Ben Kuroki: All-American War Hero, Part II

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and a perfect time to remember Sergeant Ben Kuroki, a US Army Air Corps gunner from the “Mighty Eighth” Air Force during World War II. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Ben Kuroki couldn’t wait to fight for his country. As a “Nisei,” born in America to parents who immigrated from Japan, he had to “fight like hell” for the chance. In last week’s history column, American-born Kuroki, raised on a farm in Hershey, Nebraska, was ultimately able to get a spot in the US Army Air Corps. Sent first to clerical school and then to Barksdale Army Air Field in Louisiana for the activation of the 93rd Bombardment Group, he continued to fight to stay with his squadron once they were deployed overseas.

With much persistence, Kuroki made it to England with the 93rd Bomb Group. This time Kuroki fought to fight from the air in the 93rd’s B-24 heavy bombers, also known as Liberators, in some of the most critical and dangerous air missions of the European front. Kuroki assiduously prepared and proved himself for a spot in the air. He volunteered to be a much-needed aerial gunner and attended gunner school in England. When a young turret gunner in Kuroki’s squadron was grounded for medical reasons, he was allowed to choose his own replacement. He picked the eager Kuroki for the spot.

Sent to Africa for temporary deployment, Ben Kuroki was on his first mission, a raid on the docks and supply depot of Bizerte, Tunisia, when his bomber was hit by flak. One of his crew members was gravely wounded by shrapnel. It was largely Sergeant Kuroki’s clear-headed thinking that kept the man alive, and cemented the bond between Ben Kuroki and the crew.

It was also clear that Kuroki performed extremely admirably as a gunner, moving from waist and tail to turret gunner. His fellow squadron members gave him the nickname “Honorable Son” with affectionate intent, and his reputation as a valued crew member continued to grow. As two examples of his many exploits, he spent three months interned in Spain after being shot down over Spanish Morocco, and was a part of the daring and dangerous low-altitude air raid of the Ploesti oil refineries of Romania.

When Kuroki’s squad member 1st Lt. E.E. Weir returned home to Kilgore, Texas in the northeast part of the state, he visited the Kilgore News Herald’s office. The young navigator proudly wanted everyone to know how he was in the same squadron as the “popular” Ben Kuroki. He also enthusiastically announced that in addition to Kuroki, his diverse fellow crew members included an Italian-American soldier. (With Italy as part of the Axis powers, Americans of Italian descent, like Americans of Japanese descent, faced suspicion and discrimination when the United States entered WWII.) Since Kilgore is just over an hour from Shreveport and Barksdale Army Air Field, the Shreveport Times also ran the News Herald’s feel-good war story on February 26, 1944.

Following 30 combat missions in Europe on the B-24, and earning two flying crosses, Kuroki rotated back to the United States, where he could have stayed. Instead, he hoped to return for another full tour of duty as a B-29 gunner in the Pacific. Once again, Kuroki had to fight to fight, this time even harder. Americans of Japanese descent were expressly prohibited from entering active air combat against Japan.

By that time, Kuroki and his achievements had garnered him media attention and speaking engagements while he was back in the States. These engagements included speaking to Japanese Americans incarcerated in detention camps in the US West, encouraging young men to join the military and fight for America, while also appealing to the larger American society to end the discrimination and civil rights violations against Americans of Japanese descent.

Kuroki delivered one of the most powerful speeches at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, which received national media coverage and caught the attention of such influential Californians as the chancellor of Stanford University, the former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, and the provost of the University of California Berkeley. He also had the support of his Nebraska Representative, Carl T. Curtis. These men successfully pleaded Kuroki’s case to the highest ranks of the Army.

Sergeant Ben Kuroki became the only Japanese American to serve in air combat in the Pacific Theater of Operations, and was one of the very few soldiers of any background to have fought in both the European and Pacific theaters. Following his tour in the Pacific, where he participated in the bombing of Tokyo, Kuroki was awarded a third flying cross. In total, he completed 58 combat missions during his service.

