UPCOMING COLUMN TO SHARE MAUI VETERAN STORIES OF HONOR

By: David Fukuda

ELEVEN YEARS AGO, an email from Gerome Villain informed me that French President François Hollande had authorized the awarding of the French Legion d’Honneur to eligible World War II veterans. Gerome, who resides in the Vosges Mountains, had taken Judy and I on a tour of battle sites from Epinal to the Vosges a few years earlier and knew of my interest in the 100th/442nd.

The Chavalier de la Legion d’Honneur, established after the French Revolution by Napoleon Bonaparte, is France’s highest national decoration. Just as done after WWI, France was now offering this award to surviving foreign veterans who had fought on French soil to free the French from German occupation during WWII.

The application required a three-page summary of a veteran’s family and work history before and after the war, along with a detailed description of one’s combat record while in France. The veteran’s DD Form 214, the certificate of

Interview with Willie Goo

OCTOBER 04, 2012

By: David Fukuda

Willie Goo was born in Olowalu on May 12, 1920 to a Chinese father and Japanese mother. His father managed the Olowalu Store, owned by the Heen estate with which the elder Goo had connections. When Willie was about seven or eight years old, the family moved to a two and a half acre parcel in Waihee where his mother tended to the farm while his father worked as a butcher for Ah Fook’s.

Willie attended school at Waiehu and then at Maui High catching a ride from neighbors all the way to Hamakua - release or discharge from active duty, and photo also needed to be submitted.

At that time, I was serving on the Nisei Veterans Memorial Center (NVMC) board of directors along with Hiroshi Arisumi and Stanley Izumigawa, and I drove both of them down from Kula to our monthly board meetings. They were my obvious starting point. Both had seen action in France and had written histories of their experiences. The plan was to give each of them an application to fill out and collect them at the next meeting.

A month passed when I checked to see how they were coming along with the application; neither had even affixed their name to the application. It was time to switch to Plan B. I would assist the veterans in completing their applications while, at the same time, compiling notes about the veterans for our archives. Brilliant! It would be like the proverbial “killing two birds with one stone.”

What will be presented in this column in upcoming issues of Okage Sama de are poko every day. He also worked on the Waiehu Golf course with the maintenance crew and caddied for 25 cents/ round. Even though Willie was seven years older than Charlie Mizoguchi, they were close friends. (Paul recalls seeing his father’s golf trophies with the two as teammates.)

In 1940, Willie enlisted in the 299th National Guard unit on Maui. He was serving at Paukukalo when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Some of the men were getting ready to attend a football game that afternoon between a Honolulu high school and Maui team. The game was cancelled.

About a month after Pearl Harbor, the commander called the unit together and singled out all Japanese guard mem - stories that Maui veterans shared with me. In total, there were 27 interviews, which resulted in 22 Legion of Honor awards (Okage Sama de, February 2015). Only two of the veterans who were interviewed survive to this day. bers and draftees to form a provisional Japanese unit in Honolulu. Knowing Willie was half-Japanese, he gave Willie a choice of joining the Japanese unit or staying with the 299th. Willie chose to go with the AJAs to Honolulu. In Honolulu, they were assigned to companies with most of the Maui boys assigned to Company “C”.

My first interview was with Willie Goo, who was an original member of the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate), and he knew my dad. Willie had a phenomenal memory and recalled many details about the war. Unfortunately, I soon realized very few of the original 100th members even made it to France, having sustained wounds in Italy and subsequently sent back to the states. In fact, the only original member of the 100th I interviewed who was eligible to receive the French Legion d’Honneur was Ed Nishihara.

I hope that members of the NVMC community remember these men and appreciate the contributions they all made to make our lives and the world a better place for us all.

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He recalled the trip in June, 1942, on the SS Maui to the San Francisco Bay area after which they boarded trains bound for an unknown destination. The trains finally arrived at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. Goo’s stay in Wisconsin was enjoyable with side trips to Milwaukee and Illinois. After Camp McCoy, the men traveled to Camp Shelby in Mississippi for maneuvers.

