Sam Chu Lin on Chinese-American WWII vets

ASIAN AMERICANS REMEMBER D-DAY

They also ask that their contributions not be forgotten By Sam Chu Lin

A visitor to Kenny Gong's home in Cleveland, Mississippi will quickly notice a picture frame with World War II medals and photographs prominently displayed in the living room. They are reminders that he was among the thousands of paratroopers who dropped behind enemy lines in France on D-Day. One photograph shows him proudly cradling a machine gun in his arms, a good clue as to why his colleagues in the 101st Airborne nicknamed the 17-year-old paratrooper "Machine Gun Gong."In nearby Greenville, Jack Wong and his wife Fannie are thumbing through an old newspaper acknowledging him as one of the city's three honorary grand marshals in last December's Christmas parade and for his service during World War II. Wong was in the Army Signal Corp and was among the tens of thousands of soldiers who waded through the waters onto Omaha Beach only days after the initial invasion took place.

Delbert Wong, a Los Angeles judge, is sitting in his Silver Lake home, ready to watch the Los Angeles Lakers take on the Minnesota Timberwolves in the final Western Conference championship game [Lakers' won.]. A model of a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber like the one he flew as a navigator in the 401 Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force during World War II sits on a coffee table nearby. He's thankful that he survived 30 missions over Germany and Berlin. Those raids, he says, helped to pave the way for D-Day.In Santa Barbara, Roy Fong is in the garage repairing a drawer to an old refrigerator while his wife is preparing a salmon sandwich in the kitchen for lunch. During World War II, he was a radio operator stationed at Warmwell, a P-38 Lightning and Spitfire base in Southern England and helped to guide fighter pilots home. He recently celebrated his 80th birthday. He soon plans to call a friend in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to remember D-Day.

On that fateful day, Gong says it was about 1:30 in the morning when a C-47 dropped him and his fellow paratroopers near Saint-Mere Eglise. As the men jumped from their plane into the dark night air, they were greeted with a deadly 4th of July fireworks show. "There were plenty of ack-ack guns," Gong recounted. "I was so scared. The man ahead of me got shot through the stomach. I landed in a ditch near hedgerows with Germans running all around me. It took me a day to get back to my unit."The 80-year-old World War II veteran is proud of his military service. He smiles as he wishfully thinks that perhaps one day a book might be written including his wartime experiences. He notes that he has collected war souvenirs including a German Luger, but his voice becomes serious when he talks about those who made the supreme sacrifice on that fateful June 6 six decades ago. "When I think about that day," he related, "I get sick all over. I think about all of the dead people. I don't want to watch any television shows about D-Day. I went through the real thing."

In contrast, 82-year-old Jack Wong vividly remembers the many bodies on Omaha Beach and his own close calls with German snipers, but he feels differently about this 60th anniversary."This D-Day anniversary means a lot to me," Wong stated. "It brings back a lot of memories. I was drafted to protect the liberty and freedom we so cherish in this country. In boot camp, I met with men who came from all over the country. I learned a lot, and I matured a whole lot."Wong was with the 12th Army Group and on D-Day, he and other troops were amassed on the southern tip of England. Fate dealt them a positive hand. They were held in reserve and didn't go in on the first wave. When they arrived, fierce fighting continued."We got off a transport ship into a landing craft," the Mississippi Delta veteran remembered. "Near shore we waded in knee deep water. Many bodies were floating in the water. The Germans were firing artillery and machine guns at us, and our battleships and troops fired back at them.""Our main job was to intercept German radio messages and to turn over that information to G2 intelligence," he continued on. "They would decode those messages and feed it to headquarters to let them know where the German armored divisions were deployed and what they were up to."Wong emphasizes all Americans --- especially Asian Pacific Americans --- should appreciate the sacrifices that the veterans of World War II and other conflicts have made for this country.

He is thankful that his city, which once denied Chinese Americans the right to send their children to once segregated white schools or to use the local hospital facilities, has recognized veterans like himself for their contributions and honored them."We have more liberty and freedom than any other country in the world," he commented. "Many people including Asian Americans sacrificed their lives to protect that liberty and freedom that we enjoy. The people who are new in this country should be educated about that history so they too will appreciate the sacrifices that have been made, and they'll be encouraged to do what they can to protect that liberty and freedom."

Judge Wong, who later became the first person of Chinese descent to be appointed to the judiciary in the continental United States, says that the Allied bomb raids over Germany helped to eliminate Hitler's air power so an invasion could take place."There were few (German) airplanes flying over D-Day," Judge Wong noted. "If there were more, they would have strafed our troops and we couldn't have had the invasion."The retired superior court judge had completed his 30 missions on June 2nd and was scheduled to go home just before the D-Day invasion, but he and his fellow crewmembers were held in reserve just in case they were needed. He says the bombers paid a heavy price to pave the way for D-Day to happen. "We flew the last hour to Berlin without fighter cover," he recounted. "The city was surrounded by over 400 gun batteries. We lost 60 bombers. At the same time, our division was credited with 400 enemy aircraft destroyed in one day. We didn't know what to shoot at because there were so many fighters coming through. They came so close you could see the pilots' faces as they went whizzing by."

On another mission, German fighters raked Wong's B-17 dubbed the "Dry Run" with 17 direct hits. A waist gunner was killed and two other crewmembers were wounded. The bomber limped back to England and crashed landed at a British fighter base. Judge Wong feels the media and historians should make more of an effort to recognize the contributions of Asian Pacific Americans during World War II, especially with the 60th anniversary of D-Day approaching."I think that the 100th Battalion / 442nd Nisei Regimental Combat Team has not gotten as much coverage or attention that they deserve," he cited as example. "They are the most decorated unit in U.S. military history. We don't really hear about them except in the Asian press, and they should get more coverage."Roy Fong, who was a sergeant and radio operator in the 9th Air Force of the Army Air Corps, says if anyone looked up at the sky on D-Day it was clear an invasion was under way."With 10,000 planes up in the air ---- maybe more, some going in one direction and others going in another direction," the retired Los Angeles Department of Water and Power employee noted, "you couldn't count them. They were headed for Normandy and then coming back to reload. On June 6th our squadron commander didn't come back. He was shot down."There had been plenty of air activity going on for a solid week. The former radio operator says he couldn't hear the machine gun fire, but he knew when the pilots were in combat by listening to them on the radio. "They'd say, "Bandit at two o'clock high! There's one coming in at four o'clock," he recounted. "When they finished their missions, the pilots radioed us back. We set up homing beacons to guide them in."

Years later Fong was reminded of how important a role he played. Several attendees at a veterans' reunion nonchalantly identified him as a "cook.""I was the only Asian in my fighter group," he said. His wife Elizabeth quickly interjected, "Pilots that knew Roy quickly said, "No, No, he's not a cook! He brought us home safely. That's why we're here at this reunion."Fong added, "It would be great if more people realized that Asian Americans contributed much to help win the war."

This article is copyrighted by Sam Chu Lin and is posted on www.cacanational.org by permission of the author.