In 1992, I met Eric Saul, a military historian who came to work with me as a volunteer with the Holocaust Oral History Project.  Saul brought to my attention the story of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, a group of Japanese American soldiers who helped liberate the Dachau complex during the Holocaust. The unit liberated several subcamps and the Landsberg/Kaufering Death March.

Soon after learning about this story, Saul and I learned that the veterans were having a reunion in San Francisco.  In order to honor these men, we organized an event, “Bagels and Sushi” to honor the veterans.  The program attracted journalists from CNN and the New Yorker.  The media outlets that were present at our event made it possible for the men of the 522nd FAB to receive public accolades for their contributions in the Holocaust.

Eric had created a photographic and historical exhibition on the 522nd FAB which chronicled the lives and liberation efforts of the unit.  Our exhibit, entitled Unlikely Liberators, was successful and toured around the world.  In l993, we expanded the exhibition to include the little known story of Chiune and Yukiko Sugihara.  Mr. Sugihara is called the “Japanese Schindler”.  Sugihara saved thousands of lives in the Holocaust, against the orders of Japan.  In 1995, we also had the opportunity to showcase our exhibition at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum of Israel.

For the last 13 years, Saul and I have continued to actively research the 522nd FAB and find ways to include the stories in popular culture. The 522nd story becomes more and more known in academic and military circles.  The following executive summary is a portion of a larger paper I am currently completing.  Please read on and learn about these men.  I am confident that collectively, we can spread the word about this unit and educate others about their contributions to our global society.

Executive Summary

The U.S. Army's 522nd Field Artillery Battalion (FAB), an all Japanese-American unit must be designated and recognized as concentration camp liberators in World War II, due to the humanitarian assistance they provided to survivors at the Dachau complex and the Landsberg/Kaufering Death March.  It is important to note that for purposes of this paper, the term ‘liberator’ refers to soldiers who either directly opened camps, subcamps, or provided humanitarian aid to survivors.  It is important to note that individual members of the 522nd FAB were present at Dachau’s main camp despite their absence from the U.S. Army record.  The U.S. Army record refers to the Daily Journal and Monthly Reports produced by the 522nd FAB, the 7th Division’s report and the Green Book, issued by the U.S. Center for Military History. Military historians write the official history of a war or a battle, and their interpretations are published in the Green Book.  The Green Books are based on U.S. Army Daily and Monthly Journals.  It is also important to note, that there is no mention of the 522nd FAB’s participation at liberation efforts at the Dachau complex in the most recently published, Dachau Liberated: The Official Report by the U.S. Seventh Army. However, two dozen veterans have come forward and stated that they were at Dachau’s main camp, and eyewitness survivors who claim that their lives were saved by the liberating unit support this claim. 

This situation however, does describe the problem at the heart of the 522nd FAB’s involvement at Dachau’s subcamps and the Landsberg/Kaufering Death March.  In historical documents of the U.S. Army, there is an absence of the 522nd FAB’s activity at Dachau, its subcamps and at the Landsberg/Kaufering Death March. Thus, there are two competing versions of the Dachau liberation narrative - the official U.S. Army’s version and the one found in oral histories of veterans and the survivors they assisted.  In analyzing the two versions, it is clear that the 522nd FAB has been ultimately omitted from U.S. history.  Though their contributions have received some recognition in the media and social discourse, their story has remained unrecognized by the dominant U.S. Army records and society at large due to the creating of numerous documents from the incomplete daily and monthly journals created by the unit.

However, there is no adequate substitute for an accurate U.S. Army record.  Even within the U.S. Army, anyone can see the dangers of self-referencing materials.  The collection of documents which have been created from the incomplete daily and monthly reports of the 522nd FAB unit have since gone on to create the 7th Army’s Division report, the Green Book, and the official report put forward by the 7th Army.  It is easy to see how these materials provide the constant fuel against claims made by veterans of the 522nd FAB.

In this effort, I will examine the social significance of the exclusion of the Japanese-American soldiers of the 522nd FAB from the U.S. Army record and propose a combination of factors which explain their absence from history.  These factors include hegemonic amnesia, the exclusion of historical facts that counter the established elite’s position in society, the racism against the Nisei at the time, poor record keeping due to the high degree of mobility of the 522nd FAB, and a confusing environment existing at the time of liberation at the Dachau complex. 

