The Cadre Prepare
On January 22, 1945, the War Department directed by a letter that a Japanese-American Combat Team should be activated on February 1, and should be composed of the 442nd Infantry Regiment, the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion and the 232nd Engineer Combat Company.
In accordance with these orders the 442nd Combat Team was activated on February 1, 1943 by General Orders, Headquarters Third Army. Colonel Charles W. Pence took command, with Lieutenant Colonel Merritt B. Booth as executive officer. Lieutenant Colonel Keith K. Tatum commanded the 1st Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel James M. Hanley the 2nd Battalion and Lieutenant Colonel Sherwood Dixon the 3rd Battalion. Lieutenant Colonel Baya M. Harrison commanded the 522nd Field Artillery, and Captain Pershing Nakada commanded the 232nd Engineers.
From the 1st to the 15th of February the cadre, both officer and enlisted, arrived from every conceivable part of the United States. The man took one look at the section of Camp Shelby, Mississippi, they were to occupy, and set up a howl that rattled the windows in the Pentagon building. The area was one of those temporary constructions that had been built at Shelby to house the overflow from one of the many divisions that had been there in 1942. To the unhappy eyes of the men who were to live there the buildings look like one huge draft shrouded by a few boards. The roofs leaked, doors hung on one hing. In the kitchens the weight of a long-unused stoves caused the floors to sag until they look more like washboards than floors. When the rains came the ground took on the general consistency of glue and part of the area reverted to the swamp from which it had originally been reclaimed.
The cadre pitched in to work, spending part of its time on instruction and part on reconstruction of the area. Under the supervision of the officers the noncoms relearned the function and use of infantry weapons, studied small-unit tactics, marched, ran compass courses through the dark forest at night, and brushed up on the 1001 things that a recruit must know before he becomes a soldier. When training was over for the day they became carpenters, mechanics, chimney sweeps, ditch diggers, plumbers, and landscape gardeners. They worked hard to make the area presentable for the new men who were even then volunteering and being sworn in in Hawaii and relocation centers in the United States.
This work went on until April 13, when 2,686 brand new enlisted men from the Territory of Hawaii, cream of almost 10,000 men who had volunteered for service there, arrived at Camp Shelby to learn to fight for their country. They arrived at their new home on trucks convoy after convoy of khaki-clad youngsters, shivering in one of the unseasonable cold snaps that infest Mississippi in April
During the days it took to process their records and assigned them to companies and batteries, the new GIs spent most of their time sitting around their hutment stoves. They wrapped themselves in overcoats, blankets, and the warmest clothes they had, and wondered what on earth was going to happen next. When the cold finally broke, what a change! The area was jammed with brown, grinning little men running happily around in the warm sun and very little else. Nobody was wearing shoes, and very few of the men were wearing anything but a pair of rolled up khaki shorts.
When the men arrived, they were loaded with money, most of which had been earned on construction jobs while the country was bolstering its Pearl Harbor defenses. When their officers found out about the staggering sums some of the men carried, they urged them to bank it or invest it in War Bonds. And invest it they did, to the tune of $101,500. Meanwhile, additional new men were arriving in small groups from different parts of the United States, some coming in before basic training started on May 10.