Photo By Lori Stewart | Dick Hamada receives a Soldiers Medal from Brig. Gen. John Magruder, OSS deputy...... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
17 AUGUST 1945
On 17 August 1945, Office of Strategic Services (OSS) personnel conducted Operation MAGPIE to rescue Allied military and civilian personnel in a Japanese prisoner camp in China. One of several such mercy missions, MAGPIE’s success hinged on Japanese American interpreter/translator Sgt. Dick Hamada to notify the Japanese guards of their country’s surrender days earlier.
Japan surrendered to Allied forces on 14 August 1945, bringing World War II to an end. The Allies worried military and civilian prisoners held in camps throughout the Pacific would be killed by their Japanese guards or abandoned without supplies before they could be liberated. In late July, the OSS began planning mercy missions to rescue prisoners held in China, Korea, and French Indochina. Eight such missions, each named after a bird, were carried out. The first, Operation CARDINAL, occurred on 16 August in Mukdin, Manchuria, and resulted in the rescue of Lt. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright, who had been held prisoner since he surrendered American forces on Corregidor in May 1942.
On 15 August 1945, the MAGPIE team flew to Hsian, China, and two days later, received orders to proceed to Peking (Beijing), where they were to liberate prisoners held in the Fengtai prison approximately eight miles to the southwest. Led by Maj. Ray Nichols, the team included Capt. Edmund Carpenter II, Lt. Fontaine Jarman Jr., Lt. Mahlon Perkins Jr., Tech5 Nestor (Ed) Jacot, Cpl. Melvin Richter, and Sgt. Dick Hamada. All were OSS personnel who had spent the past months conducting clandestine operations with Detachment 101 in northern Burma. Hamada, the team’s interpreter/translator, had been born in Hawaii in 1922 and had volunteered for the 442d Regimental Combat Team in 1943. He had been recruited for Detachment 101 while in training at Camp Shelby, Mississippi.
Once the MAGPIE team was notified to proceed, they loaded food, cigarettes, blankets, and medical supplies on a B-24 aircraft and left Hsian for their target, a military airfield in Peking. After dropping leaflets outlining their mercy mission, the team jumped. Although only Hamada and Lieutenant Jarman had attended jump school and made previous jumps, all the team members landed safely and without injury.
Once on the ground, however, the team was surrounded by a squad of armed guards. Sergeant Hamada interpreted as Major Nichols told the disbelieving Japanese of the war’s end. Hamada retrieved one of the leaflets and read it to the soldiers, but the team was forced into a truck and driven to the Japanese regional headquarters. There, they met the commander of the Peking Area Command. Although he was aware of the surrender, he would not release the prisoners without authorization from his higher headquarters. The team spent a tense two days confined to hotel rooms with assigned guards.
Finally, on 20 August, the Japanese released more than six hundred British, Australian, and American military and civilian prisoners from the Fengtai prison. The prisoners included Cmdr. Winfield Cunningham and other survivors of the Japanese attack on Wake Island in December 1941. Also liberated were four aviators who had participated in Lt. Col. James Doolittle’s bombing raids on Tokyo in April 1942. They had crash landed on the coast of China after their bombing runs and had been captured, tortured, and starved by the Japanese for three years. One of the four was near death at the time of the rescue.
On 3 January 1946, Dick Hamada received the Soldier’s Medal for his role in Operation MAGPIE. Three weeks later, he was honorably discharged from the Army. In later years, he reconnected with the three surviving Doolittle Raiders he had helped rescue and attended several reunions with them over the years. Dick Hamada died on 30 May 2014. The following year, he was inducted into the MI Hall of Fame.
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| Date Taken: | 08.14.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 08.14.2023 11:07 |
| Story ID: | 451316 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 440 |
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