The B-24 in China: General Chennault's Secret Weapon in WWII -- Stackpole Military History Series Book

A compilation of letters from WWII, written by Min Masuda, a medic with the storied 442nd, the Japanese-American combat team, from the war in Italy and France, to his young wife left behind in an American relocation camp. This compilation was supplemented and edited by his wife, after his death, but unfinished at the time of her death. The University of Washington archivist responsible for Masuda's papers--he became a UW professor of psychiatry--completed this compilation after she retired. The book is a treasure of personal observations and concerns, letters that focus on descriptions of day-to-day life, not the war, and reflect the intelligence, humanity, and extraordinary grace of the correspondents. Dr. Masuda, like all the other soldiers in the 442nd, volunteered from the isolated relocation camps in the West to fight for the US governent that interned them and their families--and although there were political and economic reasons for internment, this was about race and racism. The volunteers from Hawaii, members of the 100th battalion, did not face this conflict because most did personally experience internment. (Disclosure: My mother is second-generation Japanese-American and was interned during the war. My father is seond-generation Korean-American from Hawaii and was deployed in Hawaii and the Pacific in WWII with his National Guard unit.)