The Story of Richard M. Sakakida by James C. McNaughton Command Historian Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center Presidio of Monterey, California 93944-5006 December 1996
In recent years the story of Richard M. Sakakida has become well known to students of Japanese Americans in World War II and his story has been told many times over. He was born in 1920 on the island of Maui, Territory of Hawaii, the third son of Japanese immigrants. A Nisei, or second-generation Japanese American, Sakakida was a citizen of the United States by birth, even though his parents were prohibited by law from becoming citizens. The story of Sakakida’s role in World War II actually began before the war, when he was secretly recruited by Army intelligence in Hawaii. He then slipped into the shadowy world of spy-versus-spy in Manila in the months before Pearl Harbor. With the outbreak of war, his story becomes one of combat and cruel defeat, followed by three years of darkness and despair. According to most accounts, during this time he smuggled secret information out to the Philippine guerrillas and, through them, to General Douglas A. MacArthur's headquarters. The story ends, fittingly, in his liberation and the Allied victory over Japan. The following essay will examine each phase of his story in detail. With so many accounts available, historians are confronted with many different versions of the same basic story. I will attempt to provide a critical reading of what is known about Sakakida and his story based on his memoir and
The Sakakida Story 2 other sources. But primary sources and corroborating information are difficult to find. It is thus no surprise that the several versions of his story sometimes differ in the details. The historian must use caution in piecing them together. It must first be said that Sakakida's story, while dramatic, is hardly typical, even for other Japanese Americans who served the American intelligence effort. But it is nonetheless exemplary, illustrating the loyalty and bravery of a whole generation of young men, sons of Japanese immigrants, who came of age on the eve of the war and who, despite widespread prejudice, were eager to prove themselves through service to the United States, the land of their birth. In recent years Sakakida's story has intrigued students of both intelligence history and Japanese-American history. This interest was heightened, particularly among Japanese Americans, by the release of a video, Mission in Manila (1994), and the publication of his memoir, A Spy in Their Midst (1995). In 1994 Nisei veterans of the Military Intelligence Service began to lobby Congress and the Army to award him the Medal of Honor. In outline Sakakida’s story goes as follows: In March 1941 the Army's Hawaiian Department G-2 office recruited the twenty-year-old Sakakida, together with Arthur S. Komori, for
The Sakakida Story 3 the Corps of Intelligence Police (CIP), nine months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Philippine Department G-2 office then infiltrated these two young men into the Japanese business and diplomatic community in Manila. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines, Sakakida and Komori quickly learned all the combat intelligence jobs that thousands of school-trained Nisei linguists would later perform: interrogating prisoners of war, translating captured documents, listening to enemy radio broadcasts and trying to persuade Japanese soldiers to surrender. Of the three, Sakakida was the only Nisei among the 11,500 Americans taken prisoner on Corregidor. The Japanese army held him prisoner for six months, then tortured him and forced him to work as an interpreter in the courts martial of American and Filipino prisoners. After the war Sakakida related how he had passed secret Japanese information to the Philippine guerrillas, a mole in the heart of Japanese army headquarters, "a spy in their midst," as he entitled his memoirs. After his liberation in September 1945, US Army counterintelligence declared him loyal and put him to work on war crimes investigations. In 1947 he accepted a commission in the US Army and later transferred to the US Air Force, serving out a full career with the
The Sakakida Story 4 Office of Special Investigations, the post-war Air Force equivalent to the Army's CIC. Sakakida's story first became widely known within the Japanese-American community after his retirement from the US Air Force as a lieutenant colonel with the publication of Yankee Samurai (1979), a lively portrait of Nisei linguists in World War II based on interviews by retired Navy journalist Joseph Harrington. Within the military intelligence community Sakakida's story first became known when the US Army Intelligence and Security Command published Military Intelligence: Its Heroes and Legends (1987). This anthology includes a chapter on Sakakida and Komori based on 1955 interviews with both men by an official Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) historian. In 1988 the US Army Intelligence Center and School inducted Sakakida into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.1 1Joseph D. Harrington, Yankee Samurai: The Secret Role of Nisei in America's Pacific Victory (Detroit, MI: Pettigrew Enterprises, 1979); Ann Bray, "Undercover Nisei," Military Intelligence: Its Heroes and Legends, comp. by Diane L. Hamm (Arlington Hall Station, VA: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, 1987), 29-45. Harrington's account was based on a 1977 interview with Sakakida. His thirteen pages of handwritten notes from this interview can be found in the Sakakida file, Harrington Papers, National Japanese American Historical Society, San Francisco, CA. Bray's essay is a slightly revised version of one chapter in an official CIC history, that itself was based on interviews she conducted in 1955 with Komori and Sakakida. See Richard Sakakida, Interview by Major Ann Bray, 18 March 1955, transcript (copy in DLIFLC historical files).
The Sakakida Story 5 In the early 1990s, Sakakida's friends encouraged him to tell his story to a broader audience. He gave an emotional speech at a Nisei reunion in 1991. His story was included in the comprehensive reference work, Japanese American History (1993). His friends produced an oral history video, Mission in Manila (1994), and Lyn Crost, a former war correspondent, gave him further prominence in her book about the Japanese Americans who fought in World War II, Honor by Fire (1994). All this public attention culminated with the publication of his autobiography, A Spy in Their Midst (1995), as told to his brotherin-law, Wayne S. Kiyosaki. At the behest of Japanese-American veterans, Congress included a special provision in the FY 1996 National Defense Authorization Act to allow the Army to consider awarding him the Medal of Honor. But an Army decora- Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting later used Bray's unpublished history as the source for their popular history, America's Secret Army: The Untold Story of the Counterintelligence Corps (London: Grafton, 1989), 80-97. This version of Sakakida’s story was read into the Congressional Record by Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) as a memorial tribute on 30 January 1996. Duval A. Edwards also used Bray for his Spy Catchers of the U.S. Army in the War with Japan (The Unfinished Story of the Counterintelligence Corps) (Gig Harbor, WA: Red Apple Publishing, 1994). Sakakida also received brief mention in Bill Hosokawa, Nisei: The Quiet Americans (New York: William Morrow, 1969), 418; and more extensive treatment in Eric Morris, Corregidor: The End of the Line (New York: Stein and Day, 1981). Hosokawa based his account on a personal letter from Sakakida in the mid-1960s; Morris based his work "almost exclusively," he said, on interviews with the veterans themselves in the late 1970s (p. viii), but it contains numerous errors.
