Bridge to the Sun: The Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II By: Bruce Henderson

Author: Gerald Yamada

One of the last, great untold stories of World War II–kept hidden for decades–even after most of the World War II records were declassified in 1972, many of the files remained untouched in various archives, often incomplete or not easily located . . . a gripping true tale of courage, bravery and adventure from Bruce Henderson, master storyteller, historian, and New York Times bestselling author of Sons and Soldiers–the saga of the Japanese American U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Pacific theater, in Burma, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, fighting two wars simultaneously–their ancestral nation and back home in America, with their families, under US Executive Order 9066, facing suspicion and racial hatred, held behind barbed wire in government internment camps.

After Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military was desperate to find Americans who spoke Japanese to serve in the Pacific war. They soon turned to the Nisei–first generation U.S. citizens whose parents were immigrants from Japan. Eager to prove their loyalty to America, several thousand Nisei–many of them volunteering from the internment camps where they were being held behind barbed wire–were selected by the Army for top-secret training, then were rushed to the Pacific theater. Highly valued as expert translators and interrogators, these Japanese American soldiers operated in elite intelligence teams alongside Army infantrymen and Marines on the frontlines of the Pacific war, from Iwo Jima to Burma, from the Solomons to Okinawa.

Bruce Henderson reveals, in riveting detail, the harrowing untold story of the Nisei and their major contributions in the war of the Pacific, through six Japanese-American soldiers. The role of the U.S. Nisei soldiers was so far-reaching, General MacArthur said that because of their efforts, “never in military history did an army know so much about the enemy prior to engagement.” After the war, these soldiers became translators and interrogators for war crime trials, and later helped to rebuild Japan as a modern democracy and a pivotal U.S. ally.