                                     

Ben Kuroki continued his mission to end discrimination against Japanese Americans, which he referred to as his 59th mission, and became a journalist and publisher. In 2009, when the 93rd Bomb Group planned a reunion at Barksdale, a reporter from The Shreveport Times contacted Kuroki. Kuroki, he recalled, was cordial and polite and said he would not be taking part in the reunion due to health reasons, compounded by memories of local prejudice. “My traveling days are pretty much over,” he told The Times. He died Sept. 1, 2015 at his home in California at the age of 98.

Kuroki has been the subject of a handful of biographies and documentaries. The most recent and complete biography is titled, Most Honorable Son: A Forgotten Hero’s Fight Against Fascism and Hate During World War II by Gregg Jones, 2024. The book is available online as an e-book and e-audiobook from Bossier Parish Libraries. You can download it from home with your library card number via Hoopla at bossierlibrary.org.

While our History Center is still closed due to installation of our new exhibits, you can explore our resources online, including our online catalog, where most of our photographs and many of our archival materials, such as oral histories, have been digitized. Go to the bossierlibrary.org website and choose History and Genealogy under Resources. You can contact us with questions at (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org For other local history facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Images: 

• Sgt. Ben Kuroki responding to a speech of welcome given by Project Director Guy Robertson and representatives of the Community Council upon his arrival at Heart Mountain, 24 April 1944. From the War Relocation Authority Photographs of Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement housed at UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library, available via Calisphere.org
• Sgt. Ben Kuroki holds the damaged turret from his 30th mission in Europe. Photo by Ken LaRock, Courtesy of National Museum of the USAF

Article by: Pam Carlisle

Ben Kuroki: All-American War Hero (Part 1)

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and a perfect time to remember Ben Kuroki, an Army Air Corps gunner from the “Mighty Eighth” Air Force during World War II who couldn’t wait to fight for his country, but who first had to, as he stated, “fight like hell” for the chance.

Ben Kuroki in almost every way possible represented the classic All-American young man of the 1940s. Growing up on his parents’ potato farm outside of Hershey, Nebraska, population 500, he was a high school basketball star and vice president of his graduating class. At the age of 24, two days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan, he and one of his brothers headed to their nearest military recruiting office in North Platte, Nebraska. But as Nisei, the sons of immigrants from Japan, their credentials as Americans were considered suspect. After they heard nothing from the recruiter for two weeks, they acted on a radio call they heard for volunteers for the army's air corps. With Ben having high hopes of becoming a pilot and younger brother Fred of becoming a navigator, they drove 150 miles to Grand Island, Nebraska and signed up. That recruiter was perhaps more interested in the $2 fee he got for each man he signed up than what they looked like.

The brothers were “in,” but not accepted. Kuroki remembered that they experienced hatred from fellow recruits, NCOs, and officers and described themselves as the loneliest men in the Army. They were frequently on Kitchen Patrol (KP) or tasked with menial chores like cleaning the latrines and digging ditches. Kuroki completed basic training in Texas and was sent to Fort Logan, Colorado for clerical training, not the fighting action the young man dreamed of. Fred was transferred to the Corps of Engineers.

Upon completion of the Army's administrative course, Kuroki was sent to Barksdale Field in Shreveport, Louisiana where a new air group was being formed to fly Consolidated B-24 heavy Liberator bombers. Kuroki was assigned as a clerk-typist to the 409th Bomber Squadron of the 93rd Bombardment Group. In an oral history interview he recalled:

When we went to Barksdale Field, Louisiana, I saw those big B-24s flying in, and I said, laughing, “Oh, my god.” I was so da** excited. But you know, I wouldn’t go near that plane. The first thing they’d say, if something happened, they’d say I was the one that was doing sabotage or something, and I didn’t want to risk it.

In fact, Kuroki was so frightened of something happening to get him kicked out of the Air Corps that he spent his earned leave time on base. Recalling the prejudice he encountered, he said, “I didn't even go into town because I couldn't enjoy a minute of it when I did.” In a speech to business leaders following his wartime experience, Kuroki remembered about his time in Barksdale:

Of the 40 clerks sent to Barksdale, I was the last one assigned. I spent about a month at Barksdale, most of it on K. P. You've all heard the Air Forces motto, "Keep 'Em Flying." Well, my motto was Keep 'Em Peeling"; they called me "Keep 'Em Peeling" Kuroki in those days. The most discouraging thing about that was the fact that I had no assurance that I ever would be assigned.”