The Sakakida Story 6 tions board turned this down without explanation shortly after his death in January 1996.2 Sakakida's wartime service falls into three distinct phases. The first encompasses his recruitment and eight months of undercover work in Manila before the war. The second covers the five months of combat from December 1941 until May 1942. The third and hardest to reconstruct is his captivity and involuntary service with the Imperial Japanese Army from May 1942 until his rescue at the end of the war in September 1945. The following essay treats each phase in turn. I In the years leading up to World War II the greatest planning challenge for the US Army in the Far East was for the defense of the Philippine Islands from Japanese attack. In the 1930s the US Congress promised the country its independence. America's most distinguished retired general officer, former 2Mission in Manila: The Story of United States Undercover Agent Richard Sakakida, video (San Francisco, CA: National Japanese American Historical Society, 1994); Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present (New York: Facts on File, 1993), 300; Lyn Crost, Honor by Fire: Japanese Americans at War in Europe and the Pacific (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994), 4, 25-30 and 213-16; and Richard M. Sakakida with Wayne S. Kiyosaki, A Spy in Their Midst: The World War II Struggle of a JapaneseAmerican Hero (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1995); National Defense Authorization Act FY 1996 (PL 104-106), Sec. 523 (1996).
The Sakakida Story 7 Chief of Staff Douglas A. MacArthur, served as senior military advisor to the Commonwealth Government. Manila, "the Pearl of the Pacific," was the hub of American diplomatic and business interests in the Far East, where American, Japanese and other businessmen, diplomats and spies rubbed shoulders in a busy tropical port of call.3 Recent experiences in Europe caused the Army to fear a "fifth column" of spies and saboteurs in the event of hostilities. In 1940 the Army's Military Intelligence Division (MID) joined the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to step up surveillance of Japanese consular and business activities on the West Coast, in Hawaii and in the Philippines. In June 1940, the three agencies signed an agreement by which the Army took on responsibility for all investigations of civilians in the Philippine Islands and the Panama Canal Zone.4 3For overviews of Japanese activities in the Philippines before the war, see Headquarters, Army Service Forces, Manual M 365-1, Civil Affairs Handbook: Philippine Islands, Section 1: Geographical and Social Background (25 April 1944); and Grant K. Goodman, Davao: A Case Study in JapanesePhilippine Relations, International Studies, East Asian Series, Research Publication, Number One (Lawrence, KS: Center for East Asian Studies, The University of Kansas, 1967). 4The term "fifth column" was coined in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. In Western Europe spies and saboteurs were credited with contributing to the fall in 1939 of Poland and in 1940, the Netherlands, France and Norway. John Patrick Finnegan, Military Intelligence: An Overview, 1885-1987 (U) (Arlington Hall, VA: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, 1987), 55 (classified secret; information used unclassified).
The Sakakida Story 8 MacArthur's intelligence officer later claimed "the Japanese intelligence organization of that time was almost openly arrogant in its surveillance of the American war preparations [in the Philippines]." According to a staff report of the period: The Philippines were overrun with potential Japanese spies . . . businessmen, sidewalk photographers and bicycle salesmen; in small towns and hamlets throughout the Islands, one was sure to see some stocky, slightly bowlegged figures usually in dark alpaca suits and crumpled hats, wearing tinted glasses presumably to protect them from the harsh tropical glare but also very convenient for having a good look around. We had spotted the clearing houses, the rendezvous and principal operators in Manila, but there was nothing of an immediate or tactical nature.5 Not to be outdone, the Americans were doing some spying of their own. The Army and Navy for years had based radio eavesdroppers in the Philippines, straining to intercept Japanese communications and decipher them. In August 1940 the Army's For the impact the 1940 agreement had on the Territory of Hawaii, where the FBI had the lead, see Gary Y. Okihiro, Cane Fires: The Anti-Japanese Movement in Hawaii, 1865-1945 (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1991), 177-78. 5Charles A. Willoughby and John Chamberlain, MacArthur, 1941-1951 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954), 22. MacArthur paraphrased this statement in his Reminiscences (New York: Time, 1964; Fawcett Crest paperback, 1965), 114. MacArthur's official history also refers to extensive Japanese espionage, supplemented by covert photoreconnaissance, in the Philippines before the war: Reports of General MacArthur, Vol. I, The Campaigns of MacArthur in the Pacific (Tokyo: FECOM, 1950; repr., Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1994), 6 and n14, and Vol. II, Part I, Japanese Operations in the Southwest Pacific Area (Tokyo: FECOM, 1950; repr., Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1994), 21-29. For similar comments, see Edwards, 15-16.
