Notably, none of the reporters who interviewed Ben in Denver mentioned another dramatic and historic twist in his saga: More than twenty months after President Franklin Roosevelt had set in motion the mass expulsion of people of Japanese descent from the West Coast, a Nebraska farm boy was about to become one of the first Japanese Americans—if not the first—to effectively contest the policy.
Chapter 36
MOST HONORABLE SON
Arriving in Los Angeles late on January 4, 1944, Ben made his way to the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Santa Monica. Overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the eight-story hotel was one of six beachfront properties recently acquired by the army to create a complex designated Army Air Forces Redistribution Center Number Three. The Santa Monica facility was one of three such centers in the nation, serving as a combination of “flak farm” and processing center. On his return from a combat tour, an air force veteran would spend several weeks at one of the centers, undergoing physical and psychological assessments that would determine his next assignment.
At the Santa Monica center, an airman could pass time between assessments in any number of ways. He could swim, surf, or stroll along the beach. Women’s Army Air Corps personnel staffed the Edgewater and the other hotels housing airmen. They had transformed the Edgewater’s fourth floor into a crafts center where men could take classes in leathercraft, watercolors, floral design, charcoal and pencil drawings, or stencil and textile painting. The Santa Monica–Ocean Park Chapter of the American Red Cross organized dances and other social events to occupy the evenings of airmen.1
Ben was delighted to discover that his Edgewater roommate was Ed Bates, who had preceded him on the Epting crew. As Ben had learned, Bates had been plagued by bad luck in combat. On the 93rd’s first mission—the October 9, 1942, raid on a locomotive factory in Lille, France—he had suffered severe frostbite in his fingers and landed in the hospital for several weeks. His medical leave set in motion the shuffling on the Epting crew that ultimately opened a spot for Ben in early December 1942.
While most 93rd crews were at Gambut Main on the group’s first temporary assignment to North Africa, Bates had rejoined the squadron that had remained in England and was flying missions out of Hardwick. On a February 1943 raid into Germany, he suffered an even more severe case of frostbite. To halt the potentially lethal spread of gangrene, doctors amputated parts of several fingers. Bates was shipped back to the US for further treatment and rehabilitation. Only recently had he been declared fit for limited duty and ordered to Santa Monica to await a noncombat assignment.
Ben and Ed had never overlapped on the Epting crew, so they didn’t know each other well. But they soon discovered they had much in common. They came from large families. They had Nebraska roots. And they had endured poverty and hardships growing up. Ed’s father had been a struggling farmer in Nebraska in the 1920s when he moved his wife and growing family to the Pacific Northwest for a fresh start. The family settled in Walla Walla, Washington, just north of the Oregon border. In Walla Walla, Ed’s father struggled to support the family with various odd jobs, including working as a caretaker at a local college.
As the oldest son in a family with eleven children, Ed dropped out of high school after two years to help support his siblings. In the fall of 1941, he enlisted in the army and began his Army Air Forces training. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, Ed carried a solid 160 pounds on his five-foot-ten-inch frame. Among his peers, he cultivated a reputation as a hard-drinking hell-raiser who wouldn’t hesitate to settle disputes with his fists. But it would be hard to find a more loyal friend than Ed Bates.
Ed had arrived at Santa Monica not only with the physical and psychological trauma of his own injuries but also the weight of a crushing family tragedy. His closest brother in age, Stanley, younger by two years, had enlisted in the army on October 9, 1942—the same day that Ed saw his first action in Europe and suffered his first case of frostbite.
Stanley had been assigned to the 37th Infantry Division’s 148th Infantry Regiment, which originally had been designated for duty in Europe before being rushed to the Pacific to help stem the initial Japanese advance. In July 1943, Stanley entered combat with the 148th in the battle for a Japanese airfield at Munda Point, New Georgia, in the Solomon Islands.
Ed was back in the US undergoing medical treatment on his mangled fingers when word arrived that Stanley had been killed in action on July 31. The family would eventually learn that Stanley died in the climactic fight for the Munda airfield. He had been wounded in the shoulder, but refused to leave the line of battle and continued fighting until he was killed. Only days before departing for Santa Monica, Ed had learned that his brother was being posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the army’s second-highest valor award.
