{"id":61732,"date":"2015-09-06T09:57:01","date_gmt":"2015-09-06T13:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=61732"},"modified":"2015-09-06T09:57:01","modified_gmt":"2015-09-06T13:57:01","slug":"ben-kuroki-passes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=61732","title":{"rendered":"Ben Kuroki passes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ben_Kuroki\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

From the New York Times<\/a> comes the sad news that Ben Kuroki, the only aircrew member of Japanese descent to fly in his bomber over Japan during the Second World War has passed at the tender age of 98. According to the story, when the Nebraskan first tried to enlist for the war, he was rejected by the recruiter, so Kuroki went shopping for a recruiter who would sign him up.<\/p>\n

He flew missions over Europe for most of the war, Kuroki’s plane went down once in Morrocco and him and his fellow crew members were captured, but they escaped and returned to the business of war.<\/p>\n

[T]here were only a few Japanese-Americans who somehow slipped through the Army Air Forces\u2019 enlistment ban and served in combat crews. And Sergeant Kuroki\u2019s commanders had rejected his request to fly in raids over Japan, evidently reflecting a fear concerning the fate that would befall a Japanese-American, and any family members in Japan, if captured.<\/p>\n

But War Secretary Henry L. Stimson, citing Sergeant Kuroki\u2019s \u201csplendid record\u201d in air combat, made an exception for him at the behest of a Nebraska congressman.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have the face of a Japanese but my heart is American,\u201d Sergeant Kuroki was quoted as saying by The Omaha World-Herald when he learned of the decision.<\/p>\n

He became a gunner in the 505th Bombardment Group, flying in B-29s based on the island of Tinian, and participated in 28 raids over Japan, including the firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945. His fellow crew members honored him by naming their bomber \u201cThe Honorable Sad Saki.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the Times, when he was in the States, during the war, he would tour the internment camps and speak to the detainees about service and patriotism, you know despite where they found themselves.<\/p>\n

Kuroki earned three Distinguished Fly Crosses, the Distinguished Service Medal and six Air Medals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the New York Times comes the sad news that Ben Kuroki, the only aircrew member … Ben Kuroki passes<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blue-skies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/61733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}