| Exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution of artifacts from military service of Technician 4th Class Yeiichi “Kelly” Kuwayama (June 1, 1918 – June 29, 2014). The display includes his M1 helmet, pierced by shrapnel that caused a head wound, his medical bag, his Silver Star, Italian Croce al Merito di Guerra (“War Merit Cross”), and Purple Heart. His medic’s armband is in the lower right. Kuwayama was born in New York City. His parents, Senzo (April 24, 1876 – January 1965) and Kuma Kuwayama (1892 – May 22, 1962), immigrated to the United States from Japan. Senzo was an entrepreneur who owned, at various times, an employment agency, a Japanese restaurant, and a grocery and art supply store. The couple saved enough money to send their 4 children to college. Kuwayama’s father was an entrepreneur, but he didn’t have much business after Pearl Harbor. “People would yell insults at him and wouldn’t spend any money in his business,” he noted. His father came to America aboard a freighter in 1890, landed in San Francisco and later made it to New York City on another freighter. “He didn’t have much money,” Kuwayama noted. “My father told me he got his first piece of bread in America out of a garbage can. He wasn’t much of a cook, but a mission helped him get a job as a cook for J. Walter Thompson (October 28, 1847 – October 16, 1928), a pioneer in the advertising industry. Thompson’s advertising agency was the first to develop artwork, photographs, recipes, color pictures and copy for clients.” Kuwayama said a maid noticed that his father didn’t cook well, but, with her help and a cookbook, he learned. The elder Kuwayama saved his money and later started an employment agency for cooks, butlers, drivers and gardeners. He opened an American-style restaurant, invested in the stock market and made a fortune. He returned to Japan to get married and found his stock fortune wiped out when he came back to the United States. He then added a Japanese restaurant to make ends meet. “My mother didn’t want to work in a restaurant, so my father bought a Japanese grocery and art goods store,” Kuwayama said. His father earned enough money to send his children to college. Kuwayama was 1 of the 1st Japanese Americans to attend Princeton University. He graduated from Princeton in 1940. He was working at the Japanese Chamber of Commerce when his draft notice arrived. “When I was drafted, many of my tent mates were lawyers, engineers and other college graduates,” said Kuwayama. “An eighteen-year-old National Guard corporal took us out for exercise every morning,” he recalled. “At that time, we had two meals a day and we wore mostly World War I remnants — wrap-around leggings, wool overseas hats — and used World War I equipment.” Even though Japanese Americans were not allowed to enlist in the military after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Kuwayama remained in the United States Army because he had been drafted before the new rule was enacted. Kuwayama was drafted in January 1941. He was assigned to the 248th Coast Artillery defending New York Harbor. He had just begun training as an artilleryman on 16-inch (406 millimeter) guns when a general asked his name and had him reassigned. The general came around for an inspection, looked at Kuwayama and asked, “What’s your name, private?” “Kuwayama, sir,” the young soldier responded. And that was the end of his artillery career. The next day, he became a purchasing clerk in an ordnance battalion. “When the general found out my name was Kuwayama — a Japanese name — they got me out of New York and the New York Harbor defense,” he said. “After that, they wouldn’t send me for officer’s training or any other school. I got my sergeant stripes before Pearl Harbor. And even though I spent a lot of time in combat, was wounded and received the Silver Star, I never got promoted again.” “I asked to be sent to training at Walter Reed Hospital,” he recalled in 2005. “Strangely, they didn’t send me. I also applied to the ninety-day officer [candidate school], since I was a college graduate. They didn’t send me there, either.” But he did get a name change. 1st Sergeant [????] Tenney [???? – ????] of the 66th Ordnance Battalion couldn’t pronounce Kuwayama, so he said, ‘I’m going to change your name. Do you have any preferences?” “I said, no,” Kuwayama recalled. “Do you mind if I chose one,” the 1st sergeant asked. “No, not at all,” Kuwayama responded. “How about Kelly?” the 1st sergeant asked. “Well, that’s fine,” Kuwayama answered. “From now on, you’re Kelly,” the first sergeant said. “And anytime I say Kelly, you say, ‘Here, Sir!’” From then on, whenever Kuwayama met new people, he told them his name was “Kelly.” “I got tired of having to spell my name for people,” said Kuwayama. “It’s easier for everybody to call me ‘Kelly.’” Kuwayama served as a clerk and a hospital orderly, a surgical technician, and a medic, despite having no formal medical training. While Kuwayama was serving at Fort Ethan Allen in Vermont, Chaplain Masao Yamada (April 10, 1907 – May 7, 1984) approached him about serving with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. He volunteered and was sent for training at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, in 1943. The regiment, composed of Japanese Americans, was activated on February 1, 1943. The unit was deployed to Europe in May 1944, and fought in some of the fiercest World War II battles in Italy and France. In 2000, Kuwayama recalled, “My main duty of to answer the call for help “medic.” I would pick up my Red Cross flag which I kept