Japanese-American flyer overcame discrimination

Ben Kuroki was highly decorated for his service

CAMARILLO, Calif. — Ben Kuroki, who overcame the American military’s discriminatory policies to become the only Japanese-American to fly over Japan during the Second World War, has died. He was 98.

Kuroki died Sept. 1 at his Camarillo, Calif., home, where he was under hospice care, his daughter Julie Kuroki told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday.

The son of Japanese immigrants who was raised on a Hershey, Neb., farm, Kuroki and his brother, Fred, volunteered after the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

They were initially rejected by recruiters who questioned the loyalty of the children of Japanese immigrants. Undeterred, the brothers drove 240 kilometres to another recruiter, who allowed them to sign up.

At the time, the Army Air Forces banned soldiers of Japanese ancestry from flying, but Kuroki earned his way onto a bomber crew and flew 58 bomber missions over Europe, North Africa and Japan during the war. He took part in the August 1943 raid over Axis oilfields in Ploesti, Romania, that killed 310 flyers in his group.

He was captured after his plane ran out of fuel over Morocco, but he escaped with crewmates to England.

Because of his Japanese ancestry, he was initially rejected when he asked to serve on a B-29 bomber that was to be used in the Pacific. But after a review of his stellar service record, Secretary of War Harry Stimson granted an exception.

Crew members nicknamed him “Most Honorable Son,” and the War Department gave him a Distinguished Flying Cross.

After the war, Kuroki enrolled at the University of Nebraska, where he obtained a journalism degree. He published a weekly newspaper in Nebraska for a short time before moving to Michigan and finally to California, where he retired as the news editor of the Ventura Star-Free Press in 1984.

In 2005, he received the U.S. army Distinguished Service Medal, one of the nation’s highest military honours.

“I had to fight like hell for the right to fight for my own country,” Kuroki said at the award ceremony in Lincoln, Neb. “And I now feel vindication.”

ARMY AIR CORPS/COURTESY OF BEN KUROKI VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Ben Kuroki, the son of Japanese immigrants who was raised on a Hershey, Neb., farm, was the only Japanese-American known to have flown over Japan during the Second World War. He has died at age 98.

BILL WOLF/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES In 2005, former airman Ben Kuroki received the Distinguished Service Medal, one of the U.S. military’s highest honours.