Yuzo

Yuzo

June 19, 2014

Yuzo, the middle child, was born in 1916 at the beginning of America’s involvement in World War I. He got his Americanized name from a part in a high school play, “Seven Keys to Baldpate”. He was “Tim” the chauffeur. He must have been so convincing that the name stuck and he later had it legalized. As with his older brother, Tetsuji, he was under a lot less pressure than Tsuneyoshi and it was perhaps that made him a fairly low key person. Or maybe he was just that way. As a very young boy, he was very shy. He was like that up until high school. Underlying this shyness was an assertive and sometimes mischievous nature. When he was three, Bunda was putting pepper plants in. He knew little Tim was trying to help, but when he looked back, Tim had pulled out of the plants out. Bunda scolded him gently but firmly.

Tim knew what he wanted. When he would grumble over what was being served for dinner, Bunda would send him away from the table without eating for the night. Later, whenever Tim didn’t like what his mother made for dinner, he would prepare his own, Suye reluctantly letting him do it. Another time, he was determined to try and catch a skunk, so with help from his brothers he set a trap one day. The next morning when he went to check the trap, sure enough, he had caught a skunk, but it also caught him. The skunk sprayed him square in the chest. He was banished from the house the rest of the day. He probably wished he could banish himself from his body. He jumped into a creek, clothes and all. Ted had to run home and get him a change of clothes.

This independent streak followed him into adulthood as he was the first of the Nisei to go to college, attending Chico State College from 1934 to 1936. While he was there, he did some boxing in P. E. and the annual “Scamper Day” they used to hold. He even sparred with semi-professionals and considered turning pro himself until a manager talked him out of it. He transferred to Sacramento City College and spent a year at Heald Business School. He worked as a “house boy” in private homes and boarding houses to support himself. One of his best friends in his college days was Yori Wada, who later became one of the most prominent nisei in California, serving on the University of California’s Board of Regents and the California Youth Authority Board.

His wandering through college stopped when he decided to join the military. He knew he was going to be drafted and he wanted to choose his branch of service. Since he was Japanese, both the Navy and the Marines refused to enlist him. As luck would have it he was drafted into the army in November of 1941, just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He wanted to be in the Army Air Corp. but he found out he was color blind during one of his physicals at Camp Roberts in Santa Maria, California. This prevented him from flying.

A lot of the nisei drafted into the army were discharged once the war with Japan started, but Tim served throughout the war. Still, even as he served his native country, they were shipping him away from the West Coast because of his race. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, he and a large group of 80 other Nisei were sent to complete basic training at Camp Robinson, in Arkansas, on Feb. 6, 1942. They were not certain what to do with these soldiers, so they bounced them from camp to camp making them do a lot of dirty work. After Camp Robinson, they were sent to Fort Riley in Kansas, then to Camp Phillips. The irony is that they would not let him rejoin his family (because no Japanese were allowed in California), but they kept him in the army.

In February, 1943, President Roosevelt signed an order creating an all Japanese American Army unit, the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team. Tim was one of the first men assigned to that unit. He was actually promoted to corporal and became a drill instructor at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, for other Nisei going through training. Even in that role, he was subject to racial discrimination. Once when he went to the nearby town of Hattiesburg, a woman came up to him and said, “You’re a Jap, ain’t ‘cha?” True to his calm, but firm, character, Tim told her, “I don’t give a damn what you think of me, but respect the uniform I wear.”

The respect for the man in the uniform came with time. It is worth going into extra detail on the role of the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team and Tim Tokuno’s role in it. Just before the 442^nd was to be sent to Europe for the fighting, Tim, now a sergeant, was finally allowed to visit his family in Topaz. When he got there, a Captain at the gate asked him if he had any alcohol in his bag. Tim admitted that he had a fifth of whiskey and the Captain first said, “No whiskey allowed.” Then he changed his mind as he considered the soldier standing in front of him, saying, “Oh, go ahead and take it in sarge, helluva a war, isn’t it?” Once there, his mother cooked him the best dinner she could scrape together and told him “Whatever happens, don’t disgrace your country or your name—in other words, death before dishonor.” In May, 1944, Tim and his 442^nd mates were shipped to Naples, Italy, to join the Allied forces invading the Nazi stronghold. They added to their ranks, the veterans of the 100^th Battalion, made up mostly of nisei from Hawaii.

As a member of Company M of the heavy weapons group, Tim was called on to perform some dangerous duty.  As a sergeant , he was responsible for 21 men, 19 jeeps, and a weapons carrier all winding their way through narrow roads and passes in Italy and France. They set up the 81 mm. mortars and machine guns used in action and had to transport them from battle to battle. Tim was wounded by shrapnel in one of the more famous battles of the war, the fight for the Lost Battalion, and thought about applying for a Purple Heart decoration for those soldiers wounded in action. When he saw how seriously other men had been hurt, though, he figured he had just been scratched, so never applied for it.

The 442^nd saw their first action in June, 1944. They had the reputation of the 100^th to keep up and they more than equaled it, becoming a courageous and efficient fighting unit rarely seen in the tragic history of war. At one point, the Division commander had to ask them to slow down because the other units could not keep up with them, as they would advance as much as 20 miles in one day.

