Sadao Munemori was a United States Army soldier and posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor, after he sacrificed his life to save those of his fellow soldiers at Seravezza, Italy during World War II.
Sadao Munemori
442nd Infantry Regiment (United States)
The 442nd Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment of the United States Army. The regiment including the 100th Infantry Battalion is best known as the most decorated in U.S. military history, and as a fighting unit composed almost entirely of second-generation American soldiers of Japanese ancestry (Nisei) who fought in World War II. Beginning in 1944, the regiment fought primarily in the European Theatre, in particular Italy, southern France, and Germany. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) was organized on March 23, 1943, in response to the War Department's call for volunteers to form the segregated Japanese American army combat unit. More than 12,000 Nisei volunteers answered the call. Ultimately 2,686 from Hawaii and 1,500 from mainland U.S. internment camps assembled at Camp Shelby, Mississippi in April 1943 for a year of infantry training. Many of the soldiers from the continental U.S. had families in internment camps while they fought abroad. The unit's motto was "Go for Broke".
100th Infantry soldiers receiving grenade training in 1943
442nd recruits building then attacking across a pontoon bridge at Camp Shelby
A 442nd RCT squad leader, Sergeant Goichi Suehiro, checks for German units in France in November 1944.
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team hiking up a muddy road in the Chambois Sector, France, in late 1944