The Purple Heart Battalion

  • The Purple Heart Battalion
The Purple Heart Battalion

Tuesday, April 16, 2024 – Wednesday, May 15, 2024
East Rotunda Gallery

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team

None of us thought we were coming home alive. —Lawson Sakai

Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Roosevelt administration required people of Japanese descent living on the West Coast to leave their homes and live in camps. 2,100 of the relocated citizens volunteered for military service. Together with Japanese American soldiers from Hawaii, they formed the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The 442nd fought in seven major European military campaigns. Dubbed the “Purple Heart Battalion,” it is the most decorated American military unit for its size and length of service. The unit received more than 18,000 individual decorations, including 21 Medals of Honor, more than 4,000 Purple Hearts, and the Congressional Gold Medal.

pocket log of soldier in 442nd

This pocket log was used to keep a record of the Japanese American infantrymen who were killed in action or died of wounds. In all, the 442nd suffered almost 10,000 casualties and 600 deaths.

Pocket Log of 442nd Infantry Killed In Action and Died of Wounds
National Archives, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office
View in National Archives Catalog

The Featured Document Display is made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation through the generous support of Verizon.

For more information, click here.

Past Featured Records
  • 70th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
    70th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

    Thursday, February 1, 2024 – Wednesday, February 28, 2024
    East Rotunda Gallery

    Equity in Education: 70 Years Later

    On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court delivered a unanimous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional in... Read more

  • 250th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party
    250th Anniversary of the Boston Tea Party
    Thursday, December 14, 2023 – Wednesday, January 31, 2024
    East Rotunda Gallery

    The Destruction of the Tea

    It wouldn’t be known as the “Boston Tea Party” for another 50 years, but the destruction... Read more

  • Diseños: An Impact of Mexican Cession
    Diseños: An Impact of Mexican Cession
    Tuesday, June 20, 2023 – Wednesday, October 18, 2023
    East Rotunda Gallery

     

    At the end of the Mexican-American War, the United States annexed more than half of Mexico’s territory under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Under its terms, the U.S. promised to... Read more

  • Celebrating Anna May Wong
    Celebrating Anna May Wong

    Anna May Wong
    National Archives, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service

    “I want to be an actress, not a freak.”

    Film legend Anna May Wong’s talent could not be contained by the racist casting of early Hollywood movies. Born Wong Liu Tsong in Los Angeles in 1905,... Read more

  • The Maker of Pilots: Willa B. Brown
    The Maker of Pilots: Willa B. Brown

    Willa B. Brown, February 13, 1943
    National Archives, Records of the Office of War Information

    Aviator Willa Beatrice Brown (1906–92) achieved numerous “firsts” in her lifetime, many of them earned through her tireless advocacy to integrate aviation programs. Brown began taking flying lessons in 1934,... Read more