Bridge to the Sun–The Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II

By Bruce Henderson. Afterword by Gerald Yamada.

After the bombing of 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 Niseifirst-generation U.S. citizens whose parents were immigrants from Japan. Eager to prove their loyalty to America, several thousand Niseimany of them volunteering from the internment camps where they were being held behind barbed wirewere selected by the Army for top-secret training, then were rushed to the Pacific theater. This is the harrowing untold story of the Nisei and their major contributions in the war of the Pacific, through six Japanese American soldiers. 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.

Hardbound: 480 pp.