Unlikely Liberators The Men of the 100th and 442nd

Masayo Duus begins her story with the formation of the Japanese American units, which were an outgrowth of America's ambivalent attitude toward the entire Japanese American community at the outbreak of the war. She recounts their experiences in training and during the early battles in Italy, including the conflicts between Japanese American and Caucasian troops. The final part of the story focuses on the battle in the Vosges forest, where the 442nd fought fiercely to rescue the "lost battalion" of Texans hopelessly cut off by the enemy.
Based on extensive research in War Department archives and nearly three hundred interviews with veterans of the 100th and 442nd, Unlikely Liberators first appeared in serialized form in Japan, where it won the Bungeishunjusha Reader's Prize. It is an absorbing and personalized account of young men suddenly separated from their families and friends, often confused and sometimes suspicious about what the army wanted from them. It portrays them as individuals confronting the multiple crises of war and social rejection and it shows that their greatest achievement was not their victory over a foreign enemy, but over prejudice at home. This book is a tribute to those men, who by their heroism reestablished for all Japanese Americans their personal dignity as full citizens in the country of their birth.