Robert M. Wai never spoke much about his service in World War II.
When he did, the tales often concerned light subjects such as entertaining cribbage games or borrowing the commanding general’s boat (with permission) to go fishing for his unit’s mess, his granddaughters recalled.
Born and raised in Honolulu, Wai, who died in 2016 at the age of 96, was the second of four brothers who all served in the war. Wai and 179 other Chinese American WWII veterans from Hawaii were honored in February for their service with a Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’ top honor of national appreciation.
Occasionally, there were darker stories.
Like the time when the personnel at a Red Cross tent refused to allow the Chinese American soldiers to come in for hot coffee and doughnuts — or even give them the refreshments to take with them.
And there was the time he was asked to talk about his experiences at a Fourth of July ceremony.
“He did a good job at his talk, and then we came home,” said Marly Wai Wilson. “I think I’ve seen my grandfather cry maybe two or three times in my life, but I had never seen him sob until that night when he started to share things that had happened in the war. I wanted to go comfort him, and my grandmother stopped me and said, ‘Let him talk.’ What he was describing was like the opening scene of ‘Saving Private Ryan.’ ”
Meagan Wai Taylor recalls her grandfather describing the lessons learned this way:
“He said, ‘In war you do what you have to do. If you don’t kill them, they’ll kill you. You know that you didn’t have a choice. This isn’t who you are, but you don’t have a choice.’”
“My grandfather would talk about having humanity and dignity in war,” Wilson added. “That almost seems like that’s an oxymoron. He spoke a lot about how important it was for him and for the people that he was with and in charge of to remember who they were. He said, ‘We went in and we did our job, which meant to kill people, but after that we didn’t desecrate the bodies.’ ”
Wai’s acts of valor and those of many other Chinese American WWII veterans were finally recognized in 2018 when Congress voted to award them the Congressional Gold Medal. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law the day it reached his desk in December of that year. But by the time the medals were ready for presentation, pandemic protocols put public gatherings on hold.
The first Congressional Gold Medals for Chinese American WWII veterans were presented during the Fourth of July weekend in 2021. Regional events have continued since throughout the nation.
On Feb. 6, Hawaii’s medal recipients and their descendants received their awards at a luncheon at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
The veterans’ service also was celebrated with the publication of two generously illustrated books.
The two-volume “National Recognition for Commendable Patriotism and Honor: The Chinese American Veterans of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Recipients” covers veterans from all parts of the country including Hawaii.
The second book, “Congressional Gold Medal Awarded to Hawaii Chinese-American World War II Veterans,” published by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii and the Hawaii Congressional Gold Medal Commitee, covers Hawaii residents only. It costs $5 and is available only at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii office in Honolulu.
Worthy of honor
More than 20,000 Chinese Americans served in all branches of the U.S. armed forces — Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines — and in the Coast Guard and the Merchant Marine, in all WWII theaters of operations.
At the end of the war, survivors got on with their lives and little was said about their service in the years that followed. There had been no segregated Chinese American showpiece combat units; Chinese Americans had served alongside Caucasian, Hispanic and Pacific Islanders in all theaters.
In 1993, the armed forces were ordered to review the wartime service of all African American personnel and find men who could have received the Congressional Medal of Honor — the highest award for military personnel who showed outstanding bravery and leadership in combat. Seven subsequently had their records upgraded. When the service of Asian American veterans received the same revisit in 1998, 22 men were upgraded. Twenty were Japanese American veterans of the 100th Infantry Battalion or 442nd Regimental Combat Team, one was Filipino, and the other was Francis Brown Wai. Wai, the eldest brother of Robert M. Wai, had initially received a posthumous Distinguished Service Cross for his leadership under fire in the Philippines.
In the years that followed, many more veterans received a different honor — the Congressional Gold Medal. Similar in name to the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Congressional Gold Medal is not limited to individual military personnel. It can be awarded to groups, combat troops or otherwise, and can be awarded to civilians as well as to military personnel.
In 2000, the Navajo “code talkers,” a special communications unit that used a code based on the Navajo language, received a Congressional Gold Medal for their service in WWII.
In the years that followed, Congressional Gold Medals were awarded to the African American Tuskegee Airmen (2006), to all other Native American “code talkers” (2008) and to the Japanese Americans who had served in the 100th Battalion, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and the Military Intelligence Service (2010).
