Ep. 10 - Minorities in World War II

The African Americans who served on the USS Mason destroyer had already endured 90 mph winds and 60 foot waves that split the Mason's deck as they shepherded convoys to safety in the Atlantic when their beloved Captain Blackford was replaced with a racist captain who claimed the African Americans sailors he led smelled, couldn’t swim, and were hard to educate .  1st Lieutenant Vernon Baker, also an African American, destroyed six machine gun nests, two observer posts and four dugouts at Castle Aghinolfi in Italy only to see Captain Runyon, his white commanding officer who abandoned the firefight, receive the Silver Star.  An illegal immigrant to the US, Jose Lopez, a Mexican American, saved his company at the Battle of the Bulge by single handedly taking out over 100 German soldiers with his machine gun fire.  Iva Ikuko Toguri, a Japanese-American who had the misfortunate of being in Japan when the war broke out, found herself nicknamed Tokyo Rose and accused of being a traitor even as she tried her best to help the American POWs and fighting force anyway she could behind enemy lines.  Ira Hayes, a Native American, raised the American flag at Iwo Jima, but afterwards could not dispel the terrible combat memories that haunted him when he got home.  Hattie Brantley joined the Army Nurse Corps to see the world, but was instead imprisoned under the harshest conditions in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in the Philippines for almost the duration of the war.  Their stories and more in this 10th podcast of Always Remember – WW 2 Through Veterans Eyes.

James Graham

Lorenzo Dufau (left) and James Graham (right)

Medal of Honor recipient Vernon Baker

Vernon Baker later years

Medal of Honor recipient Jose M. Lopez

Iva Ikuko Toguri

Ira Hayes

Hattie Brantley in the Philippines

Hattie Brantley's tombstone