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."
He was hailed a hero and a patriot at a time when tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were confined at internment camps amid fears of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast.
After the war, Kuroki enrolled at the University of Nebraska, where he obtained a journalism degree. He published a weekly newspaper in Nebraska for a short time before moving to Michigan and finally to California, where he retired as the news editor of Ventura Star-Free Press in 1984.
In 2005, he received the U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal, one of the nation's highest military honors.
"I had to fight like hell for the right to fight for my own country," Kuroki said at the award ceremony in Lincoln, Nebraska. "And I now feel vindication."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/japanese-american-wwii-war-hero-ben-kuroki-dies-33566490
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Omaha World Herald Article:
LINCOLN — A friend once asked Ben Kuroki, a tail gunner who served in World War II, why he kept volunteering for more bombing missions.
After all, he’d flown 30 missions over Europe, more than enough to end his tour of duty, and then volunteered to fly 28 more bombing runs over Japan.
“All guts and no brains,” Kuroki replied.
There was plenty of guts, but for decades, little glory for Kuroki.
The native of Hershey, Nebraska, died Tuesday at his home in Camarillo, California. He was 98.
Kuroki’s wartime service included the daring daylight raid on “Hitler’s Gas Can,” a group of oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania. He was captured in Morocco after his B-24 crash-landed, but after his release by Spanish authorities, rejoined his unit.
He was also believed to be the only Japanese-American to fly bombing missions over Japan, overcoming a War Department policy prohibiting that.
“I had to fight like hell for the right to fight for my own country,” Kuroki once said.
While on leave in February 1944, he gave a speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco that helped “mainstream” the idea that an American citizen, even of Japanese descent, is still an American and should be treated as such. More than 120,000 Japanese-Americans from the West Coast were sent to internment camps during the war.
Scott Stewart, a Lincoln businessman, said it was an honor to get to know Kuroki.
Stewart’s late father, Cal, wrote a book in 2004 about Kuroki titled, “The Most Honorable Son,” detailing his heroism in the face of bigotry against people of Japanese origin.
Stewart felt that Kuroki’s heroism in the face of racism had been overlooked. But his book and some lobbying eventually led to Kuroki receiving the Army’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2005.
That led to a television documentary on Kuroki’s life that premiered in 2007.
All told, Kuroki made four trips to Washington, D.C., including two to the White House, in the waning years of his life to be honored for his service.
A friend, Joe Duran of Santa Paula, California, said Kuroki had been in declining health in recent weeks.
Kuroki, he said, still played golf and was driving his own car until a few months ago. In December, Duran said he accompanied Kuroki to New Orleans for a ribbon cutting at a new exhibit at the National World War II Museum there.
Kuroki contributed by giving his oral history of the Ploesti raid and others for a “Road to Berlin” exhibit.
“He was definitely an authentic American hero,” Duran said. “His military history was legendary, especially the missions he survived. But he was such a humble man, many of his coworkers didn’t know his amazing history.”
Kuroki, who once ran a newspaper in York, Nebraska, had worked at the local Ventura County Star prior to his retirement in 1984.
Funeral services are pending, Duran said.
Contact the writer: 402-473-9584, [email protected]
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."
He was hailed a hero and a patriot at a time when tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were confined at internment camps amid fears of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast.
After the war, Kuroki enrolled at the University of Nebraska, where he obtained a journalism degree. He published a weekly newspaper in Nebraska for a short time before moving to Michigan and finally to California, where he retired as the news editor of Ventura Star-Free Press in 1984.
In 2005, he received the U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal, one of the nation's highest military honors.
"I had to fight like hell for the right to fight for my own country," Kuroki said at the award ceremony in Lincoln, Nebraska. "And I now feel vindication."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/japanese-american-wwii-war-hero-ben-kuroki-dies-33566490
**********************************************************************************
Omaha World Herald Article:
LINCOLN — A friend once asked Ben Kuroki, a tail gunner who served in World War II, why he kept volunteering for more bombing missions.
After all, he’d flown 30 missions over Europe, more than enough to end his tour of duty, and then volunteered to fly 28 more bombing runs over Japan.
“All guts and no brains,” Kuroki replied.
There was plenty of guts, but for decades, little glory for Kuroki.
