America’s Samurai: How the 442nd Became the Most Decorated Unit of WW2

America’s Samurai: How the 442nd Became the Most Decorated Unit of WW2 Their families were behind barbed wire in their own country. Their bank accounts were frozen. Their homes were sold for pennies on the dollar. And they volunteered anyway. This is the story of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team — the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the history of the United States military. It begins with a single bullet over Pearl Harbor, a downed Japanese Zero on a tiny forbidden island called Niihau, and one American citizen's terrible decision — a moment that Washington used to justify stripping 120,000 Japanese Americans of their constitutional rights with a single executive order. And then, improbably, the sons of those imprisoned families went to war for the country that imprisoned them. They fought through Italy, bled in the forests of France to rescue a Texan battalion that was surrounded and cut off — 800 casualties to save 211 men — and on a mountainside in April 1945, a young lieutenant named Daniel Inouye kept throwing grenades after a German round shattered his arm and the live grenade was still in his hand. 18,000 men. 21 Medals of Honor. More than 18,000 individual decorations. They called their motto Go for Broke — and they meant it. #worldwar2 #442nd #japanesamerican #history #worldwarii #military #usarmy #danielinouye #internment #lostbattalion