The Ploiesti mission marked the dissolution of the Epting crew when Ben’s pilot and other crewmates completed their twenty-five-mission tours and drew new assignments. Ben finished twenty-five missions later in August and volunteered to fly another five. During the darkest days of the Eighth Air Force campaign, Ben flew sporadic missions for two months before finally taking off from this base at Hardwick, England, for his thirtieth mission, on November 5, 1943.
US Army Air Forces (USAAF)/National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Ben’s thirtieth mission—a raid on Münster, Germany—was nearly his last when an enemy shell shattered his top turret. The shrapnel barely missed Ben’s head and his oxygen mask was torn from his face. He was turning blue from hypoxia when a crewmate found him on the floor of the B-24 and revived him. Later, Ben posed nonchalantly for a photograph with his shattered turret. He no longer had to be persuaded that it was time to head home for some rest and relaxation.
US Army Air Forces (USAAF)/National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
After spending the December holidays with his family in Nebraska, Ben reported to Army Air Forces Redistribution Center Number Three in Santa Monica, California, in early 1944 to await his next assignment. He passed the time playing pinball and Ping-Pong, strolled along the beach, and gave interviews to reporters interested in documenting the presence of one of the few people of Japanese descent free to move about California at the time.
Military Division, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
In late January 1944, Ben’s scheduled interview on a national radio show hosted by singer and movie star Ginny Simms was canceled at the last minute by NBC Radio executives and the War Department for fear that Californians might object to such a prominent platform being offered to a person of Japanese ancestry. After Ben delivered a patriotic speech before San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club in which he denounced the anti-Japanese backlash in America, the War Department hastily rescheduled Ben’s appearance on The Ginny Simms Show. Ben’s celebrity soared following the broadcast. Secretly, the War Department planned to use America’s first Nisei combat hero to help counter a draft-resistance movement among Japanese American men currently incarcerated in government “relocation” camps.
Military Division, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
When Ben arrived in California in early 1944, he had only a vague notion of the terrible fate that had befallen the West Coast residents of Japanese descent. More than 110,000 people had been rounded up in 1942 and sent to interior camps in remote locations. One of the largest camps was at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, in the windswept Bighorn Basin. More than 10,000 people from California were confined behind barbed wire at Heart Mountain. The camp opened in August 1942, and household possessions arrived by train a month later. The crates were delivered to each family’s “apartment” in one of scores of cramped and drafty barracks that dotted the camp.
War Relocation Authority/National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Overnight, the Heart Mountain camp became Wyoming’s third largest city. This photo was taken on the evening of September 19, 1942, barely a month after the arrival of the former California residents of Japanese descent.
War Relocation Authority/National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
A high school was established for Heart Mountain teenagers uprooted from their lives in California. Thrust into a communal life, with meals taken in large mess halls, family units began to fray and disintegrate.
War Relocation Authority/National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
To create a semblance of normalcy for children and adolescents, the incarcerated adults established Boy Scout troops and other extracurricular activities.
Military Division, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
With the arrival of bitter winter weather, ponds were created in the camp’s interior so the former California residents could learn to ice skate. War Relocation Authority photographer Tom Parker depicted life as carefree and idyllic for the incarcerees. Parker was careful not to photograph the armed guards, the watchtowers, or the barbed-wire perimeter that ringed the camp.
War Relocation Authority/National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
By 1943, resistance to the incarceration regime had taken root at Heart Mountain and other camps. One pocket of resistance at Heart Mountain was the Poster Shop, where artists and art students created posters for safety campaigns and information purposes. One of the Poster Shop employees was a former Pasadena Community College art student named Yoshito Kuromiya. Yosh, as he was known to family and friends, developed his skills at Heart Mountain under the tutelage of Japanese American artist Benji Okubo. Yosh also underwent a gradual process of political radicalization that put him on a collision course with Nisei war hero Ben Kuroki.
War Relocation Authority/National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Yosh Kuromiya at work in the Heart Mountain Poster Shop in 1943.
War Relocation Authority/National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
The Roosevelt administration in Washington hailed World War II as a fight against global fascism while depriving Americans of Japanese descent of their rights and incarcerating them in camps like Heart Mountain. This image captured by War Relocation Authority photographer Tom Parker shows older Heart Mountain incarcerees studying English in a classroom decorated with a poster that proclaims “Democracy at Work.”
War Relocation Authority/National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
