Word Celebrity Blog

Daniel K. Inouye


Personal History

Daniel Ken Inouye was born on September 7, 1924 in Honolulu, Hawaii, the son of Kame (née Imanaga) and Hyotaro Inouye. He is a Sansei Japanese-American (an American-born grandchild of Japanese immigrants) and grew up in the Bingham Tract, a Chinese-American enclave within the predominantly Japanese-American community of Mo'ili'ili in Honolulu.


























Daniel K. Inouye was a senior in high school in Honolulu when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He remembered standing outside his house with his father as Japanese planes swooped down on the U.S. fleet, both he and his father, as Japanese Americans, sharing a special sense of horror at this event. Dan, who had been teaching first aid to local community groups, spent the first day of the war working at a Red Cross station as a medical volunteer.


Military Service

The War Department, refused to accept Japanese-merican volunteers after Pearl Harbor. The next September, Dan Inouye enrolled in the University of Hawaii, with plans to become a doctor. In 1943, when the U.S. Army dropped its ban on Japanese- Americans, he curtailed his premedical studies at the University of Hawaii and enlisted in the Army.



























Dan Inouye was assigned to the Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team; during training in Mississippi, the unit found its motto: "Go for Broke!" When the 442nd shipped out for Naples, in May 1944, Dan Inouye was a sergeant and squad leader.


























The 442nd's casualty rate was so high that it eventually took 12,000 men to fill the original 4,500 places in the regiment. The unit began fighting in June 1944 north of Rome, pushing the Germans back along the Arno River.




















Daniel Inouye, lower left, early wartime portrait with friends.


Later in the summer, it spent several months fighting in France's Rhone valley, where he spent two weeks searching for the Lost Battalion, a Texas battalion that was surrounded by German forces. He was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant for his actions and he was given the role of platoon leader.

While leading an attack a shot struck him in the chest directly above his heart, but the bullet was stopped by the two silver dollars he happened to have stacked in his shirt pocket. He continued to carry the coins throughout the war in his shirt pocket as good luck charms. The Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team, became the most-highly decorated unit in the history of the Army.


Assault On Colle Musatello

The 442nd then returned to Italy. On April 21, 1945, with the European war nearing its end, Second Lieutenant Inouye's company was ordered to attack a heavily defended ridge guarding an important road in the vicinity of San Terenzo called Colle Musatello. The ridge served as a strongpoint along the strip of German fortifications known as the Gothic Line, which represented the last and most dogged line of German defensive works in Italy.  His platoon wiped out an enemy patrol and mortar observation post and reached the main line of resistance before the rest of the American force. As he led his platoon in a flanking maneuver, three German machine guns focused their fire on them, pinning them down.


























Lieutenant Inouye worked his way toward the first bunker. While pulling out a grenade, he felt something hit him in his side, but he paid no attention and threw the grenade into the machine-gun nest. After it exploded, he advanced and killed the crew. He didn't realize he'd been shot until one of his men told him he was bleeding. Ignoring his wound, he proceeded to attack and destroy the first machine gun nest with hand grenades and fire from his M1 Thompson submachine gun.

As his squad distracted the third machine gunner, Inouye crawled toward the final bunker, eventually drawing within 10 yards. As he raised himself up and cocked his arm to throw his last grenade into the fighting position, a German inside fired a rifle grenade that struck him on the right elbow, severing most of his arm and leaving the primed grenade reflexively "clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore" Inouye's horrified soldiers moved to his aid, but he shouted for them to keep back out of fear his severed fist would involuntarily relax and drop the grenade. As the German inside the bunker reloaded his rifle, Dan Inouye managed to pry the live grenade from his useless right hand and transfer it to his left. As the German aimed his rifle to finish him off, Dan managed at last to toss the grenade off-hand into the bunker and destroy it. He stumbled to his feet and continued forward, silencing the last German resistance with a one-handed burst from his Thompson before being wounded in the leg and tumbling unconscious to the bottom of the ridge. 



























When Lieutenant Inouye awoke to see the concerned men of his platoon hovering over him, his only comment before being carried away was to gruffly order them return to their positions, since, as he pointed out, "nobody had called off the war".

The remainder of Dan Inouye's mutilated right arm was later amputated at a field hospital without proper anesthesia, as he had been given too much morphine at an aid station and it was feared any more would lower his blood pressure enough to kill him.


























While recovering from war wounds and the amputation of his right forearm from the grenade wound at Percy Jones Army Hospital, Dan Inouye met the future Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, who was then a fellow patient. Bob Dole mentioned to Inouye that after the war he planned to go to Congress; Dan Inouye beat him there by a few years. The two have remained lifelong friends. In 2003, the hospital was renamed the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center in honor of the two WWII veterans and another U.S. Senator and fellow WWII veteran who had stayed in the hospital, Philip Hart.

Dan Inouye went to college on the GI Bill, and by 1953 had become a lawyer. Soon afterward he was elected to the territorial legislature, of which he was a member until shortly before Hawaii achieved statehood in 1959.

During the World War II campaign in Europe Dan Inouye received the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Service Cross.

