Bridge to the Sun

Starred review from May 30, 2022
This exceptional history documents the crucial part played by Japanese American soldiers and interpreters in the Pacific theater of WWII. According to historian Henderson (Sons and Soldiers), the training and deployment of first-generation Japanese Americans, or Nisei, was one of the best kept secrets of the war. Many were recruited from internment camps, where their families had been sent by President Roosevelt’s controversial executive order. The highest-prized recruits were those, like Purple Heart recipient Kazuo Komoto, who had returned to the U.S. after being sent to Japan by their families for schooling. Henderson notes that the program was strictly classified because Japanese war planners, believing their language “so complex that few Westerners would fully understand it,” sent many communications uncoded, giving U.S. forces a crucial advantage. Throughout, Henderson enriches his sweeping overview of the Pacific campaign with intimate profiles of Tom Sakamoto, one of only three Japanese Americans to witness Japan’s 1945 surrender aboard the USS Missouri, and other Nisei soldiers who made vital contributions to American victories at Iwo Jima, Leyte, and elsewhere. The result is a stirring tribute to the courage and sacrifice of young men who exemplified “the true definition of patriotism.”