About the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team is the army unit granted recognition for liberating the Dachau Concentration Camp and finding the "Lost Battalion". Their motto "go for broke" emerged from the Hawaiian pidgin meaning to wager everything.
The 522nd FAB was a segregated unit of Japanese-American - "Nisei" - soldiers form the 442nd RCT. "Nisei" was the term coined for American born children to Japanese parents. The irony of these soldiers was that many of them had families who were placed in concentration camps back in the United States. "It is ironic that members of one persecuted minority were liberating those of another minority," machine gunner Hideo Nakamine said. Their efforts in aiding the Dachau Death March prisoners restored a positive American attitude toward Japanese-Americans post-WWII.
The 522nd FAB was a segregated unit of Japanese-American - "Nisei" - soldiers form the 442nd RCT. "Nisei" was the term coined for American born children to Japanese parents. The irony of these soldiers was that many of them had families who were placed in concentration camps back in the United States. "It is ironic that members of one persecuted minority were liberating those of another minority," machine gunner Hideo Nakamine said. Their efforts in aiding the Dachau Death March prisoners restored a positive American attitude toward Japanese-Americans post-WWII.
June 1944The 442nd RCT arrives in Italy. They would rescue the "Lost Battalion" in October of that year.
April 29 - May 2, 1945Throughout the spring of 1945, the 522nd FAB moved 4 times aiding American offensive. They were nicknamed the "roving battalion". Among their movement they encountered the Dachau Death March prisoners. The prisoners were from Dachau and the satellite camp Kaufering-Landsberg. Although the 442nd RCT liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp on April 29, the 522nd FAB liberated the victims who were forced to march in early May (roughly May 2).
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March 12, 1945The 522nd FAB splits from the 442nd RCT to assist the 4th Infantry Division's assault on Siegfried Line between Eastern France and Western German.
Staff Sargent Don Shimazu - upon liberation of the death march victims."Our hearts were saying, 'yes feed them, help them,' but our heads were saying, 'no! don't feed them, those are orders!' What those inmates must have suffered and endured is beyond imagination - they were like walking skeletons."
Shimazu was born 18 November 1923 in Puunene, Maui, Hawaii. A child of Japanese immigrants, he and his family worked as plantation farmers. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Shimazu was enrolled as a cadet in the University of Hawaii’s ROTC department. Shortly after the attacks, he served as a guard until his unit was disbanded. Unlike Japanese Americans on the mainland, he was not interned at a relocation camp. In 1943, he volunteered to serve in the United States Army to prove his loyalty to his country. He served in the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the vaunted Nisei troops. He fought in Italy, France, and Germany. In fact, his unit was the only all Japanese-American unit to fight in Germany. In 1945, his unit was one of the first in Dachau, and it was there that he witnessed the horrors the Nazi regime had wrought upon the Jews and other prisoners. He recalled that most were “skeletons with skin”, barely able to walk. When the war was declared over, he and his fellow troops were ordered to care for the now liberated troops. That meant putting the prisoners back into their former homes. Not only was he uncomfortable about that, he was uncomfortable with the order to not feed the prisoners until they were cleared by Army doctors. In one specific instance, Shimazu spoke about emptying his food into the trash while the prisoners looked on and asked “Varoom!?!?” (Why?!?). This, he said, was one of the hardest parts, to be able to feed them but not doing so. He barely spoke about his experiences and feelings of the war to his family, mainly because they had their own lives & he didn’t want to burden them. |