In 1996, Congress passed a law directing:
    The Secretary of the Army shall review the records relating to each award of the Distinguished-Service Cross, and the Secretary of the Navy shall review the records relating to each award of the Navy Cross, that was awarded to an Asian-American or a Native American Pacific Islander with respect to service as a member of the Armed Forces during World War II. The purpose of the review shall be to determine whether any such award should be upgraded to the Medal of Honor.

In 1998, the report came back, recommending that 22 Asian-Americans have their DSCs upgraded to Medals of Honor, Dan Inouye among them.


























The award ceremonies took place in June 21,2000. President Bill Clinton, spoke to the assembled audience and said that the Asian-American soldiers had “risked their lives, above and beyond the call of duty. And in so doing, they did more than defend America; in the face of painful prejudice, they helped to define America at its best.”


Medal Of Honor















Citation:

Second Lieutenant Daniel K. Inouye distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on 21 April 1945, in the vicinity of San Terenzo, Italy. While attacking a defended ridge guarding an important road junction, Second Lieutenant Inouye skillfully directed his platoon through a hail of automatic weapon and small arms fire, in a swift enveloping movement that resulted in the capture of an artillery and mortar post and brought his men to within 40 yards of the hostile force. Emplaced in bunkers and rock formations, the enemy halted the advance with crossfire from three machine guns. With complete disregard for his personal safety, Second Lieutenant Inouye crawled up the treacherous slope to within five yards of the nearest machine gun and hurled two grenades, destroying the emplacement. Before the enemy could retaliate, he stood up and neutralized a second machine gun nest. Although wounded by a sniper’s bullet, he continued to engage other hostile positions at close range until an exploding grenade shattered his right arm. Despite the intense pain, he refused evacuation and continued to direct his platoon until enemy resistance was broken and his men were again deployed in defensive positions. In the attack, 25 enemy soldiers were killed and eight others captured. By his gallant, aggressive tactics and by his indomitable leadership, Second Lieutenant Inouye enabled his platoon to advance through formidable resistance, and was instrumental in the capture of the ridge. Second Lieutenant Inouye’s extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.


























Dan Inouye's story, along with interviews with him about the war as a whole, were featured prominently in the 2007 Ken Burns documentary "The War".

In 2007, Dan Inouye was personally inducted as Légion d'honneur Chevalier by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In February 2009, a bill was filed in the Philippine House of Representatives by Rep. Antonio Diaz seeking to confer honorary Filipino citizenship on Danial Inouye, Senators Ted Stevens and Daniel Akaka and Representative Bob Filner, for their role in securing the passage of benefits for Filipino World War II veterans.


Dan Inouye's Family




Daniel Inouye poses with hiswife Margaret and son  Kenny for a family Christmas card.


Dan's wife of fifty-seven years, Maggie, died on March 13, 2006.   He married Irene Hirano in a private ceremony in Beverly Hills, California, on May 24, 2008.




















Ms. Hirano is president and chief executive officer of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California. According to the Honolulu Advertiser, she is 24 years younger than Inouye.  On May 27, 2010, Ms. Hirano was elected by the board to chair the nation's 2nd largest non-profit, The Ford Foundation .
Dan Inouye's son Kenny was the guitarist for influential D.C. hardcore punk band "Marginal Man".


Congressional Career


























After leaving the Army and going through a long period of recuperation, Inouye finished college. Forced to give up his dream of practicing medicine, he decided to study law. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Hawaii in 1954 — Congress's first Japanese American — and to the Senate in 1962.



























The day Dan Inouye took the oath of office in the House of Representatives in 1954, was recorded in the Congressional Record: 

One of the most dramatic and moving scenes ever to occur in this House. On that day, a young man, just elected to Congress from the brand new state, walked into the well of the House and faced the late Speaker Sam Rayburn.

The House was very still. It was about to witness the swearing in, not only of the first Congressman from Hawaii, but the first American of Japanese descent to serve in either House of Congress.

"Raise your right hand and repeat after me," intoned Speaker Sam Rayburn.

The hush deepened as the young Congressman raised not his right hand, but his left and he repeated the oath of office.

There was no right hand, Mr. Speaker. It had been lost in combat by that young American soldier in World War II. Who can deny that, at that moment, a ton of prejudice slipped quietly to the floor of the House of Representatives.


























Daniel Ken Inouye is an American politician, who is the senior United States Senator from Hawaii and the President pro tempore of the United States Senate, which makes him the highest- ranking Asian- American politician in American history. He is the chairman of the influential United States Senate Committee on Appropriations.

Daniel Inouye has been a U.S. Senator since 1963 and is currently the most senior member of Senate since the death of Robert Byrd. He is also the second longest serving U.S Senator in history after Senator Byrd.

























Dan Inouye has continuously represented Hawaii in the U.S. Congress since it achieved statehood in 1959, serving as Hawaii's first U.S. Representative and later as a U.S. Senator. He was the first Japanese- American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives and later the first in the U.S. Senate.


























.He is a recipient of the United States Medal of Honor