Diversity in MI - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

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a large force of the enemy. He was fatally hit and wentdown. His Silver Star citation says, “After being hit andwhile lying helpless on the ground, he fired a completemagazine from his pistol at the enemy, driving them up theravine. Hachiya’s actions were an inspiration to the entirecommand.” Hachiya was credited with providing vitalinformation that helped to save American lives before hisdeath. A building at the Defense Language Institute, Presidioof Monterey, was named in his honor.On 29 June 1945, Sgt. George Nakamura wastrying to convince a group of enemy soldiers to surrenderwhen he was shot and killed near Payawan, Luzon, in thePhilippine Islands. He was awarded the Silver Star for hiscourage.Ssgt. Kozaki, Kazuo was assigned to the AlliedTranslation and Interpretor Service in the Southwest PacificTheater, where he fought with the Australian 9th Division atLae, and earned the Purple Heart and Silver Star in October1943.Ssgt. Bob Kubo, another linguist during World WarII in the Pacific, earned the Distinguished Service Cross onSaipan by crawling unarmed into a cave and convincingdesperate Japanese soldiers to free more than 100 civilianhostages.Lt. Col. Gero Iwai had a long and distinguishedcareer in military intelligence, both as an enlisted member anda commissioned officer from 1931 to 1957. From 1931 untilWorld War II broke out, he monitored possible Japaneseespionage activities in Hawaii. Shortly after the Japaneseattacked Pearl Harbor, Iwai assisted in the interrogation of thefirst Japanese enemy prisoner captured in the war. Heconducted this questioning with a fellow Nisei Navy officerand agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Theprisoner, commander of a Japanese midget submarine,provided significant information about a map found aboard thesubmarine. Iwai analyzed and interpreted that information.For his performance as a special agent and his superiortranslation skills, he received his first Bronze Star medal.After the war, Iwai continued to engage in highly sensitiveintelligence operations. He focused his intelligence coverageon the Communist threat against U.S. military installations andpersonnel in Hawaii. Later assigned to Tokyo, he used hisconsiderable talents as a liaison between his counterintelligenceorganization and elements of the Japanese Government. Iwairetired from military service in 1957. The MI Corpsrecognized him for his pioneering intelligence work before andduring World War II and he was inducted into the MI Hall ofFame.For 44 years, Hisashi J. Masuda pursued humanintelligence and counterintelligence duties, first as a Japaneselinguist in the Military Intelligence Service during World WarII, and then as intercept operator with the Australian BroadcastingCommission. While at ABC, he was one of those tofirst report the 1945 resignation of the Japanese government.He became a key cog in the workings of the 500th MIGroup’s Foreign Liaison Detachment for over 30 years untilhis civilian retirement in 1986.Sgt. Roy Matsumoto’s honor had been insultedwhen he and his family were interned in the Jerome ArkansasRelocation Center at the beginning of the war. To prove hispatriotism, he volunteered for service in the U.S. Army and,because of his bilingual abilities, was sent for intelligencetraining at the language school at Camp Savage, Minnesota.He was one of a fourteen-man team assigned asintelligence liaison with the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional),also known as Merrill’s Marauders. There were twomen assigned to each combat team. While his unit was deepinto Japanese-held territory, a single telephone cable wasspotted high in the jungle canopy. It turned out to be the onlyline of communications between Japanese headquarters and itsfront line units. Matsumoto did not have any wiretappingequipment, so he borrowed the only telephone handset in thebattalion belong to the Heavy Weapons Platoon, unscrewedthe mouthpiece so that he could not be heard, and improvisedhis own wire tap high in a tree. That he was able tounderstand the Kyushu dialect being spoken was the result ofa coincidence of his youth when he got a job in a producemarket and became intent on imitating the dialect of theKyushu islanders that worked there. The other JapaneseAmerican with the unit did not understand the dialect, so itbecame Matsumoto’s unenviable task to sit up in that tree for14 hour stretches.It was worth it. The information he intercepted wasinvaluable. Ammunition, so precious a commodity when ithas to be shouldered up a treacherous jungle trail, wassecreted by the Japanese in the dense undergrowth. Theintelligence sergeant learned its location and the Maraudersblew it up. When the Americans were to come under attack,Matsumoto gave them advance notice and the time to set atrap for the attackers. His contributions were no meanslimited to this incident of communications intelligence. Hisrepeated penetrations of Japanese lines and dramatic heroicslater earned for him the Legion of Merit from Gen. JoeStilwell and a Bronze Star for valor. But were it not for hisimaginative wire tap, his entire company could have beenwiped out and the course of the war in that theater altered.The Allied Translator and Interpreter Section usedas many as 2,000 American Nisei soldiers to provideinterrogation and translation services from headquarters leveldown to the front lines. During the war the ATIS languageteams translated 350,000 captured documents and debriefed10,000 prisoners. The unit’s duties carried over into thepostwar disarming of Japan and her colonies. The sectionwas headed by Colonel Sidney F. Mashbir, himself a studentof Japanese and former undercover agent in Tokyo. Thework of the nisei soldier continued after the war, with counterintelligence and translation support provided by the 441st CICDetachment, made up of mostly Japanese-American agents.They helped to apprehend war criminals and subversiveelements for Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander,Allied Powers.The Japanese-American was not the only Asiangroup to earn distinction in the diverse U.S. Army. Chineseand Filipino Americans also stepped up to accept the challengeof wartime. A 1936 graduate of Stanford University, ChanWon Loy was commissioned a second lieutenant of FieldArtillery in the Army Reserve. Shortly after Pearl Harbor hewas ordered to active duty and attended the Military IntelligenceService Language School. He spent the war in theChina-Burma-India theater in a number of G2 jobs. After the