In long walks along the Santa Monica beach and over meals and drinking sessions, Ben and Ed reminisced about their lives before the war, their time with the 93rd, and what lay ahead for them. It had been nearly two years since Californians of Japanese ancestry had been forced into confinement camps, and so Ben’s presence shocked many people they encountered. Sometimes passersby did a double take or whispered something to their companion.2
These encounters mortified Ben. He had hated those hostile or questioning looks early in his army service, and now he had to relive these encounters nearly every day. Ed sensed that Ben’s heritage and humble origins had left him with an inferiority complex. He made it his mission to remind Ben that he was a worthy American and comrade. When they went out at night, Ed made sure that everyone around them knew that Ben had flown thirty combat missions in Europe and Africa and now wanted to fight in the Pacific.”3
For Ben’s part, the death of Ed’s brother became one more reason he had to fight the Japanese. Ed’s injuries prevented him from avenging his brother’s death, but Ben could do it for him. Ben vowed that the first Japanese Zero he shot down would be for Stanley Bates.4
TWO WEEKS INTO HIS STAY AT THE Edgewater, Ben was still awaiting word about his next assignment when he sat down for an interview with a local reporter for the United Press news agency. The resulting story moved across the UP wire with a Los Angeles dateline. The story flatly declared that Ben “would next be in action in the Pacific against the Japs.” A slightly rewritten version described Ben as “headed for a crack at the Japs.”
For the most part, the latest article rehashed Walter Cronkite’s story, but there was one new revelation: Ben’s 93rd crewmates had nicknamed him “Most Honorable Son.”5 Also previously unreported were descriptions of the ostracism and distrust that Ben had faced in the army. Recalling his difficult early days in the Army Air Forces, Ben told the reporter, “I’d go into the mess hall and everybody would just stare at me. It just about drove me crazy.” Even after he got overseas with the 93rd Bomb Group, Ben said he struggled “to be accepted as a loyal American.” In England, he had completed gunnery training and was seeking a combat assignment, but “pilot after pilot refused to accept him as a crew member,” the article reported. “Finally Maj. J.B. Epting Jr. took him on.”
These revelations didn’t reflect well on the army or the 93rd Bomb Group. Given the military’s efforts to avoid negative publicity during the war, one can imagine army public relations officers blanching at Ben’s willingness to air their dirty laundry.
The latest article was also accompanied by a photograph of Ben in his leather flight suit. A number of newspapers around the country ran the photograph without the article. One of the most popular captions above the published photograph was “Most Honorable Son.” Other captions used by newspapers included “Fighter” and “Amerjap Hero.”6
Ben’s candor in this latest interview suggested a growing confidence on his part to share even the more unpleasant aspects of his story. It also seemed to reflect his growing awareness of the leverage he had as a Japanese American war hero, and how he might use that leverage to pry the assignment he wanted from the army.
THE LATEST STORY ABOUT BEN AND THE fact that he was now in Santa Monica awaiting his next assignment attracted the attention of other California journalists as well as leading citizens and civic groups. Ben received more interview requests and even speaking invitations. The prestigious Commonwealth Club of San Francisco—a national platform coveted by politicians, business leaders, and other prominent figures—reached out to Ben about speaking to the group’s elite membership, and a date was booked for early February.
Singer and film star Ginny Simms, host of a national radio show originating from the NBC Radio City studios in Hollywood, invited Ben to appear for a live interview on Tuesday, January 25. Simms concluded her interviews with service members by allowing the individual to place a live long-distance call to a person of their choosing. Ben chose his best friend from the Epting crew, radio operator Red Kettering, now based at Scott Field in Belleville, Illinois. A thrilled Ben alerted family and friends of his upcoming appearance, but two hours before the appointed hour an army public relations officer informed him the interview had been canceled. NBC executives feared the “Japanese American question” was too controversial in California. The Los Angeles Times reported that the order canceling the interview was issued by the head of the War Department’s radio branch, Colonel Ed Kirby.7
The clumsy cancellation of Ben’s interview generated news coverage that embarrassed the War Department and NBC. Newspapers across the country ran stories about the flap under headlines like “American-Jap Gunner Yanked off Radio” and “War Department Bans US Japanese Hero from Hollywood Radio.” But there was more to the War Department’s sudden decision to muzzle Ben, and the details would ignite a new wave of anti-Japanese outrage.