The native of Hershey, Nebraska, died Tuesday at his home in Camarillo, California. He was 98.
Kuroki’s wartime service included the daring daylight raid on “Hitler’s Gas Can,” a group of oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania. He was captured in Morocco after his B-24 crash-landed, but after his release by Spanish authorities, rejoined his unit.
He was also believed to be the only Japanese-American to fly bombing missions over Japan, overcoming a War Department policy prohibiting that.
“I had to fight like hell for the right to fight for my own country,” Kuroki once said.
While on leave in February 1944, he gave a speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco that helped “mainstream” the idea that an American citizen, even of Japanese descent, is still an American and should be treated as such. More than 120,000 Japanese-Americans from the West Coast were sent to internment camps during the war.
Scott Stewart, a Lincoln businessman, said it was an honor to get to know Kuroki.
Stewart’s late father, Cal, wrote a book in 2004 about Kuroki titled, “The Most Honorable Son,” detailing his heroism in the face of bigotry against people of Japanese origin.
Stewart felt that Kuroki’s heroism in the face of racism had been overlooked. But his book and some lobbying eventually led to Kuroki receiving the Army’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2005.
That led to a television documentary on Kuroki’s life that premiered in 2007.
All told, Kuroki made four trips to Washington, D.C., including two to the White House, in the waning years of his life to be honored for his service.
A friend, Joe Duran of Santa Paula, California, said Kuroki had been in declining health in recent weeks.
Kuroki, he said, still played golf and was driving his own car until a few months ago. In December, Duran said he accompanied Kuroki to New Orleans for a ribbon cutting at a new exhibit at the National World War II Museum there.
Kuroki contributed by giving his oral history of the Ploesti raid and others for a “Road to Berlin” exhibit.
“He was definitely an authentic American hero,” Duran said. “His military history was legendary, especially the missions he survived. But he was such a humble man, many of his coworkers didn’t know his amazing history.”
Kuroki, who once ran a newspaper in York, Nebraska, had worked at the local Ventura County Star prior to his retirement in 1984.
Funeral services are pending, Duran said.
Contact the writer: 402-473-9584, [email protected]
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."
He was hailed a hero and a patriot at a time when tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were confined at internment camps amid fears of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast.
After the war, Kuroki enrolled at the University of Nebraska, where he obtained a journalism degree. He published a weekly newspaper in Nebraska for a short time before moving to Michigan and finally to California, where he retired as the news editor of Ventura Star-Free Press in 1984.
In 2005, he received the U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal, one of the nation's highest military honors.
"I had to fight like hell for the right to fight for my own country," Kuroki said at the award ceremony in Lincoln, Nebraska. "And I now feel vindication."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/japanese-american-wwii-war-hero-ben-kuroki-dies-33566490
**********************************************************************************
Omaha World Herald Article:
LINCOLN — A friend once asked Ben Kuroki, a tail gunner who served in World War II, why he kept volunteering for more bombing missions.
After all, he’d flown 30 missions over Europe, more than enough to end his tour of duty, and then volunteered to fly 28 more bombing runs over Japan.
“All guts and no brains,” Kuroki replied.
There was plenty of guts, but for decades, little glory for Kuroki.
The native of Hershey, Nebraska, died Tuesday at his home in Camarillo, California. He was 98.
Kuroki’s wartime service included the daring daylight raid on “Hitler’s Gas Can,” a group of oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania. He was captured in Morocco after his B-24 crash-landed, but after his release by Spanish authorities, rejoined his unit.
He was also believed to be the only Japanese-American to fly bombing missions over Japan, overcoming a War Department policy prohibiting that.
“I had to fight like hell for the right to fight for my own country,” Kuroki once said.
While on leave in February 1944, he gave a speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco that helped “mainstream” the idea that an American citizen, even of Japanese descent, is still an American and should be treated as such. More than 120,000 Japanese-Americans from the West Coast were sent to internment camps during the war.
Scott Stewart, a Lincoln businessman, said it was an honor to get to know Kuroki.
Stewart’s late father, Cal, wrote a book in 2004 about Kuroki titled, “The Most Honorable Son,” detailing his heroism in the face of bigotry against people of Japanese origin.
