 16, 1917 in Gothenburg, Nebraska. When Ben is only one, the family will relocate to Hershey, Nebraska (a small town of only 500), where they own and operate a local potato farm. Growing up, Kuroki will help run the farm while attending Hershey High School, where he becomes Vice-President of his senior class and plays on the school's varsity basketball (despite being only 5'5") and baseball teams. He graduates in 1936 into a world preparing for war. When war comes in December of 1941 by way of a Japanese sneak attacks on American military bases on Hawaii, like thousands of other Americans, Kuroki is angered and wants to fight back, and heeding the encouragements of his father, Ben and his brother Fred, seek to enlist in the army two days after the attack, undergoing physicals at a recruiting station in the town of North Platte. There the pair though run into the rampant prejudice current at the time against the Japanese and are told to go home and the service will contact them with notification of their inductions, When the brothers hear nothing for two weeks, they decide to act upon a radio call they have heard for volunteers for the army's air corps, and with hopes of Ben becoming a pilot (and when that doesn't work out, an aircraft mechanic) and Fred becoming a navigator, they drive 150 miles to Grand Island, sign up (the recruiter could care less what the men look like, he is only interested in the $2 fee he gets for every man he signs up), and are in. In, but not accepted, both brothers experience hatred from fellow recruits, NCOs, and officers. Frequently on KP or tasked with menial chores (Fred will eventually be drummed out of the air corps and is transferred to the engineers) like cleaning the latrines and digging ditches, Kuroki completes basic training in Texas and is sent to Fort Logan, Colorado for clerical training ... an occupation Kuroki's warrior heart has no interest in.
Standing On The Left
Pearl Harbor Sneak Attack
Upon completion of the army's administrative course, Kuroki is sent to Barksdale Field in Shreveport, Louisiana where a new air group is being formed to fly Consolidated B-24 heavy Liberator bombers and is assigned as a clerk-typist to the 409th Bomber Squadron of the 93rd Bombardment Group (Kuroki is so frightened of something happening to get him kicked out of the air force that he spends earned leave time on base and never ventures into Shreveport). When the group is ordered to prepare for overseas deployment at Fort Myers, Florida, Kuroki discovers his name has been red-lined off the list of men going overseas by a senior NCO, he tearfully entreats the squadron's adjutant, Lt. Charles Brannon to put his name back on the list, which Brannon does. But it is only the beginning of Kuroki's fight to fight. Left off the movement list that will send Ben first to Grenier Army Airfield in New Hampshire, and then on to England as part of the Eighth Air Force, he seeks help from the unit's chaplain, Lt. James A. Burris. Burris in turn escalates Kuroki's case up to the group's commander, Colonel Edward J. "Ted" Timberlake who orders that the clerk stay with his squadron. In England, Kuroki is an orderly that types up flight orders and keeps track of squadron records. Chaffing to flight (the group, as the Eighth's first B-24 squadron flies its first cross-channel bombing mission against military targets at Lille, France on October 9, 1942), Kuroki spends as much time as he can out on the flight line helping out on whatever might be needed and learning to operate the .50-caliber machine guns of the B-24, and becomes so proficient in their operation that he can strip the weapon down and reassemble it while blindfolded. Passing a two-week gunnery course, constantly requesting flight status, he finally gets his chance when one of the turret gunners of the B-24 of 23-year-old pilot Lt. Jacob Burress "Jake" Epting Jr. is grounded for medical reasons. Allowed at the time to choose his own crew, Epting offers Kuroki the spot, and the youthful clerk receives the silver wings of flying status and a promotion to NCO. Almost immediately the status change pays dividends for Kuroki's squadron. Sent to Africa for temporary deployment, on Ben's first mission, a raid on the docks and supply depot of Bizerte, Tunisia, Kuroki's bomber is hit by flak, a piece of which grievously injures Sgt. Elmer Dawley in the head. About to receive morphine for the injury, Kuroki realizes the drug should not be used for head injuries and intervenes, saving the sergeant's life with his quick actions. Accepted now as a fighting member of the squadron, the crew of Ben's bomber begins affectionately calling him, "the Most Honorable Son" (the perfect crew for Kuroki, Epting's crew has a crew with German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Jewish, and Lakota ancestry ... Americans all!).
