SINGULAR LIVES
Ben Kuroki, U.S. Airman
BACK EM UP
In the days following the bombing of Pearl
Harbor, hundreds of thousands of young
Americans volunteered for the armed forces.
Among these patriots, Ben Kuroki and his
brother Fred drove 150 miles to a recruiting
station in their home state of Nebraska.
Initially rejected as "unfit for service" due to
their Japanese American heritage, the
brothers made their way to another station
and were instantly accepted by a recruiting
agent whose more pressing concern was the
$2 commission he received for each recruit.
Ben Kuroki became a tail-gunner in a B-24,
one of the few Japanese Americans permitted
to fly bombing missions for the U.S. Army Air
Force. By the end of the war, he was among
the most decorated airmen in the service.
stopping only when
they were shot down
over fascist Spanish
territory. Kuroki and
the crew were held
captive for three
months until the
State Department
negotiated their
release. The young
tail-gunner returned
to the United States,
where he was
awarded the first of
three Distinguished
Flying Crosses
BU
A BONDS
Born in small-town Nebraska during World
War I, Kuroki was one of ten children of
Japanese immigrant parents. Kuroki enjoyed
the same childhood as most other Nebraskan
children, experiencing virtually none of the
discrimination and enmity that the Nisei
(children of Japanese immigrants) suffered on
the Pacific coast. But in training camp, Kuroki
was bewildered to discover that many of his
fellow airmen considered him racially inferior.
He learned that the best way to survive was
to do his job well while attracting minimal
attention. When Kuroki's squadron received
orders to ship out to the Pacific, he was
grounded because the Army forbade
Japanese Americans from entering combat.
Bitterly disappointed, he pleaded to be
posted to Europe. Noting the airman's
exemplary record, the commanding officer
consented.
In 1944, as the army
grew desperate for
more recruits, the
Fighting Injustice at Home and Abroad. Decorated airman Ben
government turned
Kuroki helped the government recruit interned Japanese Americans to the
to untapped
war effort. After the war, he campaigned for full civil rights for minorities.
populations, such as
the 110,000 interned
Japanese Americans.
The army now championed the exceptional and Japan," he explained on a nationwide
young airman as an example of its
speaking tour, "but also to fight against a
supposedly enlightened policies-and as few Americans who fail to understand the
someone who could persuade internees to principles of freedom and equality upon
enlist. Sought out by the press and radio, which this country was founded." He had
Kuroki received rousing applause at public flown a record fifty-eight missions during
appearances in New York and San Francisco. the war, but, he declared, "I've got one
But he still suffered discrimination. “I don't more mission to go ... the fight against
know for sure if it's safe to walk the streets of prejudice and race hatred. I call it my 59th
my own country," he reflected sadly, having mission, and I have a hunch I won't be
been refused hotel, taxicab, and restaurant fighting alone."
service. He was appalled to learn that the
vast majority of Japanese soldiers-like
Think About It
African Americans-served in their own
segregated regiments. Returning to battle in
1. Although a Japanese American, Ben
the Pacific, he was nearly killed by a knife-
Kuroki did not experience discrimination
wielding Gl who screamed "Damn the Japs!"
until he tried to enlist in the military.
What might this say about regional
variations in race relations?
Despite the grueling bombing missions,
Europe proved a welcome respite from
discrimination. Like Kuroki's childhood
friends in Nebraska, Europeans accepted
him first and foremost as the American he
had always been. Gradually, his white crew
came to respect and admire him, nicknaming
him "Honorable Son." They flew a punishing
thirty missions over German targets,
2. How might Kuroki's military experience
After the war, Kuroki campaigned against
racism and became the first Japanese
American to own and edit an English-
language newspaper. "Not only did I go to
war to fight the fascist ideas of Germany
have changed him? How might his
service have changed the attitudes of his
crew and superior officers?
other arsenals of democracy” (see Map 25.2). “It made me think
of The Grapes of Wrath," one California migrant reflected, “minus
the poverty and hopelessness."
Many white women were especially eager to step into fac-
tory jobs, from which most had been previously barred. The
War Production Board and other federal agencies worked with
business to recruit housewives, while millions of other women
women had made up just one-quarter of the national labor
quit their low-wage jobs for the war industries. Whereas
force before the war, by 1945 they accounted for one-third of
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