The Sakakida Story 9 Signal Intelligence Service first broke the Japanese diplomatic code. For this work the Army and Navy used radio technicians, cryptanalysts and translators. The Army had Detachment 6, Signal Intelligence Service, stationed at Ft. McKinley outside Manila. The Navy had Station Cast on the island fortress of Corregidor in Manila Bay. (“Cast” was the third letter of the phonetic alphabet the Navy used at the time.) Between 1939 and 1941 the Navy spent $45,000 to build a new facility on Corregidor for Station Cast. In May 1941 representatives of Detachment 6 and Station Cast began to coordinate their collection efforts. By the fall of 1941 the Navy alone had nearly sixty personnel working at Station Cast, some of whom may have been translators.6 In addition to Detachment 6, the Philippine Department G-2 office was authorized one Japanese-language officer, i.e., someone who had been through the language attache program in Tokyo. In 1941 this was Major Stuart Wood, a 1927 graduate of the US Military Academy. (By early 1941 the Military Intelli- 6For Army & Navy signals intelligence work in the Philippines before and after the outbreak of the war, see Edward J. Drea, MacArthur's ULTRA: Codebreaking and the War against Japan, 1942-1945 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1992), 11-16; Ronald Lewin, The American Magic: Codes, Ciphers and the Defeat of Japan (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1982), 129-31; and more recently John Prados, Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II (New York: Random House, 1995), 83, 209-15. Information on Japanese translators for Detachment 6 and Station Cast before the war is sketchy.
The Sakakida Story 10 gence Division was paying close attention to where its Japanese language officers were stationed. In the summer MID reassigned Major John Weckerling, the Japanese language officer then in Panama, where he was keeping tabs on Japanese nations in the Canal Zone, to San Francisco to organize a Japanese-language school.)7 To bolster their local counterintelligence effort, late in 1940 the Philippine Department G-2 requested two Hawaiian Nisei to help them keep tabs on the growing Japanese business community in Manila. On February 17, 1941, MID authorized the Hawaiian Department "to recruit two Americans of Japanese extraction for CIP duties" to be sent to the Philippines.8 To find likely candidates the Hawaiian Department G-2 office could have drawn upon the hundreds of Nisei already drafted since the fall of 1940 (who later became the 100th 7As late as July 1941 the Army authorized three overseas departments (Panama, Philippines and Hawaii) only one Japanese language officer each. See Col. R.S. Bratton, memo for Maj. J.E. Bailey, Adjutant General's Office, 11 Jul 41, in Reports, Box 961; Security-Classified General Correspondence, 1926-1946, G-2, Far East Branch, Entry 184; War Department General and Special Staffs, Records Group 165; National Archives, Washington, DC. General Wainwright later relied heavily on Wood in captivity for his language skill: Jonathan M. Wainwright, General Wainwright's Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1946), 102, 107, 158, 244 and 249. 8Late 1940 request: Komori 1955 interview. War department authorization, 17 Feb 41: Reprinted in "Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) Chronology of World War II (September 1939-September 1945)," in John Mendelsohn, ed., Covert Warfare: Intelligence, Counterintelligence, and Military Deception During the World War II Era, Vol. II, History of the Counter Intelligence Corps, (New York: Garland, 1989), 31-143.
The Sakakida Story 11 Infantry Battalion), or the scores more in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program at the University of Hawaii (many of whom later volunteered for active duty).9 Instead they tested as many as thirty Nisei, including at least two graduates of the Junior ROTC program at predominantly Nisei McKinley High School in Honolulu. In the 1930s, Junior ROTC was mandatory for most male students at McKinley, where most of Honolulu's Nisei were educated. The director, a retired Army major, recommended two in particular: Arthur S. Komori and Richard M. Sakakida.10 Both young men were McKinley graduates, and both had been active in sports, Komori in swimming and Sakakida in baseball. At the University of Hawaii, Komori had been captain of the swim team. But Komori’s true love was flying; early in 1941 he 9Sakakida told one author that the Army and Navy screened “many” Nisei in early 1941. In his video he said “about thirty”: Morris, 9; Mission in Manila. The FBI may have also had a hand in this. A recent source claims Sakakida “was one of 15 Nisei operatives trained by the FBI to serve in an undercover capacity in the Philippines as part of the Corps of Intelligence Police": [Office of the Chief of Military Intelligence], "LTC Richard M. Sakakida" [1996]. One volume in Willoughby’s intelligence history series claimed “several FBI-trained operatives, of Japanese ancestry, had been imported from Hawaii” before the war: Military Intelligence Section, General Staff, GHQ, USAFPAC, Intelligence Activities in the Philippines During the Japanese Occupation, Vol. II (Tokyo, 1948), 1-2. 10For the importance of public education for Japanese Americans in Hawaii in the 1920s and 1930s, and McKinley High School in particular, see Lawrence H. Fuchs, Hawaii Pono, "Hawaii the Excellent": An Ethnic and Political History (Honolulu: The Bell Press, 1961), 129 and 263-98. Japanese Americans dominated the student body to such an extent that people referred to it as "Tokyo High." On Junior ROTC at McKinley in the 1930s, see A Spy in Their Midst (1995), 33-34.
The Sakakida Story 12 became the first Japanese American in Hawaii to earn a private pilot's license. Both had been active in the Junior ROTC program at McKinley: Sakakida had been cadet colonel in his senior year. Both had been born in Hawaii and were thus US citizens, even though their parents were prevented by federal law from receiving US citizenship (Sakakida's father had died many years before). Both had attended Japanese-language schools for many years. In fact, Sakakida's Japanese was good enough that he worked part-time as an announcer for a local Japanese-language radio program. But neither one had been sent to Japan for schooling -- an important matter for the CIP. Both were young and knew little of the Army -- the ROTC colonel told them that "CIP" stood for "Civilian Interpreter Police," a branch they had never heard of before.11 11Sakakida background info: Corps of Intelligence Police, Personal History Statement: Richard Motoso Sakakida, 30 Apr 41 (DLIFLC historical files); Sakakida 1955 interview; Bray; Harrington; A Spy in Their Midst. For other details: in 1947 the CIC office in Hawaii conducted a background investigation into his pre-war schooling and employment, probably in connection with his commissioning or his transfer to OSI: Memo, subj: Sakakida, Richard Motoso, 2nd Lt., 13 Oct 47 (DLIFLC historical files). Return to Japan: Sakakida's mother had taken him back to Japan for three months when he was seven years old, for his father’s funeral. See the personal history statement Sakakida completed upon his arrival in Manila in April 1941. He did not mention this trip in October 1947 on a similar questionnaire, nor in A Spy in Their Midst. But see Harrington notes. Apparently the Hawaiian Department G-2 decided that this brief boyhood visit with relatives had not affected his loyalty. Komori background info: "Lone Hawaii Survivor of Bataan Epic Described 11th Hour Escape," Honolulu Star-Bulletin (17/18 April 1944); Komori 1955 interview (Harrington Files, National Japanese American Historical Society); Bray; Harrington, 13-15; and Secret Valor: M.I.S. Personnel, World War II Pacific Theater, Pre-Pearl Harbor to Sept. 8, 1951, ed. by Ted T.
