It's doubtful anyone can find a copy of this book any more, given its age (I found a copy at a book sale), but if one can, it's a good and quick read.
Boy from Nebraska: The Story of Ben Kuroki (Ralph Martin, 1946, Harper & Brothers) is about the only American of Japanese derivation who served in both theatres of the second world war, the Atlantic and the Pacific, as a tail-gunner in the U.S. Army Air Force.
Incredibly, Ben Kuroki, born in 1917, is still alive.
There were of course many Americans of Japanese derivation who served during the second world war, but other than Ben Kuroki, they served exclusively in Europe, never in the Pacific.
The book gives a short glimpse into a Nebraska that no longer exists; a significant community of Japanese who truck-farmed alongside the Platte River during the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. They are there only in cemeteries now; I have no idea why they diminished, and then evaporated.
Americans of Japanese derivation then residing in Nebraska were not subject to the same indignities imposed upon others on the western coast by liberal Democrat politicians after the attack on Pearl Harbor; they were not rounded up and carried away, their properties were not taken, their children continued on the honor rolls in local schools, and they continued to be accepted as.....Nebraskans, Americans.
There is a great deal that could be said for the wide open prairies.
However, once Ben Kuroki and his brother joined the U.S. Army, jampacked in close quarters with other Americans from less better-endowed parts of the country, they did experience bigotry, especially from natives of urban blue states.
Much of the book is about bombing runs and aerial raids, with some humor and pathos inserted here and there; apparently the Arabs and Spaniards could never figure out what to make of this American.
England, North Africa, Italy, and then the Pacific (the usual thing was to "retire" people out of the air force after 25 missions--if one survived that long--but Ben Kuroki flew in 31, and probably would have flown in more, but the war ended).
It's a great book about a most remarkable man.
