Barney F. Hajiro Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Barney F. Hajiro
Barney F. Hajiro, Medal of Honor recipient
Born	(1916-09-16)September 16, 1916 Territory of Hawaii
Died	January 21, 2011(2011-01-21) (aged 94) Maunalani Care Home, Honolulu, Hawaii
Buried	National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1942 – 1945
Rank	Private First Class
Unit	442nd Regimental Combat Team
Battles/wars	World War II
Awards	Medal of Honor Bronze Star Purple Heart

Barney Fushimi Hajiro (September 16, 1916 – January 21, 2011) was an American combat veteran of World War II who received the Medal of Honor, the highest United States military award for valor.

Biography
Military decorations and awards
See also

Biography

Early years

Hajiro was born in Hawaii, the second to the eldest of nine children born to Japanese immigrant parents His parents had moved from Hiroshima to Maui during World War I. Two of his siblings died in infancy. The family was poor, and Hajiro left school to work, first in the sugarcane fields of Maui and later as a stevedore in Honolulu.

U.S. Army

World War II

Hajiro in 2006

Two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and performed menial labor as part of an engineering battalion.

In March 1943, Hajiro volunteered to be part of the Army's all-Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The 442nd was mostly made up of second-generation Americans citizens of Japanese descent from Hawaii and the mainland. The unit was sent to Europe and in May 1944 fought the Germans in Italy, north of Rome. From there the 442nd was redeployed to France.

On October 19, 1944, the 442nd was fighting near Bruyères and Biffontaine in eastern France and over the next ten days, Hajiro, a private in Company I, repeatedly distinguished himself in battle. He exposed himself to enemy fire while assisting an Allied attack on October 19, and three days later he and a comrade ambushed an 18-man enemy patrol. On October 29, during the rescue of the so-called "Lost Battalion", which had been surrounded by German forces in the Vosges Mountains, he single-handedly destroyed two German machine gun emplacements. Afterwards, in another firefight, he was shot in the shoulder and wrist leaving his left arm partially paralyzed. He was able to rejoin the 442nd in Monte Carlo, but was barred from further combat duty. He was then sent back to the United States to recover.

Hajiro was recommended for the Medal of Honor for his actions in October 1944. He received the Distinguished Service Cross and the World War II Victory Medal before he was honorably discharged.

Post-war and later years

In 1948, he was awarded the Military Medal by the British government. A 1990s review of U.S. military service records for personnel of Asian descent who had received the Distinguished Service Cross during World War II led to Hajiro's Distinguished Service Cross being upgraded to the Medal of Honor. President Bill Clinton presented Hajiro the Medal of Honor during a ceremony at the White House on June 21, 2000. Twenty-one other former U.S. military personnel of Asian descent also received the Medal of Honor during the ceremony, fifteen of them posthumously. In 2004, the French awarded Hajiro the Legion of Honor.