The Low Vosges Mountains (442nd)

My Father's War in Real Time

Sixty-five years after Dad’s first night of combat, my sister and I ended up standing on the crossroads at Fremifontaine where he and Company C of the 325^th Engineers once stood. We got to that crossroads through an act of serendipity, or, as I sometimes think, fate. Early on, I had told my sister about my struggle to find out the history of the fighting in the Vosges. One day, my sister was attending a festival in Japan Town in San Jose, California, when she came across a man sitting at a folding table with some brochures for the Friends and Family of Nisei Veterans. As she flipped through the brochure, the words “Vosges Mountains” jumped out at her. When he saw her interest, he introduced himself as Lawson Sakai and pointed out that he had helped organize a museum on board the U.S. Hornet in Oakland, California, that told more of the story of the Nisei Veterans. I flew out to California to meet Lawson, who was so kind to have lunch with us and show us around the Hornet. We learned about the most decorated unit of its size in the U.S. Army during World War II—but also about the kind of horrific fighting it takes to be the most decorated unit. I also realized that the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team—the Nisei--had fought two of their most significant battles just 6 miles from where Dad had stood in Fremifontaine, the very days he stood there.

Lawson Sakai in foreground near Bruyeres in the Vosges Mountains. Lawson honoring the dead in the Epinal Cemetary. 2009

The 442^nd had started as a battalion of Japanese-American men from Hawaii. They had been fighting for years in Italy. Having proven their ability, more Japanese-American men were recruited from the internment camps to form a full regiment. Lawson told us that he was in high school when the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. He’d raced to the recruiting station to volunteer—only to be told that he was an illegal alien, though he was in fact born in California and an American citizen. Within a few months, he was shipped with his family to an internment camp. Two years later, the Army recruiters showed up. Given the successful experiences capturing the hilltop towns in Italy, the 442^nd became known as mountain specialists—and also a unit that could accomplish what others could not. The Seventh Army had wanted them in France, to help in the Vosges Mountains.

The Vosges Mountains run 90 miles along the western side of the Alsatian plain, forming a natural barrier. The Romans came, built some roads through the passes, and built temples to the god of war and the goddess of the hunt—good choices in the Vosges. Across time, control of the area switched from hand to hand, from Swabia on the eastern side of the Rhine, to local lords, to the armies of the Peasants War, to, somewhat improbably, the Swedes in 1633. The mountains didn’t become French until 1697, when French military engineers fortified them. The Germans claimed them in the war of 1871. The French took them back after World War I and fortified the northern area as part of the Maginot Line. With the French surrender in 1940, Germany declared that Alsace was part of Greater Germany. The French language was banned, all the names were Germanized, and thousands of young men were dragooned into the armies of the Reich and sent to the Russian Front.

Soldiers of the 442^nd near Bruyères, 1944

There are two sections of the Vosges—the High Vosges in the south, made of granite and gneiss, and the Low Vosges in the north, made of red sandstone, where world- famous fine crystal is made. The U.S. Army maps labeled the hills in meters—so the GIs knew the hills by names like Hill 468, which was 468 meters tall. What the map, even a contour map, doesn’t completely convey is that the hills are very steep. The grades in the High Vosges are 15% to 20%. The grades in the Low Vosges go up to 30%. To climb up a hill, through the dense trees, carrying 45 or more pounds of equipment, in the cold and rain and mud, was extraordinarily difficult. To climb through a hail of machine gun fire seems impossible. And yet, that’s what the Seventh Army was doing. The Germans set up their winter line along the top of the Vosges, forcing the villagers to build mountain top fortifications to guard the passes that wound through the mountains to the Alsatian Plain below.

In late October, a battalion of the 36^th Infantry Division, which had originally been the Texas National Guard, and the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team had reached a small town called Bruyères, where a road cut through a mountain pass toward the plain. The Germans were dug in on the four mountains surrounding the town, guarding the pass.^[i] The 442^nd had to cross the open valley, in full view of the line of fire, climb the hills against the machine guns and artillery, and take control of the road. It took a number of days and a number of casualties in late October to accomplish the mission. The citizens of Bruyères came out of their cellars relieved to have the shelling over. They were also relieved to be free of the dregs of Vichy France that had been moving through the town in their retreat to Germany, people like Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons. They welcomed the Nisei with open arms and deep appreciation, while the American press gave the credit to the 36^th Infantry Division. Capturing Bruyères had taken a severe toll on the 442^nd, but at least it was a military objective, at least the people were grateful, and at least the men were moving into reserve to regroup. 