What kept him going, he said, were letters from his sister reminding him that Americans were in shock from Pearl Harbor and many were “unable to distinguish between Japanese and Americans of Japanese descent.”

“I still was without a friend in the Army, though, and that made it bad. There was only one boy who was kind to me at all,” who would take him his mail when he couldn’t get out of the kitchen in time to get it.

A few days before Kuroki and his squadron were to leave Barksdale, their commanding officer told Kuroki he was to be transferred and wasn't going with them to Fort Myers to prepare for overseas deployment. Kuroki considered that about the worst news he’d ever heard, and he asked the officer why. He only answered that he had nothing to do with it. But the officer started asking him questions, like how he liked the Army, and so forth. Kuroki was frank about his experiences and his hopes. His words must have had some effect, because the day before the group left, the officer again called for him and told him to pack his bags because he was going with them.

At Fort Myers, Kuroki did clerical work for about three months and gradually began to win over some of the soldiers. The young man who used to get his mail for him at Barksdale became an inseparable friend after they were in a truck accident at Fort Myers and Kuroki was able to help him. But when the group finished training and was ready to go overseas, Kuroki was again told he would not be going with them, and was given orders transferring him out of his squadron. This time it felt even worse, because for three months at Fort Myers, he had been counting on going overseas. He went to see the squadron adjutant and begged him, with tears streaming down his face, to take him along. When the adjutant got the approval, Kuroki recalled, “I was about the happiest guy in the world just then.”

In England, Kuroki was an orderly, typing up flight orders and keeping track of squadron records. As the Eighth's first B-24 squadron, its planes flew cross-channel bombing missions. Kuroki spent as much time as possible on the flight line to help out in any way he could and learned to skillfully operate the .50-caliber machine guns of the B-24. He passed a two-week gunnery course and never gave up requesting flight status. Part II of this story will detail exactly how his persistence paid off.

While our History Center exhibit and research areas are closed for installation of new exhibits, you can still explore our History Center resources online at www.bossierlibrary.org and choose “History and Genealogy” under Resources. Or you can attend our History Center programs in the Central complex meeting room. Beginning June 2nd at 6PM, and for the following 3 Tuesday evenings, we are bringing back R & R with History: Read & React: 1 Book; 4 Evenings. In honor of America’s 250th, this session’s book is Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrook. The discussions will be led by Benton High School history teacher, Rusty Beckham, whose programs receive rave reviews from BPLHC patrons! To get a copy of the book and register, stop by the Central Library circulation desk, at 7204 Hutchison Drive, Bossier City, LA. You can contact us with questions at (318) 746-7717 or email history-center@bossierlibrary.org

Images: 

• Ben Kuroki/photo colorized by Johnny Sirlande
• Ben Kuroki welcomed into VFW in Omaha, NE, 1944/photo courtesy National Archives4

Article by: Pam Carlisle

Shoji Tabuchi: East Meets the Louisiana Hayride

 May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and a perfect opportunity to look back at an earlier time in the career of a star musician from Japan, Shoji Tabuchi, who made Bossier City home for a decade in the 1970’s.  If you’ve visited the entertainment city in the Ozarks - Branson, Missouri - or know anyone who has within the past 40 years, you’ve likely heard of the showman with classical violin training, who reveres the country classics, and put enough flash into the performance to even make it Las Vegas-worthy. You may even know some of his ‘unlikely’ story as a young violinist growing up in Japan who set a goal to be a country music star in America, and attained that goal and then some. Here, we will look at some aspects of Shoji’s Bossier days, gleaned from the History Center bookshelves and newspaper resources. 

Shoji Tabuchi was born in Daishoji, Japan in 1944. He began studying the violin at the age of seven. He was trained classically, but like many in his country, he got caught up in enthusiasm for American country music. He was inspired by Howdy Forrester, fiddler for Roy Acuff, who toured Japan. The young Shoji determined that someday he’d go to the home of country music, America and to the Grand Ole Opry and the Louisiana Hayride, the country music radio show broadcast live from Shreveport through the 1950’s, with occasional comebacks, to be more specific. In 1967, he finally made it to America and eventually Nashville, TN, “Just to listen”.  He looked up Roy Acuff, who got him opportunities to play. Then he registered as a resident alien so he could stay longer. That made him eligible for the draft and he spent a couple years serving the United States during the Vietnam War. 