The Sakakida Story 13 The ROTC chief contacted his two former students who both agreed to volunteer for the mysterious assignment. They signed their enlistment papers on March 13, 1941, and shipped out for the Philippines three weeks later on an Army transport. As far as their friends knew, they had dropped out of sight.12 When Sakakida took his leave from his widowed mother, her parting words were plain: "In the event that my motherland goes to war with America," she told him, "just remember that America is your country. Your father and your uncles all served in the Japanese Army with honor and I do not want you to return from service in the U.S. Army in disgrace."13 Her words, spoken before the war began, defined the issue for Sakakida and every Nisei to serve in the US Army in the years ahead: loyalty to country and honor to family. When they arrived in Manila Bay on April 21 a captain from the Philippine Department G-2 office met them on board and briefed them on clandestine ways to contact him. He then Tsukiyama, et al. (Honolulu, HI: Military Intelligence Service Veterans Club of Hawaii, 1993), 34-35. Morris curiously makes no reference to Komori, probably because he did not interview him. He also mistakenly translates CIP as "Counter Intelligence Police" (p. 9). 12So completely had they disappeared from Hawaii, that after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor rumors circulated among Komori's former classmates that he had been one of the attacking Japanese aviators, since he was known to have been a pilot. He was indignant to learn this after the war. Komori 1955 interview, 16. 13A Spy in Their Midst, 49. Sakakida's two older brothers may have also later served in the US Army.
The Sakakida Story 14 whisked them ashore in civilian clothes. Over the next few weeks they found places to stay, one in each of the two major Japanese hotels in Manila, and jobs. Claiming to be merchant seamen who had jumped ship, they began to infiltrate the Japanese community. They also claimed to be evading the draft in the United States, which had begun a few months before. Komori pieced together several part-time jobs. In addition to translation work for the Japanese consulate, he taught English classes at the Japan Cultural Hall and worked for the Japan Tourist Bureau and Domei News Agency. He was even offered a job in the Japanese consulate in Davao, which he declined.14 The G-2 gave Sakakida a cover job working as a stock clerk and salesman in an export-import company that was the exclusive importer of Sears, Roebuck and Co. items into the Philippines. He stayed at a downtown hotel that catered to Japanese businessmen, where he quickly ingratiated himself to the proprietors and the other Japanese guests. In this he was so suc- 14Komori sources: Komori 1955 interview; Bray, 29-45; Harrington 13-15, 5051; and Secret Valor, 34-35. At the time Davao was second only to Manila in the size of its Japanese community. Eichelberger later claimed Davao had 40,000 Japanese residents before the war. Jay Luvaas, ed. Dear Miss Em: General Eichelberger's War in the Pacific, 1942-1945 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1972), 261. The actual number was closer to 15,000-18,000. See also Goodman and Civil Affairs Handbook: Philippine Islands cited above.
The Sakakida Story 15 cessful that the proprietors wrote his mother in Hawaii and offered to adopt him, but she politely refused.15 Komori had a harder time. As a boy growing up in pre-war Hawaii, he had avoided contact with the Japanese American community. "I had alienated myself from Japanese institutions to such an extent," he later recalled, "that when I was plunged into the Japanese community of Manila in 1941 in my secret mission, I had to make a supreme effort to adopt things Japanese again."16 For eight months the Philippine Department G-2 used the two Nisei to piece together a detailed picture of the comings and goings of local Japanese businessmen and tourists, as well as other activities that would be valuable in the event of hostilities. For example, when the Japanese seized French Indochina in July 1941, the Roosevelt Administration froze all Japanese assets in the United States. As a result, all Japanese residents in the Philippines had to fill out financial disclosure forms, which asked, among other things, if they had any previous military service. Sakakida, the agreeable young bilingual clerk at the downtown hotel, was more than glad to 15Sakakida sources: Secret Valor, 33-34; Bray, 30-34; Mission in Manila; and A Spy in Their Midst, 51-66. 16Komori 1955 interview, p. 15.
