Military Intelligence Service (United States)

The inaugural MISLS class at the Presidio of San Francisco in 1942

The MISLS (initially known as the Fourth Army Intelligence School) began operation with an initial budget of $2,000 and scrounged together textbooks and supplies in November 1941, about a month before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The first class of 60 students begin their training at the Presidio in San Francisco, graduating 45 students in May 1942.[2][5][6]

Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, some 5,000 Nisei were serving in the US military in various capacities, often assigned to menial tasks and labor units despite their qualifications. John Aiso had been drafted in 1940 and assigned to a motor pool even though at the time, he was already a well respected Harvard Law School educated attorney working with a white-shoe firm in international law.

Following Pearl Harbor, most of the Nisei were summarily discharged or placed under constant surveillance. For the officers in charge of the school and their Nisei students, the outbreak of war prompted their studies to intensify to prove their loyalty. Military Security officers questioned the loyalty of the Nisei students, removing some due to suspicion, and prompting Weckerling and Rasmussen to recognize that frontline commanders would have difficulty entrusting the Nisei soldiers with sensitive documents, and sought to find Caucasian officers with Japanese proficiency to serve as team leaders. Eighteen National Guard and Reserve officers drifted through the class, most failing due to limited comprehension ability and the complexity of the Japanese written language. Two men, however, graduated with the first group, Captain David Swift and Captain John Burden, both born in Japan as the sons of missionaries, and even spoke the Tokyo dialect better than some of the Nisei students.[1]

Anti-Japanese sentiment pushed President Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 9066, forcing the removal of anyone with as little as 1/16th Japanese ancestry from West Coast of the United States. By March 1942, the Military Intelligence Division (MID) was being reorganized as the Military Intelligence Service (MIS). It was tasked with collecting, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence, and absorbed the Fourth Army Intelligence School. Originally comprising just 26 people, 16 of them officers, the MID was quickly expanded to include 342 officers and 1,000 enlisted men and civilians. Minnesota's Governor Harold Stassen offered up Camp Savage, a former Works Progress Administration facility (WPA) to host the MIS Language School. The school moved to Minnesota in June 1942, offering larger facilities without the complications of training Japanese-American students in the coastal areas they were prohibited from, and faced less anti-Japanese prejudice.[4][7] In 1944 the school outgrew Camp Savage and was moved to Fort Snelling. There it continued to grow, occupying 120 classrooms staffed by 60 odd instructors. Over 6000 would graduate from the WWII language program.

In Hawaii, the pre-war Corps of Intelligence Police (CIP) detachment grew from a 4 man staff to 12 officers and 18 special agents as the (CIP) was reorganized as the Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) within the reorganized MIS.

In March 1941, CIC agent Major Jack Gilbert recruited two former students from his previous position as military advisor at McKinley High School in Honolulu, Richard Sakakida and Arthur Komori, as Japanese sailors who jumped ship in the Philippines to avoid the draft. Living amongst the Japanese community in Manila, they spied on Japanese interests and reported to the local CIP detachment of any hostile intentions discovered.

Sakakida would eventually be captured and tortured by the Japanese following the fall of Corregidor, and help lead an escape of 500 Philippine guerrillas held at Mantinlupa Prison.[8][9]

MIS interogators Phil Ishio and Arthur Ushiro question a prisoner taken in the Buna campaign

As the first MISLS class completed its training in May 1942, its students were immediately sent to the frontlines, participating in Guadalcanal to interrogate the first captured Japanese pilot.[10] At first, commanders were skeptical of the Nisei linguists. The first unit of MIS deployed under the command of Capt John Burden with the 37th Infantry Division to the Solomon Islands campaign. Upon arrival, Burden and his Nisei predictably found themselves assigned to menial tasks translating non-sensitive personal letters far from the front due to the lack of trust. After a chance meeting with Admiral Halsey, Halsey confessed to Burden that his own Caucasian interpreters only had a rudimentary understanding of Japanese and could only decipher the names of the prisoners. Burden convinced Halsey to give him a chance. Burden demonstrated the wealth of information that could be provided by a fully fluent linguist and vouched for the Nisei soldiers in his command to meet the demand. His presence proved to be instrumental in opening the eyes of the American field commanders to the value of the Nisei linguists.[4][11]