Post-war life
Hawaii’s contingent of 180 Chinese American WWII veterans who received the honor in February reflects a wide array of experiences that resulted in economic and political advancement that would have been unthinkable without the opportunities provided by the GI Bill. Some went into medicine or law, others into business, banking and development. Some became active in politics and participated in the Democratic Party’s “Revolution of 1954” that carried forward into the 1970s.
If not for the war, the late Judge Arthur S.K. Fong might have spent his life working at Pearl Harbor. Fong’s parents sent him to Saint Louis School to get him away from some of the kids in their neighborhood, and Fong’s father thought that working at the shipyard would be a good career choice. Military service expanded his options.
“His birthday was Dec. 5, and they were going to celebrate on the seventh (in 1941). He and his brothers were on Punchbowl, and they saw Pearl Harbor being attacked. They all went down and enlisted right after that,” said Judge Peter C.K. Fong, one of Arthur Fong’s sons. “He was stationed in Hawaii when there was a real concern that the Japanese were going to come back.”
Post-war, Arthur Fong went to the University of Michigan on the GI Bill, where he earned a law degree and a master’s in business administration. After returning home and finding few opportunities for Asian American attorneys, he joined Democratic leaders, including the future Gov. John Burns and the future Sen. Daniel Inouye, in engineering the party’s “revolution” in Hawaii in 1954. Fong became a member of Burns’ unofficial “kitchen cabinet” when Burns was elected governor in 1962, and served through the administration of Burns’ successor, George Ariyoshi. He was appointed judge of the circuit court; his son Peter Fong is the surviving partner in Fong & Fong and serves as a per diem judge for the state in the Family District Court.
Dr. Joseph W.C. Young, 96, had quit school and was working to help his parents support the family when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He was drafted for military service shortly before the war ended, and then served in the Philippines and Japan as a flight engineer with the U.S. Army Air Corps.
Back home in Hawaii, Young was told he was too old to go back to high school, so he got a GED. He then went to college and dental school, all thanks to the GI Bill. Through the years, he contributed to several local Chinese cultural organizations and is now known as the Honorary Mayor of Chinatown.
Honolulu-born Daniel B.T. Lau had a different career path. After graduating from the University of Hawaii, he joined the Army’s 298th Hawaiian Regiment before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
After a short stint in Pearl Harbor and pilot training on the mainland, Lau ended up as a drill instructor and squad leader in the 78th Infantry Division fighting in Belgium. During the Battle of the Bulge, Lau was the only survivor after a German shell hit the area he and several men of his unit were defending. Seriously wounded, Lau was evacuated and sent back to the U.S. for treatment. He received a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his actions.
Post-war, he joined fellow vet Hiram Fong (who would go on to become the first Asian American U.S. senator) in founding Finance Factors and Finance Enterprises. Lau retired as chairman of the board when he was 96; he died in 2020 at the age of 101.
When draftee Daniel H.C. Young had finished basic training in 1944, he was told he was going to Fort Kamehameha for coastal defense/anti-aircraft duty. Instead, Young (no relation to Joseph W.C. Young) was sent to Schofield Barracks and worked as a food inspector.
His experience as a food inspector led Young to discover that he enjoyed working with refrigeration equipment and engineering. He went to the Industrial Training Institute in Chicago for advanced instruction and then returned to Hawaii. He built a career in refrigeration design for restaurants, supermarkets and coffee shops.
“I was a one-man game. I did the designing, the ordering, everything; that was what I liked. I was never academic. I was always interested in mechanical things. I can look at it, and I can more or less make it work,” said Young, now 97. “I decided fixing iceboxes is not a bad thing to do. It all came out of the GI Bill.”
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BOOKS AVAILABLE
>> “National Recognition for Commendable Patriotism and Honor: The Chinese American Veterans of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Recipients” The two-volume set costs $75; it is available at the Chinese American World War II Veterans Recognition Project website, caww2.org.
>> “Congressional Gold Medal Awarded to Hawaii Chinese-American World War II Veterans” The $5 book is available only at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii office in Honolulu. Call 808-533-3181 to schedule purchase and pick up.