The Sakakida Story 16 help the Japanese businessmen with the complex disclosure forms -- and then report to G-2 the information they wished to conceal, such as prior military service. Komori helped Japanese community leaders plan their emergency evacuation to points of safety in the event of hostilities. By the fall of 1941 events had began to accelerate. The US and Japanese governments both ordered family members of its military and diplomatic staffs to return home. When the US Navy withdrew its nine language attaches from Tokyo, ONI reassigned three to Station Cast. The deputy director of naval intelligence later recalled, “We were scraping the barrel. Anywhere we could lay our hands on the Japanese language oriented person, we were getting him out of his job and putting him down in Cavite [Station Cast], or the Hawaiian Islands.” More US personnel and equipment poured into the islands.17 17Reminiscences of Rear Admiral Arthur H. McCollum, U.S. Navy, Retired, US Naval Institute, 1973, Recorded 1970-71, Vol. 2, 297-98. For reassigned Navy language officers, only four of whom had completed the three-year program, see Prados, Combined Fleet Decoded. A complete list of all US Navy and Marine Corps language officers in Tokyo from 1899 to 1941 can be found in Box 1, Henri H. Smith-Hutton Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA. Smith-Hutton was the last US naval attache assigned to Tokyo before the war. According to McCollum, of the twelve to fourteen Navy language students withdrawn, three or four went to the Asiatic Fleet in the Philippines. For a similar list, see Wyman H. Packard, A Century of U.S. Naval Intelligence (Washington, DC: Office of Naval Intelligence/Naval Historical Center, 1996), 367-71. For Army efforts to bolster Philippine defenses in 1940-41, see Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall, Vol. 2, Ordeal and Hope, 1939-42 (New York: Viking, 1966), 174-89; Mark S. Watson, Chief of Staff: Prewar Plans and Preparations, United States Army in World War II: The War Department (Washington, DC: Historical Division, Department of the Army, 1950), 411-
The Sakakida Story 17 By the fall of 1941, US authorities in Manila had superb information on Japanese activities in the Philippines, in large part through the work of the small CIP detachment and its two Nisei undercover agents. Komori and Sakakida repaid many times over the special trust the Army had reposed in them. When the war broke out, sooner than anyone had anticipated, the Army needed them for very different duties that would once again test their bravery and ingenuity. For historians this phase of Sakakida's story poses few problems. While the sources are slender, and rest in large part upon Sakakida and Komori's own later re-tellings, the overall picture is clear. The same is true of the second phase, the outbreak of war. II War came suddenly to the American possessions in the Far East in the early morning hours of December 8 with the news of the Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, 52; Louis Morton, The Fall of the Philippines, United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1953), 3-73; and D. Clayton James, The Years of MacArthur, Vol. I, 1880-1941 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), 510-619. Many authors have described the war atmosphere in Manila during 1941. See for example Stephan M. Mellnik, Philippine War Diary, 1939-45, rev. ed. (New York: Van Nostrand, 1969; repr. 1981).
The Sakakida Story 18 followed a few hours later by bombing raids that shattered the Army's air power at Clark Field.18 Commonwealth Government authorities reacted by clearing the streets of thousands of Japanese nationals and placing hundreds in confinement, among them the Army's two undercover Nisei, Komori and Sakakida. Within days the CIP detachment commander spirited the two out of confinement and put them back in uniform. Their counterespionage work was finished. Now the Army needed all available Japanese-speakers for combat intelligence missions.19 For two weeks Komori and Sakakida helped the G-2 staff in every way they could, doing things such as translating the data plates from downed Japanese aircraft. They soon had their first encounter with a Japanese prisoner of war. A week or two after the start of the war, Komori later recalled, some hill tribesmen dragged two captured Japanese naval aviators into US headquarters in Fort Santiago, Manila, "slung on poles as so much wild pigs." The two Nisei expected to feel intense hatred 18For general sources on the fall of the Philippines see Morton; and James, The Years of MacArthur, Vol. II, 1941-1945. For a useful recent summary, see Philippine Islands, The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II (Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1992). 19For details of Komori and Sakakida's activities from December 1941 until May 1942, see the 1945 CIC investigation; Sakakida and Komori 1955 interviews; Bray, 34-37; Harrington, 65-67; Morris, 243-44, 287 and 337-38; and A Spy in Their Midst, 67-115. Sakakida's activities upon the outbreak of war were later the subject of detailed investigation. See his CIC interview on 27 Sep 45, 2-3 and his sworn statement on the same subject, 18 May 48 (DLIFLC historical files) and Morris, 98-99 and 133.
The Sakakida Story 19 of these airmen who were "our enemies and a menace to civilization." At first they felt a "weird sensation of being confronted by these suicidal devils who were trying to kill us even from the air." But their initial apprehension quickly subsided. Komori later recalled their feelings: Being human beings, what else could we do but treat them mercifully? Then and there began our practice of treating POWs kindly. We even gave them cigarettes. . . . This practice produced intelligence news [coups?] and dividends. Though these POWs impressed us as being very poor representatives of the mythical warriors of Japan we had been hearing about, they proved to be a valuable war commodity. The information we gained from their shaven heads and stubby fingers proved the undoing of their sacred war plans.20 Facing Japanese forces directly for the first time, the Army was desperate for anyone who could speak Japanese, including Filipinos or any Americans who had spent time in Japan. For example, the G-2 grabbed Private John David Provoo from the ranks. Provoo was an unlikely soldier, raised near San Francisco in the bohemian colony of Sausalito. He had traveled to Japan in 1940 for religious training at a Buddhist monastery. In the spring of 1941 he returned to the United States and enlisted for Army duty in the Philippines. Later observers called him "a lanky, nervous, strange kind of man," "delicate looking," and "almost effeminate" -- code words for homosexual -- and claimed he had expressed "pro-Japanese" opinions before 20Komori 1955 interview, p. 4.