MIS servicemen would then be present at every major battle against Japanese forces following Midway, and those who served in combat faced extremely dangerous and difficult conditions, facing prejudice from soldiers who believed they couldn't be trusted, sometimes coming under friendly fire from U.S. soldiers unable to distinguish them from the Japanese, and even dealing with the psychological conflict of encountering former friends and family on the battlefield.[1]

A major MIS contribution in the Solomons campaign was the ambush of Isoroku Yamamoto in April 1943. MIS soldier Harold Fudenna intercepted a radio message indicating the whereabouts of Admiral Yamamoto, which led to P-38 Lightning fighter planes shooting down his plane over the Solomon Islands. Although this message was first met with disbelief that the Japanese would be so careless, other MIS linguists in Alaska and Hawaii had also intercepted the same message, confirming its accuracy.[12] The success of these first few Nisei linguists convinced the War Department to establish more Japanese-American combat units such as the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team deployed to the European Theater.[4]

Brig Gen Frank Merrill, commander of "Merrill's Marauders," poses with Herbert Miyasaki and Akiji Yoshimura.

When Merrill's Marauders were organized to conduct long range penetration special operations jungle warfare deep behind Japanese lines in the China-Burma-India Theater in January 1944, fourteen MIS linguists were assigned to the unit, including future Army Rangers and Military Intelligence Hall of Fame inductee Roy Matsumoto.[10]

The Nisei under Merrill's command proved themselves particularly intrepid and helpful, venturing into the enemy lines and translating audible commands to counter attacks, and shouting conflicting commands to the Japanese, throwing them into confusion. They soon became the best known Nisei in the war against Japan. The War Relocation Authority used their story to impress other Americans with Nisei valor and loyalty, even placing stories in local newspapers as the war waned in 1945, and the WRA prepared to release Japanese-American citizens back into their communities.[1]

Nisei MIS linguists translated Japanese documents known as the "Z Plan" in March–June 1944, which contained Japan's counterattack strategy in the Central Pacific. This information led to Allied victories at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, in which the Japanese lost most of their aircraft carrier planes, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf.[13]

In August 1944, the language school outgrew Camp Savage and moved to Fort Snelling, Minnesota.[14] Many of the MIS Language School graduates during this time were attached to the joint Australian/American Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) as linguists and in other non-combatant roles, interpreting captured enemy documents and interrogating prisoners of war. MIS linguists were also assigned to the Office of War Information to help create propaganda and other psychological warfare campaigns, with the Signal Intelligence Service to decipher Japanese Army codes, and even involved with the Manhattan Project, translating technical documents and scientific papers on nuclear physics. (At the end of the war, MIS linguists had translated 20.5 million pages, 18,000 enemy documents, created 16,000 propaganda leaflets and interrogated over 10,000 Japanese POWs.)[1]

In December 1944, Oregon native Frank Hachiya was tasked with interogating a prisoner captured during the Battle of Leyte. On his way back to his HQ to report the intel gained, he was shot in the abdomen and crawled, bleeding and in agony, through the grass and scrub back to his lines to make his report.[15] Despite the best efforts of the field surgeons, he eventually succumbed to his wounds, but not before passing on the intelligence acquired. The account of his death was widely reported in national news, contrasting sharply with news that the local American Legion post in his hometown of Hood River, Oregon had removed the names of 16 WWI Japanese-Americans veterans from its 'roll of honor' only a month before. Scathing editorials in The Oregonian and The New York Times eventually caused the post to reverse its course, restoring all the names of Nisei servicemen from Hood River to the wall, and adding the name of Frank Hachiya.[16]