The reticence of the veterans about their experiences at the Dachau complex can also be attributed to a threat of court-martial some 522nd FAB members received if they discussed their participation at the Dachau complex. This threat succeeded in their self-silencing until the 1990’s when the veterans began to discuss their participation at the Dachau complex with their friends and families. In addition, some of the veterans suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, both from the war and their own internment in the U.S and were therefore, reluctant to revisit their distressing memories and discuss their involvement at the Dachau complex.  With this framework, it will be shown that the incomplete U.S. Army record has serious ramifications for society.  Consequences include a disenfranchised history and an incorrect self-referencing, which severely impacts students, scholars, the public, cultural and historical institutions.   Thus, the case for the correction of the historical record is advanced to assuage the promulgation of incorrect information. 

Though the passage of time fails to give the 522nd FAB a proper place in the official U.S. record, some nascent steps to include the 522nd FAB have recently occurred in the social narrative.  However, there have been considerable impediments put forward by a small group of contentious veterans in securing the 522nd FAB’s role in official U.S. history.  Their encumbrances fortunately have met resistance from the 522nd FAB and advocates that speak on their behalf.  It is also important to note that social narrative has gained prominence and acceptance.  In the past twenty years, our society has engaged in a vigorous attempt to include the stories of all persons affected by the Holocaust due to the increased popularity and acceptance of oral histories as a viable source of history.  The motivation to hear all victims has created a parallel restorying, in which the importance of the Holocaust liberation experience has evolved to include the stories of rescuers themselves.  Liberators are finally being included and given the space to tell their stories of their experience at the Dachau complex.

As of January 2005, the collection of Army records that deal with Dachau’s liberation fails to include these men as liberators.  Through oral history and the examination of non-governmental records, this paper preserves the true accounts of what occurred at the Dachau complex.  Noting the incomplete records and the time frame which has lapsed from the events in question, this paper will also present challenges and limitations of oral history in order to understand the complexity involved in the documentation of the 522nd FAB.

Nevertheless, the lack of awareness of the 522nd FAB is a grave loss to our history.  If the actions of the 522nd FAB had been a part of the U.S. Army records decades earlier, our collective memory of World War II would have contained a richer, more complex image.  Members of the Japanese minority would be seen as victors, liberators, and heroes.  This important insertion into the U.S. Army record based on numerous oral histories can increase our collective memory of World War II and allow us to validate the role of these veterans.  This paper invites readers to examine the conditions and processes in which history is written, in order to improve our analysis of historical sources.  As such, solutions to historical omission are presented and recommendations are made for the inclusion of the 522nd FAB.

Background 

         In 1945, Japanese-Americans were demonized in American society with anti-Japanese-American sentiment becoming widespread. There was also a sense of ‘yellow peril’ in the racist media of the time. Japanese-Americans faced much discriminatory treatment in jobs, educational opportunities, housing, and politics.  Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order No. 9066 finally translated this racism into the internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans.  Supported by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court, this order was seen as a military necessity in protecting the American people.  There were many effects of this internment, property was lost and the blatant discrimination against the Japanese-Americans reinforced their political weakness in society.  Not until, October l990 did Japanese-Americans receive a government apology and a $20,000 reparation payment.

During the war, Japanese-Americans of draft age joined the U.S. armed forces, both drafted and volunteering, even though they had been originally classified as 4-C, ‘enemy alien’ status in l942 by the U.S. government. It is incredible that approximately half of these men were previously interned on the West Coast of the United States.  

         Thus, this paper posits that the political considerations of the time were not in accordance with granting the 522nd FAB recognition of their role at the Dachau complex. Japanese-American soldiers could not be publicly depicted as heroes when the nation was at war with Japan and devastated from Pearl Harbor. It is difficult to put forward heroes when the U.S labeled these Japanese-American men as enemies.  As scholars state, it is common practice to:

         …label the [individual/group] as an outsider, a stranger, so that as such, the natural fear of the stranger will be mobilized in order to support the prejudice… he is designated as a stranger in order to encourage public prejudice.