The Sakakida Story 20 Pearl Harbor. But he knew some Japanese, so the G-2 could not afford to be choosy.21 Someone else remembered another Hawaiian Nisei who had done legal work for the Japanese consulate before the war, Clarence Yamagata. Yamagata was born and raised in Hawaii, had graduated from the University of California and then law school. Before the war he had gone to Manila to practice law. There the Japanese consulate had retained him as a bilingual lawyer, and there in the fall of 1941 he was befriended by a fellow Hawaiian Nisei, Sakakida. In fact, just before the war broke out Yamagata had secured a position for Sakakida in the Japanese consulate in Davao, but the war intervened before Sakakida could accept. So G-2 approached Yamagata and asked for his help. He agreed and was soon working alongside the other two Hawaiian-born Nisei.22 21"Lanky, nervous, strange": "A Tale of Treachery on Corregidor," Life (24 Nov 52), 28-29; "delicate looking": New York Times (2 Nov 52); "almost effeminate": New York Times (29 Oct 52). Edwards, probably on the basis of Bray, identifies him as homosexual (pp. 54-55). Sakakida testified that he had helped interview Provoo three days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but the sources I have seen do not explain whether G-2 actually used him after that: "Army Ex-Comrade Depicts Provoo as Eager to Aid Japanese Captors," New York Times (30 Oct 52), 1-2. Edwards claims CIP screened him before the war but rejected him for “adverse information.” 22The Japanese government evacuated Yamagata's wife and children, who were Japanese nationals, to Japan before the war broke out, but the G-2 was willing to overlook the possible security risk. See Sakakida 1955 interview and A Spy in Their Midst, 61-62, 64 and 90-93. See also Yamagata's statement to a CIC investigator in November 1945: GHQ, USAFPAC, 441st CIC
The Sakakida Story 21 One source of linguists remained out of reach for the G-2: the Army and Navy signals intelligence elements working in the Philippines. From their underground facilities in the Navy tunnel on Corregidor near Monkey Point, Station Cast continued to work on Japanese PURPLE diplomatic traffic. The Army's Detachment 6 continued to work as best it could from Fort McKinley. When Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma's 14th Army landed at Lingayen Gulf in late December, MacArthur decided to withdraw his mixed US-Filipino force into the rugged Bataan Peninsula. On Christmas Eve he removed his headquarters to Corregidor. Komori, Sakakida and Yamagata took a boat to Corregidor and then on to Bataan. Detachment 6 was evacuated to Corregidor at the same time and within two weeks had rigged up some antennas and radio equipment to monitor Japanese tactical radio traffic.23 While on Corregidor Sakakida remembered experiencing his first Japanese bombing attack and remarking, “My ancestors are pretty damned mad at me translating their documents!”24 Detachment, subj: Sakakida, Richard Motoso, 12 Nov 45 (DLIFLC historical files). 23Michael Maslak, "Signalman's Odyssey," in Military Intelligence: Its Heroes and Legends, comp. by Diane L. Hamm (Arlington Hall Station, VA: US Army Intelligence and Security Command, 1987), 133-61. 24Harrington notes, 4. Harrington reproduced this wry comment in a slightly different form in Yankee Samurai, 66.
The Sakakida Story 22 The first Japanese blows on Bataan fell on January 9, 1942, and the American and Filipino forces of some 80,000 gave ground slowly. The team of some two dozen CIP personnel set up well to the rear where the interpreters worked feverishly, enduring the tropical heat, meager rations and the constant fear of shelling or infiltrators. The Nisei took turns doing three-day stints with front-line units, where the taste of active combat aroused their fighting spirit. None had been trained in basic soldier skills or combat intelligence methods, but they learned as they went along, inventing techniques to fit the moment. They all had to be creative under pressure. According to Komori, they "dealt with security of information along the lines of communications, collection of enemy information, safeguarding of captured documents and POWs, liaison with agents within enemy lines, patrolling and scouting, interrogation of POWs, internment of collaborators, and observer and courier activity." At one point the language officer, Major Wood, visited their small jungle clearing to find them picking through a pile of captured Japanese equipment that included a Japanese land mine and a Molotov cocktail. "Get those things out of here," he yelled.25 25A January 1945 message lists the names of 24 enlisted and civilian members of the CIP detachment lost in the Philippines, including Sakakida. SPINT 322.999 CIC, Subj: Corps of Intelligence Police Personnel in the Philippines, 24 Jan 45. The detachment also had five officers. Cited in Ann
The Sakakida Story 23 During three months of fighting, the American forces may have captured up to three hundred prisoners.26 From these prisoners and captured documents the Nisei pieced together a picture of their opponents. "In the shifting battlelines of Bataan," Komori later remembered, "it was a ticklish business, going up to battlefields to identify corpses and gathering information among the dead Japs. We had only begun to find out about the jungle techniques of the Jap snipers and so-called dead soldiers. But in the excitement of the battle, we took our chances as everyone else did." It was also demoralizing to watch as the Japanese forces slowly pushed the American and Filipino soldiers further down the peninsula.27 The risk was not just from the Japanese. The invasion had stirred up Filipino hatred of the Japanese, and at one point a Filipino soldier mistook Sakakida for a Japanese soldier and took a shot at him.28 Bray, "CIC's Lost Detachment," unpublished ms, 1-2. Komori quotations and Major Wood incident from Komori 1955 interview. Sakakida later dedicated his memoirs to the members of the entire CIP detachment. Note: On January 1, 1942, the Army redesignated the Corps of Intelligence Police (CIP) as the Counterintelligence Corps (CIC). 26Sakakida told Harrington they captured 300 Japanese prisoners (Harrington notes, 4). In Mission in Manila, he claimed 250. Other sources place the number closer to 60. 27Komori c1955 interview, the best source on the Nisei activities during the fighting on Bataan. For a summary of his experiences see also his lecture outline, "The Philippine Theater of War," given in Australia, dated 1 July 1942, copy in Komori Folder, Harrington Files, National Japanese American Historical Society.
The Sakakida Story 24 The Nisei tried to persuade Japanese soldiers to surrender through loudspeaker broadcasts, but without success. At one point Sakakida even tried sending mimeographed notes to the Japanese soldiers, rolling them into short lengths of pipe and hurling the ingenious missiles into the jungle using an improvised, jeep-mounted slingshot.29 Their ingenuity, like their pre-war counterintelligence work, ultimately could do little to hold back the advancing Japanese. On March 12 MacArthur and his senior staff left for Australia to organize the Allied counteroffensive. The language officer, Major Wood, remained behind as G-2 for General Jonathan M. Wainwright. Some time in late February or early March, Detachment 6 on Corregidor received a captured Japanese code book and began to intercept some voice radio transmissions from Japanese pilots. With renewed hope they called for more translator support. Sakakida and a Filipino translator were pulled back from Bataan to help out. Komori followed a couple of weeks later. Sakakida later told how he helped out with the code-breaking and "had some success with the Japanese 4-digit code." For several 28Komori (1955 interview, p. 18) claims Sakakida "was shot at by some Filipino". Morris (p. 243), based on his interview with Sakakida claims that Filipino soldiers "probably would have shot him for a Japanese." 29Bray, 35; A Spy in Their Midst, 85-86; Morris, 337-38.
