Draft:Sue Suzuko “Susie” (Ogata) Kato
Japanese American World War II Translator
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Background =
Attack on Pearl Harbor and the Start of WWII
On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a successful air strike on Pearl Harbor and other nearby military installations in Hawaii. The attacks destroyed four U.S. battleships, three destroyers, four small ships, and killed 2,403 U.S. service members and civilians, wounding over 1,000 more U.S. individuals[1] On the other hand, Japan’s losses were significantly lower, with around 100 personnel killed and minimal equipment lost, highlighting the surprise element of the attack, but contributing to an increase in resentment from European Americans in the following years. The attack launched an abundance of fear about national security, especially on the West Coast. This new fear, along with economic competition, distrust over cultural separateness, and long-standing anti-Asian racism, turned into a disaster for Japanese Americans.
Executive Order 9066
Executive Order 9066 was issued by President Franklin Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the forced removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to “relocation centers” further inland. This order resulted in the internment of Japanese-Americans along the West Coast and contributed to extensive suspicion and discrimination against Japanese during the 1940s.
The West Coast was divided into military zones, and the order authorized military commanders to exclude civilians from military areas. Although the order did not explicitly state a specific ethnic group, Military officials, such as Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt of the Western Defense Command, proceeded to announce curfews that included only Japanese Americans. DeWitt then issued Public Proclamation No. 4, which resulted in the forced evacuation and detention of Japanese-American West Coast residents on a 48-hour notice.[2] Within the six months following the order, approximately 122,000 men, women, and children were forcibly moved to “internment camps” in Arkansas, Wyoming, California, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and Idaho. Due to forced incarceration, many lost all property and homes, with no compensation for their lost property after the conclusion of World War II.
Discrimination against the Japanese
Following the attack, the United States quickly declared war on Japan, discharging and discontinuing the induction of Japanese soldiers into the military. Japanese Americans became the “scapegoats for many Americans’ desire for revenge on Japan.”[3] They distorted images of Japanese Americans given to the American Press, stopped supporting their Japanese neighbors and friends' businesses, made public statements against them, and even launched anti-Japanese campaigns that resulted in extreme racial discrimination towards Japanese Americans. The press and society labeled the Japanese as an “immoral and unassimilable race, whose low standard of living and high fertility threatened the survival of white Americans.” [4]
Although these anti-Japanese campaigns were not confined to the West Coast, negative sentiments along the Pacific were much harsher than those held nationwide. One interviewer in Brenda Moore’s examination of women's roles in the military described this time as when “life became terrifying” and highlighted shops around the city overrun with anti-Japanese postings, including a restaurant window depicting a post stating “THIS MANAGEMENT POISONS BOTH RATS AND JAPS."[3] Japanese Americans were no strangers to discrimination at the hands of others before the war, but these public statements and anti-Japanese campaigns sparked an aggressive and horrendous increase in “distrust, fear, and hysteria”[3] directed against Japanese Americans.
Forced evacuations tore Japanese American families apart and resulted in many people losing their homes and property, only being allowed to bring what they could carry to the internment camps. The camps further isolated Japanese Americans from each other, even though there were social events, community building, and cultural activities, the “camp was still an artificial, limited environment”[5] that the Nisei referred to with the saying “Shikata ga nai (It can’t be helped).”[5] Forcibly removed Japanese Americans were relocated to temporary internment camps, such as old race tracks, fairgrounds, and auditoriums, not built to provide acceptable living conditions for humans. The camps were uncomfortable, noisy, and had a distinct lack of privacy and many Japanese Americans who lived in these camps describe it as “stifling to see nothing but the same barracks, mess halls, and other houses, row after row, day in and day out, [giving] the feeling that [they] were missing all the freedom and liberty” and that it gave them “the feeling of being prisoners in a ‘concentration camp’.”[5] Families started to hang out less since the living conditions changed the family dynamics significantly.