war he served on the War Department General Staff, MilitaryIntelligence Division, with the Office of Naval Intelligence,and finally with the Central Intelligence Group. He retired in1968 as a colonel. He published his reminiscences in Burmain 1986 as Burma: The Untold Story.Master Sergeant Lorenzo Alvarado began hisintelligence career in World War I, acting as a CounterIntelligence Police agent in his native Philippines to guardagainst German espionage and sabotage activities. WhenWorld War II began, he stayed behind, at great risk to hispersonal safety, to gather intelligence for the U.S. Army.The 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, made up of thefamed Filipino Scouts, were the first allied forces ashore inthe Philippines in October 1944 to gather intelligence for theallied landing in the Leyte Gulf.The celebrated achievements of Americans sharingAsian-Pacific heritage bulked large during World War II whenU.S. Army operations centered in that part of the world, butthe tradition continued through the Korean War, Vietnam, andthe 1991 Gulf War. There were 151 honorees in the MilitaryIntelligence Hall of Fame in 1997. Of these, ten, or sevenpercent, were of Asian-Pacific heritage, a remarkable numberthat reflected the outsized contributions of a dedicated groupof soldiers and civilians.Hispanic-Americans in Military IntelligenceHispanic contributions to the U.S. Army date backto the first appearance of the U.S. Army on the westernfrontier when residents of New Mexico and Texas acted asscouts and interpreters for the reconnaissance parties of theU.S. Army Topographical Corps. New Mexico militia playeda key role in the Indian Wars. During the Civil War thegovernment authorized a four-company strong battalion to beraised made up of Mexican-American Californians. The FirstBattalion of Native Cavalry had a strength of 469 and wascommanded by Major Salvador Vallejo. They served in NewMexico, helping to turn back the Confederate invasion there.Private David B. Barkeley from Laredo, Texas, became thefirst Hispanic to win the Medal of Honor when he volunteeredfor an intelligence mission to scout out the enemypositions opposite the Meuse River on 9 November 1918.He drowned while making the return swim.For anyone glancing over the roster of stalwarts inthe Military Intelligence Hall of Fame, it soon becomesapparent that Hispanic Americans have figured prominently inthe achievements of U.S. Army intelligence over the pastcentury. By the time you have scanned the first four letters ofthe alphabet, you will have a good number of examples,beginning with Msgt. Lorenzo Alvarado, for whom AlvaradoHall at the Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca is named.Alvarado’s career began back in World War I when,as an agent of the Counter Intelligence Police, he worked inhis native Philippines to uncover German espionage andsabotage activities. Twenty-four years later, at the outbreakof World War II, he acted as a “stay-behind” agent, one ofthe more dangerous jobs of military intelligence, spying on theJapanese occupation force in the Philippines.The second Hispanic-American to come to ourattention is also no stranger to risk. Msgt. Roy P. Benavidezwears the nation’s highest award around his neck, joining 34other Hispanics who have earned the Medal of Honor sinceWorld War II. It was in Vietnam that Benavidez demonstratedhis heroism. He was off-duty back at the base campon 2 May 1968 when he heard a radio transmission tellinghim that a 12-man recon team of his Special Forces comradeswas in big trouble. They were surrounded and near beingoverwhelmed by a numerically superior enemy force.Determined to get them out, Benavidez boarded a rescuehelicopter and sped to the scene. The rescue force cameunder immediate fire and he had to race 75 meters under aheavy fire to reach the beleagured team. By the time he got tothem, he was wounded three times. Over the next eighthours he manned the perimeter, called in air strikes, andtended to the wounded. He also had the presence of mind todestroy classified equipment or get it ready to be evacuated.When the evac choppers did arrive, he helped load thewounded men. The pilot of the first helicopter was shot andkilled, causing the ship to crash. Benavidez had to rescue theoccupants from the burning wreck. It was while he wascarrying men to the rescue ships that he was jumped frombehind and wounded before he was able to kill his attacker inhand-to-hand fighting. He put down a covering fire, killingtwo Viet Cong that were right on top of them. It was onlyafter loading all of the men, including the dead, that hehimself climbed on board and flew to safety.Lt. Col. Mercedes O. Cubria was born inGuantanamo, Cuba, in 1903. Emigrating to the U.S. at theage of 13, she joined the Women’s Army Corps in 1943,soon earning a commission and being shipped to England forcryptography training. She served as a security for the 385thSignal Company, and then for the 322d Signal Companyduring the war. As a captain, she was assigned to the U.S.Army Caribbean, Quarry Heights, Panama Canal Zone,becoming the first woman to serve in this theater. She wasmedically discharged in 1953 and awarded the Bronze Star formeritorious achievement in ground operations against theenemy. During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, she wascalled out of retirement to undertake sensitive work debriefingCuban refugees and defectors. In her spare time, she helpedthe Cuban refugees find jobs, places to live, and education.Her efforts won her distinction, the award of the Legion ofMerit, and added significantly to the intelligence beingcollected by the Army and the Central Intelligence Agency.She retired a second time in 1973 and was awarded a secondLegion of Merit. She died in 1980.When the American participation in World War Ibegan, General John J. Pershing’s G2, Brig. Gen. DennisNolan, recognized the need for a counterintelligence forcewithin the American Expeditionary Force. He asked Col.Ralph Van Deman back in Washington to provide him with50 noncommissioned officers familiar with Europeanlanguages and methods of investigation. This was the birthof the Corps of Intelligence Police which would later evolveinto the Counter Intelligence Corps. One of its number in1918 was a sergeant named Peter dePasqua. Born inPortugal, his Spanish-speaking abilities made it possible forhim to penetrate a German-run subversive group made up ofSpanish war workers in the city of Beaune, an importantAmerican logistics center. Pretending to share their anti-
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Diversity in MI - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

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