The Sakakida Story 25 weeks they worked closely with the signalmen to eavesdrop on approaching Japanese aircraft.30 Colonel T.T. Teague, the chief signal officer, was so impressed with Sakakida's fighting spirit that he gave him an Irish nickname, "Kelly," and may have recommended him for a commission.31 The best intelligence in the world could not have saved the American and Philippine forces from destruction. General Homma launched his final offensive on April 3, and the battered and exhausted Americans on Bataan surrendered on April 9. 30Lewin, 131; Sakakida 1955 interview. SRH 045, Reminiscences of Lieutenant Colonel Howard W. Brown, Signal Security Agency, Washington, DC, 4 Aug 45, mentions three Nisei translators with SIS on Corregidor. At one point in the released version, their names have been blacked out, but Sakakida is mentioned by name on p. 36 as being assigned to the Radio Intelligence Office in Malinta Tunnel. The three Nisei are also mentioned (but not by name) in Col. Teague’s final report: “Signal Report, United States Army, 8 December 1941-6 May 1942,” in “Report of Operations of USAFFE and USFIP in the Philippine Islands, 1941-1942.” When Col. Teague was released from a Japanese prisoner of war camp at war's end, he recommended Sakakida for the Legion of Merit for his work on Corregidor: Col. T. T. Teague, letter, subj: Recommendation, 19 Jun 46 (DLIFLC historical files). "4-digit code": Harrington, 67. In 1955 Sakakida said that on Corregidor "my specific duty was to decipher the Japanese code" (p. 7). 31"Kelly": A Spy in Their Midst, 89-90. Commission: Sakakida told Harrington that Colonel Teague also recommended him for a reserve commission while on Corregidor (p. 69), but he did not mention this in his 1955 interview, nor in A Spy in Their Midst. From other memoirs it appears that Wainwright's headquarters handed out many field commissions in the last months (for one example, see Morris, 243). After the war Sakakida re-established contact with Col. Teague, then serving in Hawaii. In June 1946 Teague wrote a letter endorsing Sakakida's application for an Army commission. Perhaps Sakakida (or Harrington?) was conflating these incidents.
The Sakakida Story 26 Meanwhile, the Navy evacuated Station Cast by submarine by early April. The Army extracted about half of Detachment 6's personnel.32 In the pre-dawn hours of April 13, two of the Nisei flew out by light plane: Komori and Yamagata. Sakakida remained behind. Komori talked his way into the co-pilot's seat and enjoyed helping the pilot fly the dual-control biplane on the long flight to Panay, where they were flown onwards to Australia in a B-25. Yamagata in particular was in great danger should he be captured by the Japanese, since he had done legal work for the Japanese consulate before the war and his wife and child, who were Japanese nationals, had been evacuated to Japan.33 32On the partial evacuation of Station Cast on 5 Feb 42: Prados, 245-47. On the complete evacuation on 17 Mar and 7 Apr 42: Ibid., 267-70. 33"Lone Hawaii Survivor of Bataan Epic [Arthur Komori] Describes 11th Hour Escape," Honolulu Star-Bulletin (17/18 Apr 44); Komori 1955 interview. After the war Sakakida said he had relinquished his seat to Yamagata. See Sakakida 1955 interview, 8; Harrington, 50-51, 67; and A Spy in Their Midst, 90-93. Morris mistakenly refers to Sakakida giving Yamagata his seat "on the last submarine" (p. 471). Contemporary records are silent on this point. Komori, Yamagata and the Chinese Army attache to MacArthur’s headquarters all testified in 1945 that Sakakida remained behind because he was hospitalized with malaria. See [Komori] memo, subj: Richard Motoso Sakakida, 16 Apr 43; 441st CIC Detachment, memo, subj: Richard Motoso Sakakida, 12 Nov 45 [interview with Komori, Yamagata and Maj. Gen. Chih Wong, Republic of China Army, another passenger on the plane from Corregidor]; Sakakida 27 Sep 45 interview (all in DLIFLC historical files). See also Komori's 1955 interview, in which he makes no mention of Sakakida surrendering a seat (pp. 6-7). Some sources indicate possible personal animosity between Sakakida and Yamagata then and later. The two came from very different worlds. Sakakida was a high school graduate from Hawaii; Yamagata was a college graduate and lawyer from the mainland. Sakakida came out of the war as a master sergeant; Yamagata as a major. Sakakida may have recommended that Yamagata be shipped out because he did not trust him. On the other hand, Wain-
The Sakakida Story 27 Together with the other 11,000 American and Filipino men and women crammed into the dank tunnels on Corregidor, Sakakida subsisted on meager rations and endured daily pounding by Japanese artillery and airplanes. On the night of May 5-6 Japanese soldiers landed on Corregidor. The next morning Wainwright sent out a Marine captain with an interpreter to initiate surrender negotiations. Later that afternoon Sakakida accompanied Wainwright's chief of staff, Brigadier General Lewis C. Beebe, by small boat to the mainland. There the Japanese soldiers refused to let him interpret for Beebe and held him at dockside. One Japanese sergeant, infuriated by the sight of Sakakida, a Japanese American, serving with the US Army, slapped him in the face, knocking his glasses off and drawing blood. Sakakida was stunned. The blow, Sakakida later recalled, "broke the proverbial 'rose-colored glasses' through which I had been taught in Hawaii to view all things Japanese. With a single blow, my illusions were shattered. So much for the Japanese community propaganda that I had learned to respect wright’s staff may have wanted to hold back the most capable, or perhaps just the youngest, linguist. Komori and James J. Rubard, a CIP sergeant on Corregidor with Komori and Sakakida, both wrote statements in 1993 saying that Sakakida voluntarily relinquished his seat to Yamagata (DLIFLC historical files).
