US airman Ben Kuroki, only Japanese American to fly in combat over Japan, dies at 98

Ben Kuroki, who overcame the American military’s discriminatory policies to become the only Japanese American to fly over Japan during World War II, has died. He was 98.

Kuroki died last Tuesday at his Camarillo, California, home, where he was under hospice care, his daughter Julie Kuroki told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday.

The son of Japanese immigrants who was raised on a Hershey, Nebraska, farm, Kuroki and his brother, Fred, volunteered for service after the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

They were initially rejected by recruiters who questioned the loyalty of the children of Japanese immigrants. Undeterred, the brothers drove 240km to another recruiter, who allowed them to sign up.

At the time, the Army Air Forces banned soldiers of Japanese ancestry from flying, but Kuroki earned his way onto a bomber crew and flew 58 bomber missions over Europe, North Africa and Japan during the war. He took part in the August 1943 raid over Nazi oil fields in Ploesti, Romania, that killed 310 fliers in his group. He was captured after his plane ran out of fuel over Morocco, but he managed to escape with crewmates to England.

Because of his Japanese ancestry, he was initially rejected when he asked to serve on a B-29 bomber that was to be used in the Pacific. But after repeated requests and a review of his stellar service record, Secretary of War Harry Stimson granted an exception and he became the only Japanese American to fly in combat in the Pacific theatre, taking part in bombing runs over the main Japanese islands and elsewhere.