Dr. Yutaka Yoshida, a U.S. War Hero of Japanese Descent, Dies at 104

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/us/yutaka-yoshida-dead.html

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Dr. Yutaka Yoshida, a native Hawaiian and a son of Japanese immigrants, was working as a police officer in Honolulu when Japan bombed the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, plunging America into World War II.

The Territory of Hawaii was placed under martial law that day, and constitutional rights were suspended out of fear of a possible Japanese invasion, sabotage or espionage. (The edict remained in effect until October 1944.)

Dr. Yoshida, a retired surgeon who died on Sept. 13 at age 104 in Honolulu, was 29 then and a veteran of nine years with the police, and he faced a wrenching task on the Sunday of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was assigned to accompany F.B.I. agents as they rounded up prominent members of the Japanese community in Honolulu, among them a Buddhist priest, whom he helped take into custody.

“Even though it was his job, he still cannot forget how sad it was to point his gun at the tiny old Issei priest,” wrote Masayo Duus, who interviewed Dr. Yoshida for “Unlikely Liberators”, a history of Japanese-American soldiers in World War II originally published in 1983.

“It was a story he always told us,” his daughter, Ann Yoshida, said in an interview on Tuesday. “It was a moment of tremendous conflict for him.”

Japanese aliens, known as Issei, as well as Japanese-Americans born in the United States, referred to as Nisei, were removed from the West Coast of the United States as supposed security threats in the war’s early stages and sent to remote internment camps, most of them inland, where they were placed under guard. Dr. Yoshida had cousins in California who were interned at a camp in the state.

But he volunteered for Army service and in March 1943 joined the newly formed 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a Japanese-American unit remembered today for extraordinary bravery in fighting the Germans in Italy and France. He was wounded during the Italian campaign and, in separate engagements, received a Silver Star and a Bronze Star for bravery under fire.

Through the course of a long life, Dr. Yoshida became a surgeon and practiced in Hawaii for 35 years. Although he joined the Army when he was nearly 31, he outlived all seven Japanese-American veterans who were still alive in 2000 when they were among a group of 22 Asian-Americans awarded the Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton for valor during World War II. They had previously been denied it, presumably because of prejudice.

“He was very pleased — even though it was a long time in coming — that things had changed enough so the wrong was righted,” Ann Yoshida said.

Yutaka Kochi Yoshida was born in the town of Waipahu on May 10, 1912. His father died when he was 3. His mother remarried, and his stepfather was a laborer for a sugar company, for which Dr. Yoshida worked after graduating from high school.

He attended part-time classes at the University of Hawaii while serving on the police force, hoping to become a physician someday.

A sergeant in a heavy machine-gun platoon, he went into combat with the 442nd in June 1944 and was wounded a month later in the Rome-Arno sector. With his fellow soldiers pinned down, he exposed himself to enemy fire, enabling him to locate enemy positions, and then continued to lay down fire until he was wounded by an exploding German tank shell. He was awarded a Silver Star for his valor and hospitalized until late 1944.

After rejoining his unit, Dr. Yoshida took part in attacks on German forces in the battle for control of the Po Valley in April 1945. In one instance, his unit came under mortar attack.

“I was knocked down flat on my face because I was talking to the captain and my helmet went rolling down the hill,” Dr. Yoshida told Michael Okihiro, who interviewed him in 2015 for The Hawaii Herald, a newspaper focusing on the state’s Japanese-Americans. “But I was the only guy not injured by the blast, and so I took care of the captain. And, lo and behold, they gave me a medal for that.”

He received a Bronze Star, was commissioned a second lieutenant and returned to Hawaii in October 1945.

Dr. Yoshida graduated from the University of Cincinnati medical school after the war and embarked on a surgical practice in Hawaii in 1955.

In addition to his daughter, who confirmed his death, he is survived by a son, Ken; a brother, Tokuo; and two grandchildren. His wife, Marge, a medical technician, died in 2007.

Dr. Yoshida attended gatherings of veterans from the 442nd Regimental Combat Team through the years, Ann Yoshida said.

Long after the war, he told of the day he became an officer.

“A two-star general gave me my second lieutenant bar and gave me those other medals,” he said in an interview for the Hawaii Memory Project of the University of Hawaii. “He says, ‘That’s why we are American.’ Big deal. I guess he thought he was making a big speech. It’s kind of patronizing, right? Telling me I’m an American, just like him. Of course I’m an American.”