The Sakakida Story 28 as a kid." The incident "made me an even more committed American" and hardened him for his coming ordeal.34 The Japanese had no need of an American interpreter for the negotiations, for they had their own, a Lieutenant Uemura, a Harvard graduate who spoke fluent English.35 Other Japanese offices spoke at least some English. On May 6, Brigadier General Beebe and Sergeant Sakakida read the final surrender message over the radio in English and Japanese. Wainwright's headquarters decided to list Sakakida as a civilian for his own protection, like Yamagata. But they fully expected the Japanese to treat him with extra severity. 34For the difficult surrender negotiations, see Morton, 562-84. For Sakakida's role, see his 27 Sep 45 interview and Col. Stuart Wood's 30 Sep 45 interview (DLIFLC historical files); Sakakida's 1955 interview; Harrington, 67; Crost, 26-27; Mission in Manila; and A Spy in Their Midst, 105-15 (quotation: pp. 109-10). For a first-person account of Sakakida's role in the last days on Corregidor, see James J. Rubard, statement, 19 Oct 93 (DLIFLC historical files). 35Report of 27 Sep 45 interview with Sakakida. On the copy of the interview report I used, someone (Sakakida himself?) changed the interpreter's name from Uyehara to Uemura and the university he attended from Columbia to Harvard. The report gives no first name. Memorandum, Headquarters, Counter Intelligence Corps Area No. 1, US Army Forces, Pacific, Subj: Sakakida, Motoso, 18 Oct 45 (= report of 27 Sep 45 interview), with Exhibit I (photo of Uyehara) and Exhibit II (Sakakida memo, "Military Intelligence of the 14th Japanese Army, GHQ")(DLIFLC historical files). Uemura is mentioned in A Spy in Their Midst, although not by name (p. 111). Another document spells his name Uyemura. Uemura remained in the Philippines throughout the Japanese occupation and later headed the 14th Army counterintelligence section charged with ferreting out Philippine guerrillas in Manila and interrogating American POWs, where his English language skills proved very useful. For a later Sakakida encounter with Uemura, see Sakakida 1955 interview, p. 10. General Wainwright calls him Lieutenant "Uramura": General Wainwright's Story, 124-26, 129 and 155-56.
The Sakakida Story 29 Sakakida later recalled that the G-2 told him, "if I survived the interrogation process and succeeded in holding to my cover story, I should still carry on my basic mission by working myself into positions that would allow me to carry on my mission in espionage." What else could his superiors tell him? In later years other writers, based on interviews with Sakakida, would claim that he had been deliberately left behind "to surrender and carry out secret orders he'd been given." But this was unlikely. His superiors did not expect him to survive capture, let alone be in a position to spy on the Japanese. Rather, their parting instructions were more along the lines of resigned advice for him to "do whatever he could" if the opportunity should present itself.36 After the surrender, Sakakida remained defiant and, at least initially, the Japanese bought his story about being a 36"If I should survive": A Spy in Their Midst, 111 and 143. "Carry out secret orders": Harrington, 51. Morris tells essentially the same story (pp. 471 and 482). Sakakida himself told it to a 1993 reunion: Stanley L. Falk and Warren M. Tsuneishi, eds., MIS in the War Against Japan (Washington, DC: Japanese American Veterans Association, 1995), 22-26; and in Mission in Manila. A much earlier version of this incident is contained in the post-war letter, Hqs, 1135th CIC Det, Subj: Sakakida, Richard Motoso, 12 September 1947: "On his return to Corregidor on 7 May 1942, he was ordered by his superior, Major Pugh to assume an undercover status and to pose as a civilian attached to the American Army." This was a routine 1947 letter of reference from his losing unit in the Philippines to his gaining command in Hawaii. In this context, “to assume an undercover status” clearly referred to claiming civilian status for purposes of the surrender, not orders to undertake “undercover” espionage.
The Sakakida Story 30 civilian, pressed into service by the US Army. Over the next few weeks they held him with other US prisoners of war, where the Japanese military police, the Kempei Tai, forced him to serve as an interpreter. Other soldiers -- and linguists -- did not hold up as well. Private Provoo, terrified and perhaps unhinged by the shock of defeat, offered his Japanese-language skills to their captors. He quickly earned the hatred of his countrymen as a "turncoat," calling himself variously the "Boss of Corregidor" and the "Master of Malinta Tunnel." His example of collaboration probably hardened Sakakida even more not to betray his country.37 The Japanese captured at least one other Nisei. Frank "Foo" Fujita came to the Netherlands East Indies with his Texas National Guard outfit in the summer of 1941. He was captured on Java and spent the war as a prisoner.38 37After the war Provoo was convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment. See the New York Times coverage of the trial, 28 Oct 52-5 Mar 53; "A Tale of Treachery on Corregidor," Life (24 Nov 52), 28-29; and Edward Ranzal, "The Beast in Khaki," Cavalier for Men (June 1954), 2-5, 41-42. Although Sakakida was a prosecution witness during the trial, and his portrait by a court artist even appeared in Life Magazine, he did not mention Provoo or the trial in Mission in Manila or A Spy in Their Midst. He did tell Harrington about Provoo, but Harrington left this out of his book (Harrington notes, 12-13). 38See his memoir, Frank "Foo" Fujita, "Foo," A Japanese-American Prisoner of the Rising Sun: The Secret Prison Diary of Frank "Foo" Fujita (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 1993).
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