Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998, unedited footage used in Most Honorable Son documentary film, Ben Kuroki Collection, KDN Films Archives.
CHAPTER 3: “THIS IS YOUR COUNTRY”
1
Ben Kuroki interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998, Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage.
2
“FBI Makes Raid on ‘Little Tokyo,’” Kearney (Nebraska) Daily Hub, December 8, 1941, p. 5; “U.S. in Fast Moving Protective Measures Arrest 736 Japanese Aliens—Troops Called on Guard Duty at Defense Plants, Strategic Bridges,” North Platte Telegraph, December 8, 1941, p. 1.
3
“Alien Japs in Nebraska,” Hershey (Nebraska) Citizen, December 25, 1941, p. 8.
4
“Bonus offered first airman to hit Tokyo,” Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star, December 30, 1941, p. 1.
5
“Japanese of Lincoln County,” Lincoln County (Nebraska) Historical Museum exhibition, North Platte, Nebraska; for a vivid description of the backlash on the West Coast, see Susan Kamei, When Can We Go Back to America?: Voices of Japanese American Incarceration During WWII (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021), pp. 50–57.
6
Ben Kuroki oral history interview with Tom Gibbs, March 26, 2013, National World War II Museum.
7
Ibid.
8
The saga of Ben and Fred Kuroki’s efforts to enlist was documented in newspaper articles in the North Platte Telegraph, the Grand Island Daily Independent, and other Nebraska newspapers. See “List Men Who Have Volunteered,” North Platte Telegraph, December 10, 1941, p. 4; “American-Born Sons of Nippon Join Army Here,” Grand Island Daily Independent, December 16, 1941, p. 4; “American Sons of Japanese Parents Join U.S. Army Air Corps,” Grand Island Daily Independent, December 16, 1941, p. 5. Later in life, Ben’s memory of the timeline became fuzzy, and he described waiting up to two weeks to hear back from the North Platte recruiter before driving to Grand Island to enlist. In fact, as contemporary newspaper accounts make clear, he waited only a day before driving to Grand Island. Ben repeated this incorrect timeline in oral history interviews he gave in the 1990s and early 2000s, and this was repeated in a fifty-five-page biography crafted by Ben’s 93rd Bomb Group friend Carroll (Cal) Stewart. Author Ralph G. Martin fashioned an even more garbled account of Ben’s enlistment in his 1946 biography. See Martin, Boy from Nebraska, pp. 45–48.
9
“Scottsbluff Jap Arrest,” Associated Press dispatch, North Platte Telegraph, December 23, 1941, p. 6.
10
“Big Arrows Cut in Cane as Jap Planes Attacked Hawaii,” United Press dispatch printed in the Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal, December 30, 1941, p. 1.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.
13
“Japanese Turn in Radios, Cameras . . . ,” Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star, December 30, 1941, p. 2.
CHAPTER 4: ALONE
1
Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, eds., The Army Air Forces in World War II. Vol. 6, Men and Planes (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1949), pp. 528–32.
2
Ibid., pp. 530–32.
3
Ben discussed his basic training experiences at Sheppard Field in his interview with Bill Kubota, August 26–27, 1998, for the Most Honorable Son documentary, unedited footage, and with Tom Gibbs, March 26, 2013, for the National World War II Museum oral history collection. Martin’s Boy from Nebraska also describes these experiences and the correspondence of Ben and his brother Fred with family members. See Martin, Boy from Nebraska, p. 52.
4
Ben Kuroki oral history interview with Tom Gibbs, March 26, 2013, National World War II Museum.
5
Ibid.
6
