MIS
As the probability for war against Japan mounted, the US Army realized its deficiencies in intelligence operations against Japan. It was necessary to train the Japanese linguists in the fields of interpretation, translation and interrogation and the US Army sought to train a group of Nisei (second generation of Japanese ancestry) who understood Japanese language, culture and custom.
On November 1, 1941, the US Army secretly opened the Military Intelligence Service Language School at the Presidio in San Francisco.
Although they had doubts about their loyalty to the United States.
One month later, on December 7, 1941, the United States entered the war on the Allied side after the attacks on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial Air Force. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the internment of about twelve thousands of Japanese Americans living along the Pacific coast.
The forced evacuation prompted the United States Department of War to claim jurisdiction of the MISLS and in the spring of 1942, the facility was moved from San Francisco to Camp Savage in Minnesota. The first official MISLS class was held a few months later on June 1, 1942.
Two years later, in the spring of 1944, increased enrollment generated the need for larger facilities and the school was moved to Fort Snelling in Minnesota.
The Nisei MIS graduates were dispatched to wherever there was contact between the United States and Japan. They participated in every major firefight, battle and invasion against the Japanese military. They participated in operations conducted by the US Army, Navy, Marines and Air Corps and, at times, helped the British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, Chinese and Indian combat units in their campaign against Japan. The MIS was active in every phase of the war in the Pacific until Japan’s formal surrender in 1945.
Some of the MIS’s most notable achievements include their contributions to the invasion of the Aleutian and Solomon Islands, General Douglas MacArthur’s drive through New Guinea and the Philippines, and in the Central Pacific invasions of Tarawa, Kwajalein, Majuro, Eniwetok, Saipan and Guam. They also played decisive roles in helping to make the final assaults on Iwo Jima and Okinawa successful.
The Nisei agents in the MIS were entrusted with a plethora of tasks during the Pacific campaign including the following: translating important enemy documents, such as battle plans, maps, diaries and letters; interrogating Japanese prisoners of War; serving undercover in the Philippines; serving as order-of-battle specialists; intercepting and deciphering enemy messages; composing and broadcasting surrender appeals as part of psychological warfare; and sand flushing the caves of enemy soldiers and civilians. They were able to gain volumes of valuable intelligence material which would later be used to plan a successful Allied strategy to defeat Japan and many successful operations along the way.
The atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki August 9 flattened the two cities and devastated the country. It would become the last point in the war against Japan.
On August 15th 1945, Emperor Hirohito broadcast his decision to surrender to the Allies and the Pacific war was finally over. Three Nisei linguists oversaw the Japanese surrender and participated alongside General MacArthur in the signing of the surrender documents aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945.
During the occupation that followed, the Nisei members of the MIS served to help minimize the gap between General MacArthur’s headquarters (GHQ) and the Japanese people.
Upwards of 3,000 MIS members served during the occupation of Japan and participated in various tasks such as the rewriting of the Constitution, the educational, political reform movements, the woman’s rights movement, and even played a role in public administrative affairs in the central government. Their knowledge of Japanese customs and the language enabled them to bridge the gap between the Japanese officials who did not speak English and the American officials who did not speak Japanese.
The presence of the MIS in the country further contributed to the promotion of a peaceful relationship between the occupational forces and the Japanese people. They interpreted the objectives and orders given by the occupation forces and then verified if the local governments had carried them out. An estimated about 3000 MIS soldiers participated in major tasks ranging from matters of military disarmament to civil affairs and intelligence. The occupation ended in 1952 and forces withdrew from Japan, given the exception for the Ryukyu Islands where the occupational forces remained in control until Okinawa was returned to Japan in 1972.
Regardless of the tremendous contributions the MIS had made to both Japan and the United States, the existence of this unit remained classified for years following the end of the war. When military intelligence documents were all declassified in 1972 by way of Executive Order 11652, much of the accomplishments of the MIS in the war effort against Japan remained a secret. Many MIS veterans continued to keep their promise to confidentiality and remained silent for decades.
This film is an attempt to reveal the largely unknown story of about 6000 MIS soldiers who made great contributions to the United States’ victory during the war and the post-war recovery of Japan.