Stewart felt that Kuroki’s heroism in the face of racism had been overlooked. But his book and some lobbying eventually led to Kuroki receiving the Army’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2005.
That led to a television documentary on Kuroki’s life that premiered in 2007.
All told, Kuroki made four trips to Washington, D.C., including two to the White House, in the waning years of his life to be honored for his service.
A friend, Joe Duran of Santa Paula, California, said Kuroki had been in declining health in recent weeks.
Kuroki, he said, still played golf and was driving his own car until a few months ago. In December, Duran said he accompanied Kuroki to New Orleans for a ribbon cutting at a new exhibit at the National World War II Museum there.
Kuroki contributed by giving his oral history of the Ploesti raid and others for a “Road to Berlin” exhibit.
“He was definitely an authentic American hero,” Duran said. “His military history was legendary, especially the missions he survived. But he was such a humble man, many of his coworkers didn’t know his amazing history.”
Kuroki, who once ran a newspaper in York, Nebraska, had worked at the local Ventura County Star prior to his retirement in 1984.
Funeral services are pending, Duran said.
Contact the writer: 402-473-9584, [email protected]
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."
He was hailed a hero and a patriot at a time when tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were confined at internment camps amid fears of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast.
After the war, Kuroki enrolled at the University of Nebraska, where he obtained a journalism degree. He published a weekly newspaper in Nebraska for a short time before moving to Michigan and finally to California, where he retired as the news editor of Ventura Star-Free Press in 1984.
In 2005, he received the U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal, one of the nation's highest military honors.
"I had to fight like hell for the right to fight for my own country," Kuroki said at the award ceremony in Lincoln, Nebraska. "And I now feel vindication."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/japanese-american-wwii-war-hero-ben-kuroki-dies-33566490
**********************************************************************************
Omaha World Herald Article:
LINCOLN — A friend once asked Ben Kuroki, a tail gunner who served in World War II, why he kept volunteering for more bombing missions.
After all, he’d flown 30 missions over Europe, more than enough to end his tour of duty, and then volunteered to fly 28 more bombing runs over Japan.
“All guts and no brains,” Kuroki replied.
There was plenty of guts, but for decades, little glory for Kuroki.
The native of Hershey, Nebraska, died Tuesday at his home in Camarillo, California. He was 98.
Kuroki’s wartime service included the daring daylight raid on “Hitler’s Gas Can,” a group of oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania. He was captured in Morocco after his B-24 crash-landed, but after his release by Spanish authorities, rejoined his unit.
He was also believed to be the only Japanese-American to fly bombing missions over Japan, overcoming a War Department policy prohibiting that.
“I had to fight like hell for the right to fight for my own country,” Kuroki once said.
While on leave in February 1944, he gave a speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco that helped “mainstream” the idea that an American citizen, even of Japanese descent, is still an American and should be treated as such. More than 120,000 Japanese-Americans from the West Coast were sent to internment camps during the war.
Scott Stewart, a Lincoln businessman, said it was an honor to get to know Kuroki.
Stewart’s late father, Cal, wrote a book in 2004 about Kuroki titled, “The Most Honorable Son,” detailing his heroism in the face of bigotry against people of Japanese origin.
Stewart felt that Kuroki’s heroism in the face of racism had been overlooked. But his book and some lobbying eventually led to Kuroki receiving the Army’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2005.
That led to a television documentary on Kuroki’s life that premiered in 2007.
All told, Kuroki made four trips to Washington, D.C., including two to the White House, in the waning years of his life to be honored for his service.
A friend, Joe Duran of Santa Paula, California, said Kuroki had been in declining health in recent weeks.
Kuroki, he said, still played golf and was driving his own car until a few months ago. In December, Duran said he accompanied Kuroki to New Orleans for a ribbon cutting at a new exhibit at the National World War II Museum there.
Kuroki contributed by giving his oral history of the Ploesti raid and others for a “Road to Berlin” exhibit.
“He was definitely an authentic American hero,” Duran said. “His military history was legendary, especially the missions he survived. But he was such a humble man, many of his coworkers didn’t know his amazing history.”
Kuroki, who once ran a newspaper in York, Nebraska, had worked at the local Ventura County Star prior to his retirement in 1984.
Funeral services are pending, Duran said.
Contact the writer: 402-473-9584, [email protected]
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