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Seven Japanese-American members of the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team and 100th Battalion will be awarded Legion of Honor medals by the French government Wednesday night for their part in liberating France from the Nazis in 1944.
Retired Canadian Army Col. Albert Brum, a Kaneohe resident, also will be honored at the Pearl Harbor ceremony.
Brum, 88, was with the 1st Special Service Force, the joint American-Canadian commando unit that gained fame during World War II as the "Devil’s Brigade" in 1944. Brum jumped into France a day after D-Day while assigned with a British commando unit. After the war he and his family became naturalized U.S. citizens.
The Legion of Honor that will be awarded to the nisei, or second-generation Japanese-Americans, was created in 1820 by Napoleon Bonaparte and is the highest decoration bestowed by France. It will be awarded on a French warship here for Rim of the Pacific war games.
Four of this year’s recipients are from the 100th Battalion, the Army unit that was created following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
They are Shuji Akiyama, Edward Y. Ikuma, Yukitsugu Nishimura and Yoroku Ito.
The remaining three nisei veterans — Shiro Aoki, Yasunori Deguchi and Hiroo Endo — were members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which was organized on March 23, 1943, in response to the War Department’s call for volunteers to form an all-Japanese-American Army combat unit based on the achievements of the 100th Battalion.
Because Aoki, 92, is confined to a nursing home and unable to attend, his award will be accepted by Ralph Tomei, a fellow member of M Company, in which he served. Attorney Pat Lee, the honorary French consul in Hawaii, said Nishimura has asked to postpone his presentation until later this year so it can be done in San Francisco where his children live.
The veterans view the award not as an individual achievement, but as honoring the exploits of their unit.
"Someone has to represent the gang … those who are gone. They cannot be there," said Deguchi, 89, a Kona resident, who received two Purple Hearts. "This is not an individual award. It is our responsibility to live up to what the group did."
"It’s a huge privilege and honor for me to receive this prestigious medal. I think I speak for all the men in 100th who participated in the French campaign to give our gratitude and appreciation to the people of France and the French government," said Ikuma, 95. "I wish that those who were there could get this medal."
Until Wednesday only five members of the 100th and 442nd Regimental Combat Team, including the late Sen. Daniel Inouye and Barney Hajiro, both Medal of Honor recipients, had received France’s highest award.
The veterans will receive the Legion of Honor with the rank of chevalier from Rear Adm. Anne Cullerre, who commands the French armed forces in the Pacific and is based in French Polynesia. The ceremony, which will be held on the decks of the French surveillance frigate FS Prairial, will be attended by Adm. Harry Harris, Pacific Fleet commander, and his wife, Bruni Bradley; and Brig. Gen. John Cardwell, commander of the Army Reserve’s 9th Mission Support Command.
Retired Navy Capt. Gary Ikuma, who plans to make a special trip to Hawaii from Virginia to attend his father’s award ceremony, said almost all of the earlier awardees were members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
The only other member of the 100th Battalion to receive the French medal was Army Col. Young Oak Kim, one of two Koreans in the outfit, who was awarded the decoration in 2005 before he died at the age of 86.
Gary Ikuma said his father was drafted in March 1941 and was one of the original members of the 100th Battalion who trained at Schofield Barracks before the Japanese attack on the Pacific Fleet in December that year. He served in every campaign where the 100th Battalion fought in Italy and France, was wounded twice and earned two Bronze Stars, leaving the war in October 1945.
"Receiving the Legion of Honor Medal, France’s highest military award, further acknowledges the accomplishments of the nisei soldier," Ikuma said. "They made it possible for our generation to have successful careers and enjoy the life we have today. Our mission as sons and daughters is to promote their legacy."
Brum said he remembers fondly another award ceremony in 2009 when Inouye presented him with the U.S. Army’s Bronze Star for service in the Devil’s Brigade between July and August 1944. The joint Canadian-U.S. commando unit also will be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal later this year.
As for the French award, Brum said, "I will wear it with honor for those who didn’t make it, especially my brother."
Brum said his 21-year-old brother, Charles, a Spitfire pilot, and two other Spitfires were shot down in Caen, France, in August 1944. After the war, Brum said he found three French witnesses who testified that his wounded brother was pulled from the downed aircraft’s cockpit and beaten to death by Nazis.
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