One of the incidents Willie was asked to comment on was on how Paul’s dad, Charles Mizoguchi, earned his Soldiers Award. It occurred during maneuvers in Louisiana on the Sabine River which borders Texas. The men were ordered to make a 25-yard crossing with a full pack. The key, according to Goo, was to keep swimming, something that Toru Orikasa failed to do even though, as an Eagle Scout, he was a competent swimmer. The current took him under and Charlie Mizoguchi swam after him and saved his life for which he was later awarded the Soldiers Medal. Only 15 men in the 100th/442nd received this award during the entire war.

After maneuvers, the unit set off to Newark, N.J. where the men boarded the USS Parker, part of a 700-ship armada that took 12 days to cross the Atlantic. Willie recalls seeing the Rock of Gibraltar as they entered the Mediterranean Sea and sharing optimistic thoughts with Charlie Mizoguchi about their safe return home.

Life in Oran, Morocco, was full of challenges and adventures. The men were advised not to touch women’s veils, or to kill flies despite the poor sanitation. One highlight in Oran was being reunited with Frank Cockett of Maui. Cockett was the county treasurer and in the 299th National Guard on Maui. Although he had asked to join the 100th, he was assigned to the 168th Regiment of the 34th Division where he rose from sergeant to lieutenant and established a heroic war record.

When the 100th’ landed at Salerno, Italy, Sparky Matsunaga was CO of Company C with Lt. Jakuszewski leading Goo’s

2nd Platoon. Johnny Miyagawa was the platoon sergeant along with Sergeants Louis Sakamoto and Masanao Otake in C Company. As they were approaching the beach in the landing craft, rumors flew about the earlier units being wiped out by the enemy. The level of difficulty in getting ashore was dependent on how skilled the pilot was in maneuvering the craft. If he dropped the landing gate in deep water, it was especially difficult for the shorter Nisei soldiers, even with their lighter combat packs.

Not long after landing, Willie’s unit got caught in an olive grove with snipers firing and German artillery locked in. Willy and Chester Hada shot their bazooka at a tank and missed, but the tank fortunately left the area. The men, however, were pinned down for eight hours with some, like Seichi Tengan, sustaining wounds.

Monte Cassino left an indelible impression on the young Goo. The area before reaching the wall at the base of Monte Cassino was flooded to make it impossible for tanks to traverse. The men made forward progress pressing forward during the five minute breaks in the rolling barrage that their artillery set up. Willie said the amount of fire the US laid down was immense Unfortunately, with that much firing going on, friendly casualties were inevitable. He also recalls seeing an aerial dogfight and said the American pilots were the best.

By the time they got to the wall, Company C only had a handful of men left. There was an argument between officers as to whether to move forward over the wall. A machine gun about 200 yards away was zeroed in on them. Artillery was supposed to send in smoke ordnance but instead fired high explosive rounds causing the front line to call off the shelling. Capt. Richard Mizuta then saw a fog bank moving in so ordered his troops to move out when it came in front of them. Johnny Miyagawa was ready with the wire cutters when suddenly, the fog lifted and Mizuta called off the charge. Willie said, “The fog stopping (lifting) saved my life.”

Willie remembers going to the aid of Taro Tonai and finding him KIA. He remembers putting Tonai’s rifle into the ground with his helmet on top next to the body. It was a surprise to him when the report came later that Tonai was MIA.

The 100th went back to Naples to board landing crafts to ship to Anzio just south of Rome. On arrival, the unit learned that the beach was in firing range of the large German rail guns. He recalls the gutsy move by Young Oak Kim and his partner, Pfc. Irving Akahoshi, when they captured German prisoners in broad daylight.

It was on the next push to Lanuvio, where Willie Goo was wounded on June 2, 1944. He was approaching an enemy machine gun nest when a land mine went off and hit him in the leg and shoulder. His canteen was punctured and Goo at first thought the water on his uniform was blood. He also checked his helmet and finding no wound, told his buddy, Warren Iwai, that things were okay. Meanwhile others had captured the Germans in the machine gun nest and the prisoners carried Goo about 400 yards to the rear. From there he went to the field hospital and then to the 45th General Hospital in Naples.

Willie was shipped back to the US mainland where he spent a year in rehab at hospitals in Virginia, Mayo Clinic in Michigan and Galesburg, Ill. Goo was finally released from the Army on July 31, 1945.

He returned to his job at the golf course before moving on to Kahului Railroad. It was then he met his future bride, Janet, who asked to hitch a ride with Willie to her workplace at A&B.