Jul 10, 2018
Sandra Vea and Alan Abe
MASAO: A NISEI SOLDIER’S SECRET AND HEROIC ROLE IN WORLD WAR II

E-mail from Oct 29, 2017 with Windward Prez

MASAO: A NISEI SOLDIER’S SECRET AND HEROIC ROLE IN WORLD WAR II.

For 30 years, Masao Abe couldnt speak of his secret and heroic role in the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Service (M.I.S.) during World War II as he fought on the front lines in the South Pacific. Ms. Vea interviewed Masao for 3 years and after his death on August 6, 2013, she continued researching the M.I.S. for the next 2 years.  This book chronicles Mr. Abes life from the time he was born in San Bernardino, California in 1916.  Masao was sent to Japan at the age of 7 and finished high school in Japan.  Shortly after graduation he was sent back to the United States to work at his uncles grocery store but was drafted into the US Army just three months before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.  Eventually, Masao was sent to Camp Savage to the Military Intelligence Service Language School to study Japanese military tactics and interrogation techniques. He was then assigned to the 81st Infantry, 321st Regiment and was sent to the South Pacific where his division was the first wave of US soldiers to land at the Palauan island of Anguar.  The MIS soldiers were embedded in the U.S. Army and worked intelligence, but the American G.I.s didnt really know who they were, so Masao had two body guards to protect him from the Japanese soldiers as well as his fellow American soldiers.