Honor by Fire

In the European theater of WWII, the Japanese Americans making up the 442nd Regimental Combat Team were so dependably fierce that, according to General Alfred Greunther, every division in the Fifth Army ``insisted that the 442nd be assigned to it.'' The Nisei (second-generation) soldiers also distinguished themselves in the Pacific. As Crost reveals, their life away from the battlefield was hazardous as well: non-Asian GIs in Europe scorned them as turncoats, while in the Pacific they were in constant danger of being mistaken by Marines for the enemy. While these Japanese Americans were defending the country of their birth, their families languished in concentration camps in the U.S., marked as ``enemy aliens'' after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Crost, who covered the Nisei soldiers throughout the war for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, offers a stirring but saddening account. Illustrations. (Nov.)