09/23/2026
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In 1942, Minoru Masuda was a university graduate in Seattle holding advanced degrees in pharmacy. When World War II broke out, Executive Order 9066 forced his family out of their home and sent them behind barbed wire to internment camps. Min and his wife, Hana, were issued the identification number 11704, which they wore on a tag attached to their lapels. His family lost their business, their privacy, and their basic rights as citizens simply because of their heritage.
“The physical hardships we could endure, but for me the most devastating experience was the unjust stigmatization by American society, the bitter reminder that racism had won again over the Constitution and the Bill of Rights…simply because of our blood. It was galling, infuriating, and frustrating. The stigmatization of being branded disloyal and imprisoned evoked a sense of shame…because of its sanction by American society.” – Minoru Masuda
Yet when the U.S. government called for Nisei volunteers, Masuda answered.
“I wrestled with the problem…I was older than the others. I was married, more mature, and had more responsibilities…the possibility of death in the battlefield was real, and, in the Nikkei context, almost expected. I admit, too, despite all the trauma, that an inexplicable tinge of patriotism entered into the decision to volunteer.” – Minoru Masuda
He was among over 300 Japanese American men at Minidoka who enlisted in the U.S. Army. Minoru was assigned to the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team, composed almost entirely of Nisei, second-generation Japanese Americans. Serving as a combat medic, his job was not to carry a r***e into combat, but to carry medical supplies directly into heavy artillery fire to patch up torn limbs and stabilize bleeding men.
While in training, he received the devastating news that his younger brother, Hakaru, had succumbed to tuberculosis. Hospitalized in Seattle, Hakaru had been separated from his family when they were forced to relocate to the Minidoka War Relocation Center.
“When the message came, I walked into the jackpine woods, thought about how I’d loved him and how he had died all alone in that miserable place without any of us at his side, and I cried in that anguish and swore anew at those who had allowed this to come to pass.” – Minoru Masuda
After completing intense training at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, Masuda and the 442nd deployed overseas in May 1944. They first landed in Oran, Algeria, in North Africa for staging before crossing the Mediterranean to Orbetello and Anzio, Italy. Masuda went directly into combat during the Naples-Foggia and Rome-Arno campaigns.
In the summer of 1944, Masuda treated soldiers under relentless fire during the breakthrough toward the Arno River and the capture of Hill 140, a heavily fortified German defensive line where casualties mounted rapidly. Medics crawled through open fields while artillery burst overhead, dragging wounded men into irrigation ditches to stop arterial bleeding.
“Thank God you’ll never know the abject terror that we knew in those first moments, nor come to realize just how deep a love one has for life.” – Minoru Masuda
In September 1944, the 442nd was redeployed to northeastern France for the Vosges Mountains Campaign. Fighting through dense pine forests in freezing rain, muddy trenches, and constant tree-burst artillery shells, Masuda operated in brutal conditions. During the famous rescue of the "Lost Battalion," where the 442nd was ordered to break through German encirclement to save over 200 stranded Texas National Guardsmen, Masuda worked continuously on the front lines. He treated blast trauma, shrapnel wounds, and severe frostbite while shells detonated yards away.
For his bravery in action, Technician Third Grade Masuda earned the Bronze Star Medal, the Combat Medic Badge, and four bronze service stars.
After the war, Masuda earned his Ph.D. in physiology and spent decades as a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington, publishing landmark research on human stress and physiological adaptation.
He emerged as a powerful voice for minority rights, dedicating his life to civic leadership and community organization. After stepping up as the Seattle JACL president in 1971, he championed senior welfare as Chairman of the National Nisei Retirement Committee. He became a vital pillar across a network of coalitions, from Asian Americans for Political Action to the Nisei Veterans Committee, always working to uplift marginalized communities.
Between 1973 and 1975, Minoru brought historical awareness to the public as chairman of the Pride and Shame Traveling Exhibit. He simultaneously shaped regional welfare policy through his work on the King County Mental Health Board and the Washington State Advisory Committee.
This lifetime of advocacy met a historic moment in 1980, when Minoru stood before the United States Civil Rights Commission to fiercely advocate for financial reparations for the victims of wartime Japanese American incarceration.
Minoru Masuda passed away in June 1980 at age 65.
Years after his death, his wartime letters were edited by his wife and daughter, Dianne Bridgman, and published in 2007 as Letters from the 442nd: The World War II Correspondence of a Japanese American Medic, one of the only published first-hand letter collections by a Nisei combat soldier.
In 2010, Masuda was collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal alongside his brothers-in-arms of the 442nd.
Minoru Masuda proved his loyalty with blood, bandages, and battlefield letters. He saved the lives of American soldiers while his own nation doubted his allegiance.
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