Another from the Greatest Generation gone, may he rest in peace :(
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Ben Kuroki, who overcame the American military's discriminatory policies to become the only Japanese American to fly over Japan during World War II, has died. He was 98.
Kuroki died Tuesday at his Camarillo, California, home, where he was under hospice care, his daughter Julie Kuroki told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday.
The son of Japanese immigrants who was raised on a Hershey, Nebraska, farm, Kuroki and his brother, Fred, volunteered for service after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.
They were initially rejected by recruiters who questioned the loyalty of the children of Japanese immigrants. Undeterred, the brothers drove 150 miles to another recruiter, who allowed them to sign up.
At the time, the Army Air Forces banned soldiers of Japanese ancestry from flying, but Kuroki earned his way onto a bomber crew and flew 58 bomber missions over Europe, North Africa and Japan during the war. He took part in the August 1943 raid over Nazi oil fields in Ploesti, Romania, that killed 310 fliers in his group. He was captured after his plane ran out of fuel over Morocco, but he managed to escape with crewmates to England.
Because of his Japanese ancestry, he was initially rejected when he asked to serve on a B-29 bomber that was to be used in the Pacific. But after repeated requests and a review of his stellar service record, Secretary of War Harry Stimson granted an exception.
Crew members nicknamed him "Most Honorable Son," and the War Department gave him a Distinguished Flying Cross. He was saluted by Time magazine in 1944 under the headline "HEROES: Ben Kuroki, American."
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/09/06/ben-kuroki-japanese-american-wwii-war-hero-who-flew-over-japan-dies-at-age-8/?intcmp=hplnws
Wow. So many great men. So many we have lost.
58 missions?! Incredible.
RIP, Mr. Kuroki.
Quote from: mirth on September 06, 2015, 09:24:43 AM
58 missions?! Incredible.
RIP, Mr. Kuroki.
Not really. I have seen a Bomber Command crew logbook (from a WW2 veteran I knew) with well over 100 missions (of all types; raids, milk runs, gardening (mine dropping) etc), when officially they were supposed to do 25. The official quota was a misrepresentation that you see in films like Memphis Belle. It might have happened in 1942, but later on experienced bomber crews were in short supply. I suspect fighter pilots may have done even more missions in their tour.
None of the above detracts from Mr Kuroki's sterling contribution to the war effort. I'm just pointing out that a crewmember could end up doing a LOT of missions.
58 is still a pretty solid number.
And he flew during the daytime, when the Experten were at their best.
Wow, never heard of him but that's amazing! RIP Ben Kuroki.
Quote from: mirth on September 07, 2015, 07:34:45 PM
58 is still a pretty solid number.
Oh, I agree. Many crews would never make even that.
All I was saying was 58 missions did not seem particularly exceptional for many crews, some of whom did a lot more. The guy I mentioned, whose log book I saw said that he was nothing unusual amongst survivors, and other crews had more missions on their logs.
Maybe he was being modest? I don't know. I remember him as modest, but also very down to earth and honest. I thought having over 100 missions was a heck of a lot, but Bob just seemed to think it wasn't so unusual. (And I kid you not - he did have over 100 missions on his log book covering wide range of WW2 bombers, from Wellingtons, Halifax', and Lancasters - I saw it with my own eyes). Scary thing was him telling me about some of the raids (this was about 20 years ago, and it still sticks in my mind).
IIRC, his logbook started out mid 1942 until the end of the war, so you're looking at 2.5-3 years of combat flying, which is about 30 missions a year, 2-3 a month.
I came across an interesting doc about crew rotation in the USAAF. There was a lot of variation in length of tours over the course of the war and between theatre commands. I'll post a link once I get home tonight.
That sounds very interesting. O0
I'll bet the Memphis Belle '25 mission tour' was more isolated the longer the war went on, with crews being pushed to the limit in many cases.
They really went back and forth on it. There was a lot of pressure to get as many missions as possible out of the crews, but also realization that you could only push them so far. It's an interesting read.
Here ya go. I was able to find the link through my phone
http://www.afhra.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080424-048.pdf
Quote from: mirth on September 08, 2015, 07:49:13 PM
Here ya go. I was able to find the link through my phone
http://www.afhra.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080424-048.pdf
Translation: I haven't left the bar yet.
She's super cute. And you're welcome for the link :P
Quote from: mirth on September 08, 2015, 07:49:13 PM
Here ya go. I was able to find the link through my phone
http://www.afhra.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-080424-048.pdf
Cool. I read about a third of it. In a way it was like a time machine. Neat experience.
Thanks!
Good read Mirth. Thanks for sharing. O0
It shows how the Brass were willing to skew, twist and turn on the criteria to get the most missions out of their crews. I suspect that even the 50 mission tours might have been manipulated by the weighting system that many combat fliers did far more actual combat missions than they would get credit for. I don't suppose the RAF were any different, perhaps they were even stricter having a smaller pool of combat pilots to work with.
I suspect PTSD/Combat fatigue was widespread among the crews. Bob always was very down to earth, when he spoke of his experience. There was a touch of sadness, as he lost many friends. He said his brother was a changed man after fighting in the Burmese jungle against the Japanese, so I suppose the PTSD effect was relative (excuse the pun).
I know Granduncle John never said how many missions he flew, but said he piloted one and a half tours. Never heard why it was only half a tour; perhaps he had to replace a pilot on a crew's tour. (Youngest pilot to qualify for the B-17; they might have brought him in that young for a special reason. I hadn't thought about that before.)
Quote from: JasonPratt on September 09, 2015, 02:31:19 PM
I know Granduncle John never said how many missions he flew, but said he piloted one and a half tours. Never heard why it was only half a tour; perhaps he had to replace a pilot on a crew's tour. (Youngest pilot to qualify for the B-17; they might have brought him in that young for a special reason. I hadn't thought about that before.)
Potentially 75 missions at face value. When you consider the weightings applied to what constituted a mission for rotation purposes, it was probably a lot more. It sounds like your great uncle was a real war hero, especially as he didn't make a big deal about it.
He didn't like to talk about it; we got him to talk a little every once in a while, and then it was some sparse things about the fear. When he talked about the arrival of the Messerschmidt jets in the theater, that was the presentation -- how utterly unstoppably scary they were.
Mainly though I think he felt bad about having to bomb civilian areas. I would, too. A B-17 raid isn't a precision strike in the best case scenario. He always said it had to be done, but it still made him sad that it had to be done.
Sometimes I wish I could have convinced him to videotape (or at least audio) his memories before he died, but I don't think he ever would have agreed to. I'm 100% sure he considered himself not much better than a war criminal, and certainly not as a hero; but the latter is rather common of course. :)