Because of the highly classified and secret nature of these missions, knowledge of the work of many MIS soldiers was largely missing during the war and even decades afterwards. The role and activities of the MIS was kept in secrecy for more than 30 years; the few records about its activities were finally made available to the public in 1972 under the Freedom of Information Act, however much still remains unknown today. Consequently, many MIS soldiers did not receive recognition or decorations for their efforts. They became "unsung heroes", unacknowledged for their contributions in wartime as well as postwar activities. ATIS commander Col Sidney Mashbir would write in his memoir, "I Was an American Spy", "The United States of America owes a debt to these men and to their families which it can never fully repay."[17]

An MIS interpreter assists Japanese Lt Gen Tachibana as he prepares to surrender at the Bonin Islands

The first MISLS students came from the army, but later students were also recruited from Japanese internment camps, eventually graduating more than 6,000 students by the end of the occupation. This was aided by the fact that MISLS introduced an condensed 4 month course in July 1945 focusing on just oral language skills to meet the demand for interpreters, instead of the immersive 9 month course focusing on the technical written language of the military for signals intelligence and psyops with strict entrance requirements for acceptance into the school.[1]

Nisei from the MIS parachuted down into Japanese POW prison camps at Hankow, Mukden, Peiping and Hainan as interpreters on mercy missions to liberate American and other Allied prisoners.[18] Arthur T. Morimitsu was the only MIS member in the detachment commanded by Major Richard Irby and 1st Lt. Jeffrey Smith to observe the surrender ceremony of 60,000 Japanese troops under Gen. Shimada.[19] Kan Tagami witnessed Japanese forces surrender to the British in Malaya.[20]

Over 5,000 Japanese Americans served in the occupation of Japan.[21] MIS graduates served as translators, interpreters, and investigators in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Thomas Sakamoto served as press escort during the occupation of Japan. He escorted American correspondents to Hiroshima, and the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Sakamoto was one of three Japanese Americans to be on board the USS Missouri when the Japanese formally surrendered. Arthur S. Komori served as personal interpreter for Brig. Gen. Elliot R. Thorpe. Kay Kitagawa served as personal interpreter of Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr.[1] Kan Tagami served as personal interpreter-aide for General Douglas MacArthur.[20] Journalist Don Caswell was accompanied by a Nisei interpreter to Fuchū Prison, where the Japanese government imprisoned communists Tokuda Kyuichi, Yoshio Shiga, and Shiro Mitamura.[22]

MIS interpreter Ben Oshita questions a witness for the war crimes trials

During the occupation, Nisei members of the MIS addressed issues related to public welfare and the rebuilding of Japanese cities. George Koshi contributed in the creation of the Constitution of Japan, while Raymond Aka and Harry Fukuhara assisted in creating the Japanese National Police Reserve and the subsequent Defense Agency. Koshi, Aka, and Fukuhara would all be awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government for their efforts. The MIS also assisted in the demobilization of Japanese military personnel returning from various overseas posts, and contributed to the arrest and prosecution of Japan's military leaders during war trials that began in December 1945 and lasted until 1948.[23][24]

The Nisei servicemen weren't entirely without controversy, as soldiers with the Civil Censorship Detachment were also responsible for implementing censorship during the Allied occupation of Japan.[25] The Allied occupation forces suppressed news of criminal activities such as rape; on 10 September 1945, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers "issued press and pre-censorship codes outlawing the publication of all reports and statistics 'inimical to the objectives of the Occupation'."[26]

At its peak in early 1946, the MISLS had 160 instructors and 3,000 students studying in more than 125 classrooms. The twenty-first and final commencement at Fort Snelling in June 1946 featured the graduation of 307 students, bringing the total number of MISLS graduates to more than 6,000. What began as an experimental military intelligence language-training program launched on a budget of $2,000 eventually became the forerunner of today's Defense Language Institute for the tens of thousands of linguists who serve American interests throughout the world.[24][27]

In 1946 the school moved to the Presidio of Monterey. Renamed the Army Language School, it expanded rapidly in 1947–48 during the Cold War. Instructors, including native speakers of more than thirty languages and dialects, were recruited from all over the world. Russian became the largest language program, followed by Chinese, Korean, and German.[28]