Epting
B-24
Helping stop Rommel and his Afrika Korps in North Africa, the "Red Ass" of Lt. Epting and Kuroki flies over a dozen missions (the first takes place on December 13, a raid on docks and supply bases of Bizerete, Tunisia) against various Axis bases before being transferred back to the Eighth in England. Flying back to England in February of 1943, the B-24, carrying a crew of ten and five ground crew passengers, encounters huge swaths of fog blanketing their planned course, and trying to find their way through it, the bomber becomes lost, runs out of fuel and has to make a forced night landing in Spanish Morocco. Interned by Spanish authorities, Kuroki attempts to escape back to Allied territory disguised as an Arab, is caught, and then flown to Spain, where he is interned in the mountain town of Alhama de Aragon, northeast of Madrid. Finally freed by authorities after three months, Kuroki returns to England and is reunited with Lt. Epting in a new B-24, a bomber this time called "Tupelo Lass" for the pilot's hometown. Barely back, the 93rd is sent back to North Africa to take part in Operation Tidal Wave, an operation to stop the oil production of refineries around the town of Ploesti, Romania. Established by this time as one of the best gunners in the squadron, in a bomber containing Lt. Epting and the 409th squadron (known as the "Eager Beaver" squadron) commander, Major Kenneth "K.O." Dessert, flies the August 1, 1943 mission from the top turret of the plane, where he has a dangerous grand view of the proceedings from an elevation of only fifty feet (of the nine B-24s of the squadron that attack Ploesti, Kuroki is one of only two that make it back to their base in Benghazi).
"Red Ass"
Top Turret
Crew Of The "Tupelo Lass"
Ploesti
Mission survived, the group rests while mechanics repair the unit's planes, then fly more missions from North Africa before returning to England where they participate in a raid against the aircraft manufacturing facilities at Weiner-Neustadt, Austria, the third most heavily defended Axis target in Europe. Mission after mission completed, battling combat fatigue that causes the gunner to lurch about in his bed and cry out over his sky fighting nightmare, Kuroki eventually reaches the magic number of twenty-five that allows an airman to go home. Kuroki though decides to prove his patriotism and honor his brother (who is still back in the States) by flying five more missions to reach a total (a decision that the other members of the squadron think is insane) of thirty ... and it almost costs the airman his life. Bombing the German city of Munster, from his position in the top turret (he is now flying with Epting's former co-pilot, full blooded Sioux warrior, Lt. Homer Moran), Kuroki stretches his neck a split second before shrapnel goes through his turret, metal that a second before would have taken his head off and does shatter his goggles and pierces his oxygen mask. He survives his last combat mission over Europe breathing through a spare oxygen mask given him by another member of the bomber's crew.
Sitting With Friends In Alexandria, Egypt
Above Munster
Lucky Kuroki
Back in the States, Technical Sgt. Kuroki returns to both praise and prejudice. Taking time out for some well deserved R&R at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Santa Monica, the sergeant becomes the first Japanese-American to visit California since President Roosevelt signed the order putting members of the state's Nisei community, United States citizens all, in internment camps (he also becomes the first Japanese-American to dine at Hollywood's legendary Brown Derby since the war began. Time magazine and the New York Times will both run articles about him, starting a landslide of interest in Kuroki's story. And ordered forth by the powers in Washington D.C., the gunner is ordered to visit Nisei camps where he is considered a hero, to give speeches recruiting the internees to join the army to fit against the Nazis in Europe (eventually 25,000 join up and serve with heroism and honor), duty that galls him as he makes speeches about freedom to people being held behind barbed wire. And despite his service to a country he loves, Kuroki still experiences moments of prejudice and hatred ... NBC pulls the plug on a national radio interview because it finds the sergeant too controversial, a female producer, for the same reason, at the last minute cancels his appearance on the popular Ginny Sims Show, wealthy media magnate, William Randolph Hearst, allows his San Francisco newspaper to run the headline "Jap to Address S.F. Club," and in full bemedaled dress uniform, when the gunner tries to share a taxi ride in Denver, he has the door of the vehicle slammed in his face as the occupant in the back seat screams, "I don't want to ride with no lousy Jap!'
Addressing Internees
Kuroki And Recruiting Poster
On February 4, 1944, as news of details of the Bataan Death March of captured Americans in the Philippines is released to the public for the first time, Kuroki is coaxed into delivering the speech he is scheduled to make at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club to a room full of hostile businessmen and wealthy citizens. Making a forty minute speech, Kuroki states, "I learned more about democracy, for one thing, than you'll find in books, because I saw it in action, When you live with men under combat conditions for fifteen months, you begin to understand what brotherhood, equality, tolerance and unselfishness really mean. They're no longer just words." He relates the tale of saving the wounded crewman from death from morphine, telling his audience, "What difference did it make what a man's ancestry was? We had a job to do and we did it with a kind of comradeship that was the finest thing." Describing his quest to fight for the country of his birth, he says he was "waging two battles, one against the Axis and one against the intolerance of my fellow Americans, and states that the bigotry he faced during basic training was so bad that "I would rather go through my bombing missions again than face it." A boffo performance straight to the heart, at the conclusion of his presentation, Kuroki receives a standing ovation ten minutes in length, is recalled to the stage twice, and has most of his audience, including his army escort in tears (and after, a member of his audience, Monroe Deutsch, the vice-president of the University of California at Berkeley will write him a letter thanking Kuroki for making a big difference in tempering anti-Japanese sentiments in the state). And still he holds a burning desire to do even more.