Nisei Women in the Military
Literature on the brave Japanese American men who participated and helped in the war efforts has only just begun to appear in the media, but even “far less is known about the Nisei women who served in the United States military.”[3] After tragic battles where many active-duty men were losing their lives, the War Department realized that “the services of all eligible persons, including Japanese Americans, were vital to the war effort,” but the idea of women in the military “generated heated political debate, even though women had participated in previous years.”[3] A large number of Japanese American women served in either the Women’s Army Corps or the Army Nurse Corps before the beginning of WWII, although they were not offered the same benefits as their white counterparts, they did not get citizenship rights and they “were not eligible to use military facilities, receive government life insurance, or be awarded military burial if killed while performing military service.”[3] Even though they faced extensive discrimination, many second-generation Japanese American men stood with the U.S. over Japan, writing letters asking their fellow Americans to “give [them] a chance to do [their] share to make this world a better place.”[3] Japanese Americans were willing to do just about anything in response to the discrimination and violence they were subjected to during the war, including turning their back on a part of their identity to save themselves from severe discrimination and violence.
Sue Suzuko “Susie” (Ogata) Kato
Sue Suzuko (Ogata) Kato was born on September 7, 1921, in North Platte, Nebraska.[3] She grew up in a self-identified tomboy in what she perceived as a diverse community for its size, surrounded by about 25 other Japanese families. She lost her mother at a young age, and her father was a farmer with land in Colorado and a share of land in Platte.[6] Her family inhabited their land in Nebraska until she graduated from high school. She attended a Japanese language school in Nebraska when she was between 8 and 10 years old, but stated that she quit after losing her mother when she was 11, resulting in her learning minimal kanji. In high school, she became active in the Girl Reserve, Latin Club, and Pep Club.[6] During her time in Girl Reserve, she enjoyed stamp collecting, scrapbooking, and bookkeeping. After high school, she worked as a bookkeeper at a tire re-tracking business, at which point she decided to join the Women’s Army Air Corps. Initially, she did not hear back from the army, but later learned that they were finally accepting applications from Nisei women, which she then reapplied and volunteered for the Women’s Army Corps as a Military Intelligence Translator at Fort Snelling, MN, winning the Good Conduct Medal during her time.[7] She stated that she joined the war effort due to her two younger brothers being too young to join at the time and an overwhelming feeling of having “to prove [her] Americanism” and loyalty to the U.S.[7]
An excerpt from a Rafu Magazine article of 12/18/1993, titled ‘Momma Wore Combat Boots’ by Takeshi Nakayama, detailed in the Japanese American Military Experience Database, provides a biographical account of Sue Kato’s life and experience in the U.S.[7] Furthermore, a large scrapbook, donated by Sue Kato and found by Summer Espinoza (a Direcetor of Archives and Speical Collections at GFBNEC), was found full of letters, faded handwritten notes, Women Army Corps brochures and phamphlets, newspaper article, currency, V-Mail, programs for musical performance, and original photographs of Women Army Corp’s members.[6]
After high school, her family moved to a small farm in Greeley, Colorado, which at the time was a state where Japanese immigrants were allowed to own land, unlike Nebraska or California, due to the passing of the many Alien Land Laws that targeted Japanese immigrants by barring noncitizens from owning rural land or leasing it longer than a year.[8] Because Japanese immigrants could not become U.S. citizens until 1952, the law effectively barred Issel, first-generation Japanese immigrants like Sue’s parents, from owning farms in specific states, including her birth state. Sue recalls her dad as “very Americanized” and that he had dreams “to be naturalized as an American Citizen,” but that he also subscribed to many Nisei news articles to make sure that his children “never forget [they] were of Japanese background.” She remembers her father reminding them that they would never be fully Americanized, due to their physical looks, but his dream remained the same.[7]
Sue Kato remembers being ‘very angry’ when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. She and her younger brothers were very young. Sue was 20 at the time, a fresh high-school graduate when the fighting began, and she describes the expensive feeling of needing to go help.[7] She was one of six original Nisei who entered the Women's Army Corps as a volunteer on December 13, 1943. One of her younger brothers also joined the Army when he was 19 and served under the 442nd Regimental Combat Team as a replacement for the 100th Battalion troops in Europe.[7]