View of the red roofs of Bruyères from the hill where the Lost Battalion was trapped, 2009

However, with less than a day of rest, the men of the 442^nd were ordered back into combat to rescue the so-called Lost Battalion of the 36^th Division. I say, “so-called” because the battalion wasn’t lost; everyone knew exactly where they were, due to the genuinely heroic efforts of their radioman, who I had the privilege to meet at a 442^nd reunion. He kept their failing radio battery operating long after it should have failed. Though they weren’t technically lost, they had gotten cut off, on an isolated hilltop, low on food and ammunition, for days. It was an easy thing to do in the Vosges. As a log entry of the German army said about the Vosges: “The mountainous forests have an almost jungle-like character which swallows men.”^[ii] The Germans hadn’t realized they’d surrounded the battalion until the American air force started dropping “belly tanks” full of supplies out of bombers in a futile attempt to get the battalion some food and ammunition. The Germans were very appreciative of the supplies, which landed all over the mountain. The 36^th Division troops tried to reach them but couldn’t make it up the brutally steep hill and through the hail of machine gun bullets. The commander of the 36^th Division couldn’t tolerate the defeat and ordered the recuperating 442^nd to rescue them.

The Nisei accomplished what the 36^th Division could not but at a horrendous price. In the end they broke through because of a Banzai charge straight up the mountain—true to their motto to Go for Broke. The 442^nd succeeded, but they suffered over 800 casualties, killed and wounded, to rescue 270 white soldiers. Lawson Sakai received four Purple Hearts for his wounds. One company of the 442^nd that should have had 200 men was down to 9 after the rescue. The close knit 442^nd is still deeply bitter that their lives were so much less valuable than “Texan” lives.^[iii]

At the end, the two groups met just long enough to exchange a few cigarettes. The 442^nd took over the positions on the hill as the Lost Battalion went down the hill toward hot food and medical aid. The rescue of the Lost Battalion was news, but the press said the rescuers were a “distinguished unit” without mentioning who they were. They had experienced the erasure before. The 442^nd would have been the first American unit to reach Rome but were ordered to wait because the publicity agents wanted the official photos to show white soldiers driving into Rome. U.S. propaganda was brutally racist about the Japanese. The Nisei were an inconvenient complication of that narrative. The broader public didn’t even know there was a Japanese-American unit in the U.S. Army.[iv] Certainly the 325^th Engineers didn’t know.

In 2001, T.C. told me about an encounter with the 442^nd, which was probably a day or two after the Banzai charge. Company C of the 325th had just arrived at the front. T.C. was driving Lt. Bell in his jeep, doing “reconnaissance” beyond their sector. Coming over a hill, they screeched to a halt. There coming toward them, walking in standard formation—5 yards apart on both shoulders of the road—were Japanese soldiers in American uniform. T.C. and Bell had no idea what to think. They were brand new to the front. They were in an area where they didn’t belong. And ever since they had landed Axis Sally on the radio had been telling them that the American mainland had been invaded by the Japanese and that they should desert and head back to protect their families. Here was the enemy in American uniforms inexplicably marching toward them in France. T.C. spun the jeep around and got the hell out of there.

T.C. told me the story in 2001 because he was mocking himself and how green they all were, but he was also furious. He’d just seen a documentary about the 442^nd on television. It suddenly brought home this memory, and he was angry, sixty years later, that he was hearing about the rescue of the Lost Battalion and the incredible achievements of the 442nd for the first time. It had taken 60 years and a lot of determination by Lawson Sakai and the Japanese-American community for their story to be heard.[v]

One of the most moving stops on my journey in this project was a Buddhist ceremony at the American Cemetery in Épinal, where many of the 442^nd are buried. My sister and I were there on a tour of the battlefields organized by Lawson Sakai. There were a group of veterans in their late 80s and 90s who had come with us, solemnly remembering the men who had not gotten a chance to grow old. Though many of the dead were Buddhist, they are buried under Christian crosses. Their dog tags labeled them as Protestant because the Army couldn’t be bothered to add another religion. The Americans 60 years to recognize their sacrifice, but the French remember. The graves at Épinal are adopted and tended. Whenever a friend or family of a Nisei veteran finds their way to Bruyères, they are welcomed with open arms.

The men of the 399^th Regimental Combat team, standing on that crossroads in Fremifontaine the last days of October 1944, hearing the artillery fire during the rescue of the Lost Battalion, had no idea what they were getting into.

The History Channel story of the Lost Battalion rescue

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^[i] Steidl, p. 190.

^[ii] Steidl, p. 21-22.

[iv] Nevada State Journal, Reno, page 4, November 8, 1944^d

[v] Eventually, they received the Congressional Medal of Honor and the French Legion of Honor.