furled. I also did not wear the Red Cross on my helmet since that would give our position away. I was a platoon medic. I would then go out in no man’s land and administer to the wounded. My Principal job was to stop the bleeding, by tourniquet or pressure. Put sulfur in the wound and get a litter bearer or push or pull the wounded to a safe areas from mortar fire, et cetera, and go on to the next man. The 442nd was in constant combat in Italy to take 1 hill or mountain after another.” “The strange thing was, I was assigned as a surgical technician, but I was never sent to a surgical tech school,” Kuwayama said. “They sent about ten guys to me from Fort Devens, Massachusetts, every thirty days for me to teach them operating room techniques. I’d read a chapter of a manual at night and spew it out to those guys the next day. There I was, teaching them while I was teaching myself.” “I saw more Japanese Americans than I’d ever seen in my life, mostly from Hawaii,” he said. “There were about ten thousand volunteers from Hawaii, but they only took about three thousand. Most of the rest came from the internment camps in Oregon, Utah, Arizona, Washington and California. The government called them relocation camps, but the people in them called them concentration camps.” Following a short stay in a Battalion Aid Station, Kuwayama was assigned to a rifle company as a medic shortly before the 442nd was sent overseas. “The 442nd landed in May 1944 at Naples, Italy, and went into the lines right above Rome,” Kuwayama said. “The Hundredth Infantry Battalion, mostly Japanese American National Guardsmen from Hawaii, had been there about a year before we arrived. They’d suffered tremendous casualties fighting in Cassino and Anzio.” The 100th, the 1st all-Japanese American combat unit, led by white officers, merged with the 442nd. “But they wanted to retain their name since they’d spent a year in combat and had established a great record,” Kuwayama said. “So they retained the name of the Hundredth, even though they were our first battalion. I was with E Company of the Second Battalion.” The 442nd fought up the mountainous boot of Italy, Kuwayama said. “The Germans used machine guns and mortars to pin us down, but we’d take one hill after another and climb up the boot,” he noted. “We were then assigned to Southern France after the Normandy invasion.” Kuwayama’s most harrowing experience came when the 442nd was assigned to rescue “The Lost Battalion” — the 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry Regiment, 36th Division, a Texas National Guard unit. The 442nd broke through the Nazi German entrapment in 5 days. Kuwayama himself was wounded during the grueling battle near Biffontaine, France, on October 29, 1944, but soon rejoined the 442nd. The 442nd rescued 211 survivors in 3 days at a cost of about 800 dead and wounded. “We rescued them, but we had tremendous casualties,” Kuwayama said. “We were just about blown apart on the final assault.” Kuwayama said he was hit in the head by shrapnel while he was trying to rescue a wounded comrade. After 2 weeks in the hospital, he returned to the 442nd, which had been transferred in the meantime to the Maritime Alps between France and Italy. His Silver Star citation [at bottom] states Kuwayama crawled across open ground swept by enemy fire, took the shrapnel wound and, though partially blinded by his own blood, reached his fallen comrade and calmly administered first aid. He then dragged the man to safety through a hail of mortar and machine gun fire. Kuwayama said his worst combat experiences were the nights, when replacements arrived. “I would shake the hands of the guys coming in knowing that by the next day I might be picking them up dead,” he said. “They were replacing our men who had been hit that day. I knew these guys were scared. They were also very anxious not to let the unit down. When you’re advancing on the line, the guy in the front is going to be picked off. They were so anxious they were raring to be the first to go and would be the first to get killed. It was tough to meet these guys.” “When I looked at them and their eyeballs didn’t move, I knew they were dead. That was tough,” Kuwayama said. But there were good times, too. “The Italians were very friendly,” Kuwayama said. “They didn’t have much food, but they’d invite us to family dinner to share what they had. You’d sit with the farmer and his family. They’d just have 1 big pot, usually a stew with meat, potatoes and vegetables. The man of the house would scoop out stuff, put it on a plate and pass it around. Then he’d peel off a piece of bread for everyone. “To be able to eat with a family was a big deal,” Kuwayama said. “All we got every night was K rations, which were canned eggs and three crackers, canned cheese and three crackers, or Spam, some kind of luncheon meat, and three crackers. There would also be little packages of powdered orange juice, soup or coffee. Being in a rifle company, you’d only get a hot meal maybe once a week most of the time under the best conditions.” Kuwayama’s valor earned him recognition. He was awarded a Silver Star for gallantry during the 442nd’s harrowing rescue of the “Lost Battalion.” When German snipers targeted unarmed Nisei medics with Red Cross insignia conspicuously painted on their helmets, Kuwayama’s comrades decided to retaliate. Kuwayama told the men that shooting any unarmed medics with the Red Cross insignia violated the Geneva Convention. “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he argued. They listened. He stopped painting the Red Cross on his