IN THE TWENTY MONTHS SINCE US AND Filipino forces had surrendered in the Philippines, several news organizations had pieced together accounts of what would become known as the Bataan Death March and other atrocities committed by Japanese forces. But the War and Navy departments had barred publication of the stories, fearing the accounts would provoke even worse treatment of American and Filipino POWs.
On Thursday night, January 27, as coverage of Ben’s canceled interview continued to appear in newspapers around the country, senior officials at the War and Navy departments in Washington, DC, notified news organizations that the ban on atrocity stories had been lifted. The following morning, Friday, January 28, Americans awoke to front-page newspaper stories describing in chilling detail the Japanese atrocities committed against American and Filipino troops after their April 1942 surrender at Bataan in the Philippines.
In California, major newspapers devoted extensive coverage to the topic. There were two full pages of coverage in the Los Angeles Times and four pages in the virulently anti-Japanese San Francisco Examiner, flagship of the proudly nativist Hearst newspaper chain. The graphic coverage continued on Saturday, January 29, with the Los Angeles Times devoting another three pages to atrocity stories and the San Francisco Examiner five pages to the atrocities and angry American reactions. Among the reaction pieces were calls for continued “control” of Japanese and Japanese Americans in the US and a firm wartime ban on the return of thousands of incarcerated Californians of Japanese ancestry to their homes.
AS AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS AND NATIVIST politicians remained focused on the Japanese atrocity stories, Ben agreed to an interview with a reporter from the Hollywood Citizen-News. In the published piece, Ben sounded alternately frustrated and hopeful that a majority of Americans rejected the bigotry that made NBC executives and the War Department fear giving a high-profile platform to a Japanese American.
Ben acknowledged that the incident made him wonder whether American attitudes toward its citizens of Japanese descent had changed in the two years since he had been forced to plead for acceptance by the Army Air Forces and then fight for a combat assignment.
“It’s the same old story,” Ben said. “My brother and I had to fight to enlist. Then I had to fight to get a chance to fight. And now—again.”8
Ben’s mood brightened as he talked about his positive encounters with fellow airmen in California and, more recently, even civilians.
“The soldiers have been swell,” he said. “I’m one of them.”
Expressions of goodwill from strangers had lifted his spirits. People recognized him from newspaper photos and offered congratulations or wished him well. Others invited him to their homes. The anti-Japanese bigots were only a small minority, Ben told the reporter.
“How can I feel bitter when nearly every day people here who recognize me from pictures which have been published stop me on the street, congratulate me, and say nice, encouraging things to me?” Ben said. “I get all sorts of letters from residents here, and many of them invite me to their homes. This proves that only a small portion of the people here are lined up against me.”9
It was a hopeful note, but Ben was shocked by the hateful reaction to the atrocity stories published in the past week. He was reconsidering the wisdom of traveling to San Francisco to deliver his speech before the Commonwealth Club in the coming week.
Would his speech be misconstrued by conservative forces as an intentionally provocative act? After all, San Francisco was the hometown of William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the fiercely anti-Japanese San Francisco Examiner and architect of a thirty-year campaign to purge America of people like Sam and Naka Kuroki and their children. How would Hearst and other like-minded Californians react to a Japanese American being given the Commonwealth Club microphone, especially in the midst of the atrocity revelations?
Ben hadn’t felt such despair since his first weeks in the Army in early 1942. In some ways, this latest turn of events felt even worse. Now, for the first time in his life, Ben felt fear because of the color of his skin and his ancestral origins. “I felt it wasn’t safe to walk the streets of my own country,” he said.10
