TAPS: Sgt. Noboru Togioka

  Sgt. Noboru Togioka  graduated from Reedley Joint Union High School in 1939.  His family was incarcerated at the Poston, Arizona concentration camp 3 (309-2-D).  During World War II, he fought with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, 2nd Battalion, Headquarters Company. He was awarded the Silver Star Medal and a Purple Heart.

Source: http://postonupdates.blogspot.com/2012/02/central-california-congressional-gold.html

 

Silver Star Citation: Awarded for actions during the World War II

     The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Sergeant Noboru Togioka (ASN: 39083617), United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against the enemy while serving with Headquarters Company, 2d Battalion, 442d Regimental Combat Team, attached to the 34th Infantry Division, on 26 June 1944, in the vicinity of Suvereto, Italy. 

     During the periodic mortar and artillery shillings that the Second Battalion Command Post was subjected to for six hours, the telephone lines between the Battalion CP, the Regimental CP and the front lines were knocked out. Upon learning of the situation and its seriousness, Sergeant Togioka, on his own initiative, secured his repair kit and made his way along the telephone lines in the midst of terrific barrages. When two of his men offered to accompany him, he refused their offer. Tracing the lines in full view of the enemy, he finally located the damaged line and repaired it. Fully aware of the danger entailed, he continued to patrol the lines for over an hour, making repairs as the lines were blown apart by the shells. It was during one of the heaviest shellings and while repairing a line that Sergeant Togioka was wounded seriously by shrapnel.  

     Sergeant Togioka's determination and undaunted bravery at the risk of his life is credit to himself and his organization.

General Orders: Headquarters, 34th Infantry Division, General Orders No. 69 (July 27, 1944)
Action Date: 26-Jun-44
Service: Army
Rank: Sergeant
Company: Headquarters Company
Battalion: 2d Battalion
Regiment: 442d Regimental Combat Team
Division: 34th Infantry Division

Source: http://projects.militarytimes.com/citations-medals-awards/recipient.php?recipientid=26902

Obituary

On September 24, 2013, Noboru Togioka passed away peacefully at home. Noboru Togioka was born to Kango and Fumi Togioka in Dinuba, California. A recipient of the Military Silver Star and Purple Heart, Noboru took special pride in serving his country during World War II. A devoted Husband, Father, Grandfather and Great Grandfather, he managed his farm in Kingsburg for 53 years before retiring in Clovis and finally Fresno. 

He is survived by his wife Yuriko; sons, Robert Togioka and Patti, Eugene Togioka and Elyse; grandchildren Brandon Togioka and Jennifer, Shawna Gisch and Ryan; great grandchild Ella Togioka.

Source: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/fresnobee/obituary.aspx?n=noboru-togioka&pid=167181705&fhid=11234#sthash.lfzNHImr.dpuf

Silver Star Medal Finally Awarded

Long Overdue Silver Star Awarded to WWII Soldier

April 13, 2012

Honolulu Advertiser

by William Cole

     The 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team of mainly Japanese-American soldiers are well known as the most decorated units from World War II for their size and length of service.

     Sixty-seven years later, that bravery still is being tallied.

Silver Star Medal

     On Tuesday in his Honolulu office, U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye presented the Silver Star, the military's third highest combat award for valor, to the family of Tech. Sgt. ROBERT  Y. OZAKI for leading a bayonet charge against German forces in Italy in 1943.  The audacious act was undertaken on the spur of the moment to rescue a popular lieutenant who was feared captured, and is recorded in history as perhaps the first American bayonet charge of the war in Italy.

     "I apologize, on behalf of the Congress, for having taken this long to recognize your (uncle's) contributions," Inouye told the soldier's nephew, also named Robert, and other Ozaki family members.

     Inouye, who lost his arm attacking German machine-gun positions in the war with the "Go For Broke" 442nd, told the family: "It's a high honor for me to present this."

"You can't help but recall those days," Hawaii's senior senator said right after the ceremony. "You don't quite forget blood."

     That blood was spent in defense of the United States as 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans were rounded up and sent to detention camps during the war years.

     ROBERT OZAKI, a Kaimuki boy, boxer and athlete who graduated from 'Iolani School, fought in World War II as his brother was interned in American detention camps. The soldier's bravery was known within the ranks of the 100th Battalion, but not to his family in Hawaii until the Ozakis brought Robert home and reburied him in 2011 at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific with his parents.

     ROBERT OZAKI died on May 25, 1945, in a Colorado hospital at the age of 25 and was buried in a cemetery there. The soldier had suffered a neck wound that became infected, his nephew said.  Ozaki left in the summer of 1942 with the 100th Battalion never to return to Hawaii -- until he was reburied here last year.

     "This all started with the effort to re-inter him and bring him home," said nephew Robert Ozaki. "To do that, and working with the cemetery (in Colorado), they needed his military record, proof of service, and that led us to search for all this stuff."  Those records were lost in a 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis that destroyed about 16 million to 18 million military files.

     Sgt. Ozaki never married, and his parents and two sisters and brother had died. His older brother Kenneth (nephew Robert's father) had been imprisoned in California and met his wife, May, at a detention center in Colorado, Camp Amache.

     Ozaki, president of the Queen Liliuokalani Trust, said he enlisted the aid of friend and retired Judge Thomas Kaulukukui, who also is chairman of the trust's board and a Vietnam War platoon sergeant.  He recalled going to the 100th Battalion clubhouse seeking information about his uncle and hearing stories -- for the first time -- about the war hero's bayonet charge.  "We recognized from the history that it was a valorous act that had not been recognized," Kaulukukui said.  Eventually, sworn statements were obtained from three soldiers who were aware of Sgt. Ozaki's actions, including ROBERT TAKASHIGE, TAKASHI KITAOKA and SONSEI NAKAMURA, who took part in the bayonet charge.

     According to Thomas Murphy in "Ambassadors in Arms," the 100th Battalion in the fall of 1943 was part of an American night drive to cross the Volturno River in Italy and move against the Germans in Roccaravindola and Santa Maria Olivetto.  Lt. YOUNG OK KIM was ahead of Company B on a dirt road when enemy bullets whistled by and he disappeared in the darkness. Ozaki, the platoon sergeant, thought Kim had been wounded or captured. "As Ozaki ordered his platoon to fix bayonets for attack the word spread down the line, and when Ozaki's men charged screaming across wall and road a good part of the rest of the company went along," Murphy wrote.

Some say Ozaki ordered the bayonet charge because he didn't want his soldiers' fire to be spotted in the darkness and draw return fire.

     "I didn't know what to expect," said Nakamura, now 96, who was part of the Nov. 3, 1943, charge. "All the excitement going on, fix bayonets, a lot of noise, and everybody starting to move forward."

     Kim, it turned out, had fallen down an embankment and had not been captured, and the German forces retreated. 

     Fifteen Ozaki family members, young and old, attended the Silver Star presentation and thanked Inouye for his efforts.  "He did the bayonet charge," said 10-year-old Tyson Ozaki of his great-great uncle. "I thought it was pretty cool."

Source: http://www.military.com/news/article/long-overdue-silver-star-awarded-to-wwii-soldier.html