Courtesy Photo | A Japanese American soldier of the 27th Infantry Division interrogates a Japanese...... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
On July 23, 1944, T4g. Bob Hoichi Kubo, a Japanese American linguist with the 27th Infantry Division, entered a cave held by eight armed Japanese soldiers and convinced them to release 122 civilian hostages and surrender themselves. For his heroic actions that day, he received the Distinguished Service Cross.
A native of Hawaii, 22-year-old Kubo had almost finished his degree in agriculture at the University of Hawaii when he was drafted in June 1941. Assigned as a medical technician with the 298th Infantry Regiment at Schofield Barracks, he witnessed the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor on December 7. Six months later, he was sent to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, for training with the all-Japanese American 100th Infantry Battalion. Despite attempts to avoid it, Kubo was recruited as a linguist and sent to the Military Intelligence Service Language School. When he graduated in June 1943, he was assigned to a translator/interpreter team and sent to Hawaii to translate captured documents at the Joint Intelligence Center/Pacific Ocean Area (JICPOA). His team deployed overseas in November for operations in the Gilbert Islands.
On 16 June 1944, T4g. Kubo was with the 27th Infantry Division when it landed on Saipan. Within twenty-four hours, the 27th had secured the island’s airfield. Meanwhile, the Americans’ capture of the Japanese Navy’s “Z Plan” had allowed the U.S. Navy to soundly defeat the Japanese fleet in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, which blocked the Japanese garrison on Saipan from resupply or reinforcements. Desperate, 4.500 Japanese troops launched a final attack on 7 July. Although Kubo had learned of the pending attack from a Japanese prisoner, the 27th Infantry Division was short of ammunition and the Japanese nearly destroyed two infantry battalions before they were halted.
Saipan was declared secure on July 9, but the work of the 27th was not yet finished. As the remaining Japanese soldiers holed up in caves along the shoreline cliffs, the Army employed flamethrower teams supported by artillery and machine guns to clear them out. First, however, Japanese American linguists used loudspeakers to entice the enemy out peacefully. When that failed, many of the linguists bravely entered the caves to engage the Japanese soldiers personally.
On July 23, 1944, while on patrol his good friend 1st Lt. Roger Peyre’s company, Kubo learned that eight Japanese soldiers had held 122 men, women, and children hostage in a cave for the past ten days. Voluntarily, Kubo entered the cave, where he found himself facing the rifles of the enemy soldiers. Of Japanese heritage but wearing an American uniform, Kubo had difficulty convincing the soldiers he was not a spy. After a couple hours of discussion, during which Kubo shared his K-rations with the starving soldiers, they released the hostages. As American soldiers began pulling the civilians out of the cave via ropes, however, shots rang out from the nearby jungle, killing Lieutenant Peyre instantly. Kubo, angered at the death of his friend, confronted and berated the enemy soldiers. Shamed, four of the Japanese soldiers retrieved Peyre’s body from the vertical shaft of the cave and then all eight surrendered to Kubo.
Kubo later recalled, “For a couple of days after that I had no desire to save anyone. However, when we saw those ill-nourished women and children, we [Kubo and his bodyguard Pfc. Lyle Nelson] went in again to many other caves.” Kubo remained with the 27th for the rest of the war, including operations in Okinawa. Later, he received the Distinguished Service Cross based largely on affidavits from the hostages and Japanese soldiers he had saved that day in Saipan.
| Date Taken: | 07.18.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 07.18.2022 10:51 |
| Story ID: | 425198 |
| Location: | FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZONA, US |
| Web Views: | 230 |
| Downloads: | 3 |
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