Tonight's Speaker
Still feeling he has to prove he is a loyal American citizen, instead of riding out the war, Kuroki volunteers to next fly in the Pacific, as a member of the crews being put together to bomb the Japanese homeland from the new long distance super bombers the United States has added to its weaponry ... the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. Once again though, at first, the powers that be aren't interested in the idea at all and plan to enforce the rule they have about no Japanese-Americans being allowed to fight in the Theater. Savvy to the way things work by this point in the war, Kuroki passes all his training classes at the Superfortress base near Harvard, Nebraska and allows the host of friends he has made in the air and back in the States do the heavy lifting needed to get him where he wants to go. Soon, letters and telegrams begin flooding into the War Department to let Kuroki go to the Pacific ... a paper campaign that eventually results in Nebraska Representative Carl Curtis bringing the matter to the attention of Army Air Corps commander, General Henry "Hap" Arnold, and Arnold's boss, Army Chief Of Staff, General George C. Marshall. Heavyweights in his corner, the pair bring the problem to the attention of FDR's Secretary of War, Henry Lewis Stimson. Problem solved, Stimson writes a letter which Kuroki carries with him for the rest of the war in which the secretary states, "I an now happy to inform you that by reason of his splendid record, it has been decided to except Sgt. Kuroki from the provisions of the policy." Green light, and yet the gunner's tribulations will continue. Twice, once at Kearney Field in Nebraska and once at Mather Field in California, federal agents try to stop Kuroki from flying training missions, forcing the sergeant to dip into his duffel bag and produce the Stimson letter giving him permission. When a third time is about to take place, the pilot of the bomber Kuroki has been assigned to, Lt. Jim Jenkins, simply ignores the speeding security coming his way, taxis down the runway, and lifts off for the Pacific theater in a B-29 the crew has nicknamed for their tail gunner ... "Sad Saki."
Curtis
Stimson
"Sad Saki"
Setting up base on Tinian Island (a pimple of Pacific coral captured by the United States Marine Corps in the summer of 1944), the "Sad Saki" joins the B-29s of the 505th Bombardment Group's 484 Bombardment Squadron (part of the Army's Twentieth Air Force), commanded by Major General Curtis Emerson LeMay. Training flights to milk runs over Iwo Jima and Truk Island to firebomb and napalm raids on Japan, from February of 1945 to the end of the war from the island's North Field, Kuroki flies 28 more combat missions without receiving a scratch. On the ground, it is a different story. Worried that seeing Kuroki on the island, he might be mistaken for a Japanese straggler coming out of hiding, and security personnel might shoot first and ask questions later, Ben remains in his tent at night, not even going out to use the latrine. Moving about during daylight, Lt. Jenkins insists that his tail gunner wear a helmet and dark glasses, and never goes anywhere alone, and even during trips to the mess hall, Kuroki is surrounded by members of his crew and squadron (his friends will tease that Ben owes them protection money and Kuroki kids back that if they are ever shot down over Japan, he will find his crewmates plenty of fish heads and rice to dine on). And he is almost killed anyway. Relaxing in his barracks after flying his 58th mission of the war, Kuroki is suddenly accosted by a drunken GI from New York who bursts into the area screaming about Tojo and the sergeant being "dirty Japs." Fighting words, Ben jumps out of his cot, but before he can lay a hand on the man, the private produces a combat knife and slashes the gunner's head open, and might have killed him if not for the intervention of a B-29 flight engineer, Sgt. Russell Olsen, who disarms the drunk (Kuroki's attacker will be court-martialed and spends six months in the stockade doing hard labor). Death once again only an inch or so away, Kuroki is in the hospital with his scalp held together by 24 stitches when he hears the news that an atomic bomb has been dropped on Hiroshima by a Tinian B-29, the Enola Gay of Colonel Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr.
Firebombing Japan
Hiroshima
Thank you for your service, Technical Sergeant!
Kuroki
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