Seven Japanese American soldiers who were branded “enemy aliens” after Pearl Harbor were promoted to officer rank posthumously on Monday in Honolulu, more than 80 years after they died fighting for the United States in World War II. The men had been University of Hawaii ROTC cadets barred from military service following Japan’s attack on December 7, 1941, before joining the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which became one of the most decorated units in U.S. military history.
The ceremony honoring Daniel Betsui, Jenhatsu Chinen, Robert Murata, Grover Nagaji, Akio Nishikawa, Hiroichi Tomita and Howard Urabe occurred amid scrutiny of the Trump administration’s approach to historical commemorations, following removals of exhibits documenting contributions by minority groups and women to American history.
Cadets Transformed Into Officers
The ceremony marked the culmination of a decades-long effort to formally recognize what the soldiers would have become had they not been stripped of the opportunity to complete their military training. White flower lei adorned framed photographs of the seven men at the rain-soaked Honolulu memorial park where family members watched in silence as officers rendered salutes.
“It is important for us to really kind of give back and recognize our forefathers and these veterans that we stand on the shoulders of,” said 1st Sgt. Nakoa Hoe of what the 100th Battalion, 442nd Regiment is now known as in the Army Reserve. The unit, once segregated by race, now includes servicemembers from across the country and backgrounds.
The Path to War
When Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, the seven men were on the cusp of commissioning. The cadets at the University of Hawaii belonged to the Reserve Officer Training Corps and were prepared to serve as officers in the U.S. Army. The attack changed everything.
In the days that followed, the War Department reversed course on its prior commitment to the young soldiers. Most Japanese Americans were barred from military service outright. The government declared them security risks and branded them enemy aliens, regardless of where they were born or what they had sworn to do.
The seven cadets, American citizens all born in Hawaii after its annexation in 1898, were reassigned to the Hawaii Territorial Guard alongside other Japanese Americans deemed too risky for combat roles. When that assignment was deemed insufficient by military authorities, they were transferred again — this time to a civilian labor battalion, the Varsity Victory Volunteers.
The work was deliberate demotion. The soldiers dug ditches. They broke rocks. They performed manual labor while their nation fought a global war and their original ambitions lay in the dust of discriminatory policy.
“They sacrificed so much at a challenging time when their loyalty to their country was questioned and they even had family members imprisoned,” Hoe said, referencing the Japanese American internment camps where the soldiers’ own relatives were detained even as the soldiers prepared for combat.
Redemption in Delayed Recognition
In early 1943, the military announced a significant shift. A segregated Japanese American regiment would be formed. The seven soldiers joined what became the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
They would not serve long. Daniel Betsui, Jenhatsu Chinen, Robert Murata, Grover Nagaji, Akio Nishikawa, Hiroichi Tomita and Howard Urabe all died in combat in 1944. Six were killed in Italy during the Allied campaign to liberate the country from Nazi occupation. Murata died when an artillery shell struck his position in eastern France.
The 442nd, along with the 100th Battalion comprised primarily of Japanese Americans from Hawaii, would go on to become one of the most decorated units in U.S. military history. The soldiers who died never lived to see that recognition, and for decades their sacrifices remained overshadowed by the discrimination that had preceded their service.
Todd Murata, 65, Robert Murata’s nephew, grew up hearing stories of his uncle’s volunteerism in the face of doubt. “It’s an honor to be related to one of those people, those men, who volunteered for service,” he said Monday, standing near his uncle’s photograph. “After all these years, people still remember them.”
June Harada, Howard Urabe’s niece, spoke of what recognition meant to her family’s sense of identity and place in American history. “Growing up, even though I wasn’t belittled for my race, there wasn’t a lot of pride,” she said. “It’s nice to have our uncle recognized for this huge sacrifice that he made.”
A Question of When and Why
The commissioning effort itself began in 2023 during the Biden administration, when Lt. Col. Jerrod Melander, who led the University of Hawaii’s ROTC program as professor of military science, decided to pursue what the young men never had the chance to complete. The military approved the posthumous promotions to 2nd lieutenant — the rank they would have held had they finished their training — during the Trump administration.
The timing has drawn notice in a broader moment of national reckoning about how history is preserved. The Trump administration has faced criticism for removing historical exhibits about slavery and civil rights from federal sites, including an exhibit at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park. Last year, the Pentagon acknowledged that internet pages honoring a Black Medal of Honor recipient and Japanese American service members were mistakenly taken down, though it defended a broader campaign to strip content documenting the contributions of women and minority groups to American military history.
Lt. Col. Melander said the commissioning was not about diversity initiatives but about merit. “They served in the ultimate capacity of giving their lives for the country,” he said.
The University of Hawaii had taken its own step toward recognition in 2012, awarding the seven soldiers posthumous degrees nearly 70 years after the circumstances that prevented them from completing their educations.