In his 2000 book, “Tillman Franks: I Was There When it Happened,” the Louisiana Hayride’s local musical legend Franks, who had then become a talent manager, got a call from a booking agent who insisted he found what Franks had been looking for, a fiddler for his Bossier City talent David Houston. The scout said the incredible fiddler he found, Shoji Tabuchi, lived in Wichita Kansas, was working as a lab or medical assistant at a hospital and playing music on the weekends. Tabuchi agreed to travel to Shreveport so they could hear him play. Tillman hired him on the spot. Tabuchi and his wife Mary Jo moved from Wichita to Bossier soon after. 

Shreveport-Bossier’s Louisiana Hayride had a nickname as “the cradle of the stars”.  One could say that it, or at least one of its stars, Tillman Franks, provided the cradle to Shoji’s stardom, too. Franks was so impressed with Shoji’s sound and showmanship, he had no intention of keeping him sequestered as backup. He gave him a top billing, too. Saying he didn’t want there to be “any surprises,” he billed Tabuchi as the “World’s Champion Japanese Fiddler,” a title he just grabbed out of thin air. Country music writer Townsend Miller, who was stunned by the performance of the breakout star with David Houston in Austin, TX, confirmed Tillman’s hunch when he wrote in the “Austin American” on April 15, 1972, “Tillman got more than a fiddler. He got a star, and he knows it.” 

Tillman Franks did know he had a star on his hands, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t let him go. Houston and Shoji were friends, and Houston was proud of the success of his fiddler, according to Franks. An article in the “Wichita Independent” of Wichita, Kansas, announced David Houston and Shoji performing at a jamboree there, and said that “David Houston will proudly tell you he is John’s (the then-very young son of Shoji and Mary Jo) godfather”. And he was the one who introduced Tabuchi to bass fishing, a favorite pastime of Tabuchi’s for years to come. But whatever the reason (and country music fans will proffer a variety), after about the mid-1970’s, Houston’s accolades were fading, while Shoji’s act was “burning up” the fiddle, and the stage. Houston felt Tillman’s time to promote him was being diluted by his efforts on behalf of Tabuchi, as well as the Shreveport NFL star with dreams of a music career, Terry Bradshaw. So Tillman Franks cut Shoji as a client at the end of August, 1976.

It was also not long after the split with Franks that Shoji and Mary Jo split. Tabuchi would not say, though it appeared, according to Franks, that all the time on the road wasn’t helping the young family. When he discovered Branson on his way home from a concert in Illinois and was invited to play a 6-month engagement there in early 1980’s, he took the opportunity to stay put for a while. Ultimately, he moved there, met his second wife, Dorothy, and in May 1990 he opened his own theater and performed with his wife and daughter. 

Shoji’s Branson shows and theater were wildly successful, and the city of Branson recently honored the family for its impact on the community and its businesses. According to Franks, however, success was especially important to Shoji for earning the honor and respect of his family back in Japan, most notably his father. (Shoji’s move to the United States was made with the clandestine help of his mother while his father was away on a business trip.) Now, however, Tabuchi is pushing 80 and perhaps entering another new chapter. Performances paused during covid. The family did a year-long comeback in a more intimate theatre. Shoji’s 1990 grand theatre complex in Branson is currently up for sale. 

Do you have, or know someone who has, photographs of northwest Louisiana music history that can be shared with the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center? Visit us at the History Center, or ask us how to use our online catalog, which includes digitized images. We are located at 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA and are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok

Images: 

• Shoji Tabuchi, dubbed the “Japanese Cowboy” in the January 3rd, 1971 Wichita (Kansas) Eagle
• Advertisement in the Bossier Press on June 29, 1972, for David Houston and the Persuaders and Shoji Tabuchi performing in Bossier City for “I Love America Week”

Article by: Pam Carlisle