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As a
lone Nisei in the Army Air Corps, Kuroki flew over the oil fields of
Ploesti, Rumania, where one thousand men were lost.
Kuroki watched friends and colleagues fall from the sky in
flames. Ben Kuroki came home, the first Nisei war hero. Sent to California where airmen rested before reassignment, he feared walking the streets, even in uniform. Every Japanese-American had been removed from the West Coast. Kuroki joined activists fighting the discrimination and spoke at the Commonwealth Club, an influential group of government, academic and business leaders in northern California. The roomful of cynical business and government leaders stood and cheered, tears running down many faces. University of California-Berkeley Vice President Monroe Deutsch said Kuroki’s speech marked the turning point for acceptance of the Nisei back to California after the war.
Kuroki returned to war, this time in the Pacific. His fellow crewmembers feared for Kuroki’s life on Tinian Island. They feared the U.S. Marines could mistake Kuroki for the Japanese enemy. Ben finished the war with 28 more missions in a B-29 Superfortress bomber based in the South Pacific.
Most Honorable Son explains the racist social climate Japanese-Americans faced during the war and tells how Ben Kuroki helped in the fight for racial equality. Please visit the official "Most Honorable Son" site at pbs.org Most Honorable Son is a KDN Films Production: kdnfilms.com
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