In October, the 442^nd was called upon to help rescue the “Lost Battalion,” a unit from Texas that had been surrounded and cut off by German forces. The men of the 442^nd fought fiercely, going from tree to tree against a much larger force that was protected by mortar fire, barbed wire, and mine fields. They were able to rescue the Texans, but at a cost that was greater than the reward. Although they had saved the lost battalion, 200 young nisei were killed and another 600 were wounded, including Tim. Shortly after that, a general wanted the men of the 442^nd assembled so he could thank them for their bravery. Only 700 of the units 4500 troops were able to stand in the ranks and the general asked where all the rest of the men were. The regimental Commander, Colonel Charles Pierce had to reply through tears, “You’re looking at the entire regiment. That’s all that’s left.”

There were other actions that were as inspiring. In March of 1945, with the war winding down, the Allies needed to capture a mountain fortress held by the Germans for over five months. This position was the Gothic Line perched on a mountain in northern Italy and it was supremely well defended and fortified. The only way they could think to assault the position was to conduct a surprise attack up the nearly vertical cliff of the mountain. To achieve total surprise, they had to start up the mountain while it was still dark, early in the morning. It was a frightening climb. As they struggled up the sheer cliffs, they heard a few odd sounds, like the wind blowing oddly past. Only later did they realize that it was the sound made by their falling comrades, who had the courage to keep from screaming as they lost their grips and fell to their deaths, not wanting to alert the enemy of the surprise attack and endanger their fellow soldiers. Even though this action was supposed to be a diversion, its success made it the main attack that led to the fall of the fortress. It was another heroic effort by the 442^nd.

By the end of the war, the 442^nd had participated in seven major campaigns and earned more decorations for bravery than any unit in United States military history. They also suffered 9486 casualties including 650 men killed in action. The total casualties were enough for each man to have been hurt twice.

Tim was discharged from the army on December 4^th, 1945 almost exactly four years after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was able to return to his childhood home in Palermo by the 10^th of that month. His oldest brother, Tony, was trying to re-establish the family farming operation. For the next few years, Tim helped his brother with “Tokuno Brothers Farms, Inc.” It was good that most of their friends and neighbors welcomed them back with open arms, although Tim once ran into an old acquaintance in Oroville who refused to shake hands with him and went off muttering something.

One day, while Tim was hauling tomatoes to Matmor Cannery in Woodland, he noticed a pretty young lady who was helping the Kodani family pick tomatoes. Her name was Sumi Sasaki and it was not long before they were seeing a lot of each other. In 1948, they went off to Las Vegas to get married. They then settled in Los Angeles. On September 4, of 1950, they had a son, Steven Youzo. They spent a few years in Los Angeles where Tim tried other types of work, such as drapery, but his heart was really in farming. By 1951, they were back to the Sacramento Valley. A year later, a major tragedy overtook the whole Tokuno family when their second son, Timothy James, died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome before he was even three months old.

In the early 50s, Tim helped his brothers, Tony at Palermo and Ted at the Ingram Ranch just off of Township Road near Gridley, California. From 1954 to 1957, after Ted moved on to Yuba City, Tim and Tony took over at the Ingram Ranch. Tim gravitated naturally to farming in Gridley. The land there was rich and the community was small, safe and friendly. In fact, it still is.

A daughter, Kathleen Ann, was born on February 8, 1954, followed by a third son, Michael Sueyoshi on February 25, 1957. That year, Tim moved his family to the Sheppard Ranch on the Biggs-Gridley Road for two years, then on to farm with Debbert Manes on Larkin Road for another year.

The Tim Tokuno family enjoyed a long period of stability leasing a large house and land at the prominent junction of Highway 99 and East Gridley Road, just south of the town center. As government regulations grew, it became more and more difficult for small farmers to be successful. Tim even had to rely on a few illegal immigrants for help. It was not unusual for him to lose workers as they were picked up by immigration authorities. They stayed there from 1960 to 1972 as the children grew to adulthood and the neighbors flocked there every summer to buy the produce, especially the tomatoes which were the best tasting ever grown by human hands. I remember those big, red, juicy tomatoes that were as good as eating candy.

All the children pitched in to help make the farm a success. It was not an easy life. In addition to the tragic loss of their second son, there were other calamities.  When Steve was five years old, he fell out of the attic at Palermo while he was playing with his cousin Don. When he was nine, he was hit by a pickup truck while he was crossing Highway 99. He was critically injured. When he was in college, he was again hit by a car that ran a stop sign on Highway 99.

Even with the hard work and the accidents, there was time for fun. Tim would take his boys to target practice with their guns and rifles so they would know how to use them safely. There were often farm picnics, notably the Butte family JACL picnics where the children could play with their cousins and the adults could visit. There were also games. One was a blindfold race that Tim joined with Steve when he was four. The fathers were blindfolded and the sons had to direct them. Steve hollered, “Go north, Dad. Go south.” It wasn’t much help. As the children grew, they took part in lots of school activities. Kathi was a cheerleader and Mike was active in sports.

Steve now lives in Seattle with his wife, Colleen. They are very successful in business together, doing a lot of travelling. Kathi married her sweetheart from high school, Dave Garretson, they have two sons, Tim and Noah. Mike worked as a counselor in the California State University system after receiving his Master’s degree there. He and wife Lupe have one daughter, Miyoshi.

For a veteran of the war, it must have warmed Tim a lot to see his family and his farm accepted by the community of Gridley. And they did accept him. In 1985, Tim was named Gridley Man of the Year for his contributions to the community. It was another moment to add to the family legacy of showing America what we could do.