Sue Kato completed her basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, before enlisting in the WACs in 1943. She was first assigned to Fort Devins, MA, in the personnel office, doing clerical work with three other Nisei women. After doing clerical work for two years, in 1945, she was one of several dozen women ordered to Fort Snelling, MN, to form a portion of Nisei WACs for instruction in Japanese language and military technology at the Military Intelligence Service Language School. During the instruction, they learned the Japanese language, history, geography, military terminology, and writing. The instructions took place from 9 am to 4 pm, five days a week, for eight months. Sue remembers the school as being incredibly intensive, stating that “everything was in Japanese, five days a week. Saturday morning, we had an inspection. Then the rest of that day and Sunday, we had off.”[7]
After graduating from the Language School, Sue was sent to Camp Ritchie, MD, in December 1945, where she did translation work. During this work, she translated captured Japanese documents, even if they were not important. Sue reported overall general positive feelings of her time in the WAC, stating that young Nisei women like herself did not perceive blatant racial discrimination, unlike the rest of the Nisei in society. Sue states that the Nisei were not treated any differently in her military service, and she encountered no acts of sexual harassment. Although she does remember one exception to this statement, “It was at Fort Des Moines. There was one Hakujin WAC whose brother was killed by a Japanese sniper. I looked Oriental, so there was instant hatred. One night, she threw out my clothes from my rack, and we had angry words. But some older WACs interceded.”[7] She stated that her friends were very worried about the incident but that she “understood why she felt the way she did.” Additionally, Sue recalls another incident when walking into a military hospital. “They saw this oriental in uniform, and I had to walk down this long corridor and all these GIs, injured GIs sitting there, you know. And I’ll never forget the feeling, their eyes just, just burned into me.”[6]
Even with these few incidents, Sue Kato describes her time serving in the WAC as a “very enriching” learning experience that was a very important part of her life.[7] She made lifetime friendships during her time of service, and while many other people went to college, she chose to serve in the WAC. She stated that she decided to take a WAC desk job so that the “fellows could go to the front” and highlighted that she did it for all Japanese Americans. She states that she was “proud to be an American” and that she had no regrets about her service. She emphasized that, for her, the service was a “broadening and special experience for an individual of 22-23-24 years of age.”[7]
Sue Kato met her future husband, Minori Kato, during her service at Fort Snelling. She was discharged in 1946, moved to California in 1950, and worked as a legal secretary in Long Beach until her retirement in 1980.[7] She and her husband lived in Canyon Lake, CA, until her death on May 3, 2011. She passed away peacefully at home with family by her side. She is survived by her husband, daughter, Marsha (Steven) Waldroff, her grandsons, Andrei and Max, and many other family and friends. Her memorial service was held on Tuesday, May 17, 2011, at Green Hills Mortuary and Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.[9]
Military Intelligence Service Language School
After the U.S grew closer to war in 1941, military officers realized the need for Japanese translators for the war effort. They pushed for the creation of an intensive language school to train recruited Nisei (second-generation Japanese immigrants) as military linguists. Although the suspicion of Nisei was heightened during the time, they relied on the Nisei, who often were multilingual, to act as translators during the war. After Executive Order 9066, the school had to move or lose nearly all of its students, as it housed many Nisei during instruction. It first moved to Camp Savage before it outgrew itself and moved to its final location of Fort Snelling. The school eventually graduated over 6,000 linguists, who broke codes, served on front lines, and even became instructors themselves. The service of the Nisei translators was so successful that Major General Charles Willoughby stated, “The Nisei shortened the Pacific War by two years and saved possibly a million American lives and saved probably billions of dollars.”[10]
Women’s Army Corps
The Women’s Army Corps was the women’s branch of the United States Army, created on May 15, 1942, by an Act of Congress. The act stated the Women’s branch was “with” the Army rather than “in” the Army. The WAC faced issues with utilization, recruitment, and governmental support. It was created originally as an auxiliary unit and converted to an active duty status in the Army of the United States as the WAC on July 1, 1943. Its first director was Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby, and it was disbanded on October 20, 1978, when all WAC units were fully integrated with male units.