helmet. Most rifle platoons were in combat, where sleep was in fox holes; to do otherwise would be too dangerous. Bathing was rare; in a so-called stable situation, the men got truck showers, where Kuwayama recalled going in 1 end, taking off his clothes, getting new clothes at the other end. The size of clothing did not matter, and that was it. Showers like this were once a week in stable areas. Otherwise, bathe with a helmet of water in your foxhole. Food was K rations, sometimes C rations. In Italy, in combat situations, which were fairly constant, field kitchens were not available to rifle platoons and entertainment was not available to rifle platoons – mainly you kept alert. In April 1945, Kuwayama applied a tourniquet to the severed arm of 2nd Lieutenant Daniel K. Inouye (September 7, 1924 – December 17, 2012) in Italy’s Po Valley. The future senator credited the medic with saving his life. Kuwayama was awarded several medals, including the Silver Star, the Purple Heart, and the Croce al Merito di Guerra, and was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor. Yet he was never promoted. Wearing his Silver Star Medal on the lapel of his jacket, Kuwayama said he returned home from the war in Europe thinking he’d be sent to Japan to fight, but instead was discharged on July 29, 1945. He was in Times Square when the Japanese surrendered in August 1945. Unable to find a job, Kuwayama used the GI Bill to attend Harvard University Business School and earned a master’s degree in business administration in 1947. He went to work as a statistician for Western Electric Co., but was laid off about 2 years later. “My father had met people from Japan who had offices in New York City before the war,” Kuwayama said. “English was prohibited in Japan during the war, so they didn’t have anybody who could handle the English language. They offered me a job as a ‘local hire,’ which meant you couldn’t be promoted above a certain level.” In order to be promoted, he would have to work in the head office in Japan and be assigned to the United States. The salary would be 18 dollars per month, the same as employees earned in Japan at a particular rank and class group. The going rate in American companies then was a 100 dollars per month. Kuwayama agreed to work in Japan for a year, which he termed a “rather interesting experience.” Since Japan was occupied, and he was hired as Japanese, he couldn’t visit the American sector. He lived with a Japanese company official. “They usually ate rice and fish for breakfast, but they gave me ham and eggs and powdered coffee,” he said. “I told them I’d eat the same thing they ate. In the evenings, they used me as an interpreter when they met with Americans and Europeans. They would go to banquets and I’d eat very well. I spent most of my time in Japan writing letters in English to security brokerage houses.” Kuwayama was promoted to management and reassigned to the United States. After awhile, he realized continued employment might mean returning to Japan. “I decided to leave and got a job with the Commerce Department’s Office of Foreign Direct Investments,” he said. “When that program came to an end, I was hired by the Securities and Exchange Commission as an economist.” Kuwayama retired in 1987 and lives in the nation’s capital with his wife, Fumiko, 68, a retired Senate case worker. Today, he divides his time reading, playing golf and working with various organizations, such as the foundation behind the Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism in Washington. His wife, Fumiko Kuwayama, keeps busy as a volunteer reader to the blind at the Department of Education, gardening, photography and working on her computer. He lived in Washington District of Columbia with his wife, and worked for the United States government until he retired in 1987. Kuwayama gave many interviews about his service and believed it was important to keep the memory of World War II alive. In 2011, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress, for their service. Silver Star Citation: The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star Medal to Yeiichi Kuwayama (32013547), Technician 4th Grade, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action while serving as a Medical Aidman with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, in action near Biffontaine, France, on October 29, 1944. Observing a comrade severely wounded and lying fully exposed to intense hostile fire, Technician 4th Grade Kuwayama, with utter disregard for his own safety, quickly left his sheltered position and crawled toward the injured man. Although he received a shrapnel wound in the head and was partially blinded by his own blood, Technician 4th Grade Kuwayama reached his fallen comrade and calmly administered first aid to his comrade. He then dragged the wounded man to safety through a hail of bursting mortar shells and machine gun fire. Technician 4th Grade Kuwayama’s complete disregard for personal safety, and undaunted bravery exemplify the finest traditions of the Army of the United States. Headquarters, 7th Army, General Orders Number 28 (February 2, 1945). | |
| Image Filename | wwii0651.jpg |
| Image Size | 170.79 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1000 x 1190 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | January 1, 1998 |
| Location | |
| City | Washington |
| State or Province | District of Columbia |
| Country | United States |
| Archive | Smithsonian Institution |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
Author of the World War II Multimedia Database