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Army Restores 442nd Webpage

By March 14, 2025March 21st, 2025No Comments

Move comes after JACL expresses
dismay at erasure of ‘heroic legacy.’

By P.C. Staff

A day after the Japanese American Citizens League called on the Army to restore to its official website pages “honoring the history and accomplishments” of a World War II-era segregated unit comprised mostly of Japanese Americans that fought Axis powers in Europe that had been removed, the Army took steps to do just that.

Logo of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team

On March 15, the Army announced that it had “republished an article that highlights the brave Soldiers who served in the ‘Go-for-Broke’ brigade,” a reference to the 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team.

But the battle to reverse getting “disappeared” from the Army’s website extended beyond just the 442nd, as it was collectively known.

Under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s watch, almost anything with just the appearance of being DEI — aka diversity, equity and inclusion — including references to Navajo Code Talkers, Native American Ira Hayes, Major League Baseball barrier-breaker Jackie Robinson, the Tuskegee Airmen, Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASPs and more went through a similar remove-and-reinstate process. According to news reports, even references to the Enola Gay, the name given by its crew to the B-29 Superfortress that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, was purged. (See tinyurl.com/msjwrbpv.)

Before that reversal, after learning that the webpage about the 442nd had been taken down, the JACL issued a statement that it was “deeply alarmed and disappointed” about the removal of the historic accomplishments of the Army unit comprised mostly of Nisei from the then-territory of Hawaii and the mainland United States, with soldiers from the latter cohort either enlisting or getting drafted while incarcerated at federally operated concentration camps that held ethnic Japanese, most of whom were U.S. citizens who had been forcibly removed from the West Coast.

To date, the 442nd remains the most-highly decorated military unit in American history for size and length of service, having won several Presidential Unit Citations and to its individual members, more than 20 Medals of Honor, and thousands of Purple Hearts, Distinguished Service Crosses, Silver Stars and Bronze Stars earned in combat.

In its statement, JACL said, “The removal of their history from the Army’s website is not just an administrative decision — it is an attempt to erase the legacy of thousands of soldiers who gave everything for a country that doubted them.”

The Pacific Citizen reached out to the Army regarding the changes to its website and received the following statement from Army spokesperson Christopher Surridge: “In accordance with a presidential executive order and guidance from the secretary of Defense, the Army recently took down the Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders Heritage webpage that featured content about the 442nd Infantry Regiment and Nisei Soldiers. The Army is tirelessly working through content on that site and articles related to the 442nd Infantry Regiment and Nisei Soldiers will be republished to better align with current guidance.

The “presidential executive order” was a reference to how, following Trump’s inauguration for his second term as president, he had issued several controversial directives in the form of executive orders. One such directive barred DEI programs from the federal government and military.

Similar to the removal of the history of the 442nd from the Army’s site, the Air Force had also suspended use of materials in its basic training class on the Tuskegee Airmen, which was comprised of African Americans and similarly segregated, as well as the WASPs, both of which served during WWII. Mention of the Tuskegee Airmen and WASPs were later reinstated, but with all DEI references excised.

Hayes, meantime, was a Pima Indian who was immortalized as one of the Marines seen in an iconic, Pulitzer Prize-winning photo raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima. Robinson, who broke the color barrier in professional baseball, also served in the Army during WWII, and the Navajo Code Talkers, who served in the Marine Corps, were trained to communicate using their language which proved to be a “code” unbreakable by Japanese intelligence officers

“There are still many stories available on Army websites that celebrate the bravery of the 442nd Infantry regiment that were not impacted by the Heritage webpage,” according to Surridge’s statement. “The Army remains committed to sharing the stories of our Soldiers, their units, and their sacrifice.”

The Army shared several links to Japanese American soldiers that are still extant. Among them are:

The entirety of the JACL’s original statement may be viewed at tinyurl.com/3p6a2nwk.