Soldier Story: Masami Endo
Soldier Story
Masami Endo
Staff Sergeant
442nd Regimental Combat Team
Regimental Service Company
Masami Endo was born on January 3, 1916, in Ogden, Utah, to Yonezo and Hisayo (Nezu) Endo. His siblings were: brother Takeshi and sister Mary Mariko.
His parents emigrated to the US from Abe District, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. Yonezo arrived on December 1, 1898 (or 1899), at Seattle, Washington. He moved to Oconee, Nebraska. He returned to Japan in June 1913 and married Hisayo Nezu. They arrived in Seattle on the Shizuoka Maru on May 21, 1914. He listed his home as P.O. Box 45, Oconee, Nebraska, and his occupation as farmer. Hisayo was born in 1892.
On September 12, 1918, when Yonezo registered for the World War I draft, he and his family were living at 5 Wolf Place, Bingham, Salt Lake City County, Utah. He was a self-employed expressman.
In 1920, the family lived in the Carr Fork area of Bingham Canyon, Salt Lake City County. There was no employment cited in the Federal Census that year for Yonezo.
On January 4, 1921, Yonezo Endo filed an application in the District Court in Ogden for a passport as a U.S. citizen for his minor son Masami, age four, with the intent of Masami sailing that month to visit relatives in Japan for a period of five years. Yonezo identified himself as a farmer. His affidavit was signed by E. (K)enteboom, a U.S. citizen residing at 2370 Washington Avenue in Ogden. He was a printer and had known Yonezo for the past three years. They requested that Masami’s passport be sent to the Washington Avenue address.
In 1930, while Masami was a schoolboy living in Japan with relatives, his father Yonezo was living in Westmorland, Imperial County, California. He was working as a trucking operator and living with him was a lodger, Fukujiro Kubota, who was a truck driver. They were living in an area of vegetable farmers.
On April 23, 1935, Masami Endo arrived in Los Angeles, California, on the Chichibu Maru from Yokohama, Japan, at the age of 20. He had been with his mother in the town of Miho, Shimizu District, Shizuoka Prefecture, since 1922. He was headed back to his father in Westmorland.
In the 1938 Los Angeles City Directory, Masami was listed as residing at 1118 Cahuenga Boulevard and employed as a janitor.
Masami Endo signed his draft registration card on October 16, 1940, Local Board No. 213, in Room 512, 533 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles. His residence was 331½ East 1st Street, Los Angeles (in the Little Tokyo neighborhood). His point of contact was his father, Yonezo Endo. He was employed by Paramount Studio on Marathon in Hollywood. He was 5’2½” tall and weighed 118 pounds.
Masami enlisted in the U.S. Army on February 12, 1942. A few months later, his father Yonezo was incarcerated at Colorado River (also known as Poston) WRA Relocation Camp in Parker, Arizona, on May 21, 1942, having entered directly from his home in Westmorland rather than via a WCCA Assembly Center. He was listed as married, although his wife’s name was not on the list. Yonezo was released on August 31, 1945, to Ogden, Utah, where he returned to live.
Masami Endo was sent to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, where he was assigned to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team’s Service Company. The men in Service Company were in charge of many duties for all the infantry companies of the Combat Team, such as motor pool, supplies, and radio communications.
After a year of basic, unit, and combat training and field maneuvers, Masami Endo left by train from Camp Shelby on April 22, 1944, with the Combat Team. They arrived at Camp Patrick Henry, Virginia, and left from nearby Hampton Roads on May 2 in a convoy of over 100 ships for the Theater of War.
The Combat Team arrived at Naples, Italy, on May 28 and spent a week in bivouac at nearby Bagnoli. They then went on June 6 by LSTs to Anzio. Finally, on June 9 they were trucked around Rome to a larger bivouac near Civitavecchia, about fifty miles north.
The 442nd, with Endo, entered combat on June 26, 1944, near Suvereto, in the Rome-Arno Campaign. After driving the enemy north to the Arno River, they were pulled from the lines and sent to Naples for shipment to France, where they joined in the Rhineland-Vosges Campaign. They arrived at Marseilles on September 29 after a 2-day voyage, and bivouacked at nearby Septèmes prior to traveling over 500 miles north by truck or rail boxcars to the Vosges Mountains.
Endo was with Service Company as the 442nd was in combat for the next month during the bitter fighting to liberate the important rail junction of Bruyères, neighboring Biffontaine and Belmont, and the “Rescue of the Lost Battalion,” the 1st Battalion, 141st (Texas) Infantry that had advanced beyond the lines and was surrounded on three sides by the enemy. The weather was cold, wet, snowy, and miserable, as the men fought in the heavily wooded forests still in their summer uniforms. They were subjected to living in foxholes, and incoming artillery raining down on them in “tree bursts.”
After the fierce fighting in the Vosges, the 442nd was at half-strength due to heavy casualties and was sent to the south of France. There, they could rebuild to full combat strength while participating in the Rhineland-Maritime Alps Campaign, which was mostly a defensive position guarding the French-Italian border from attack by the German Army in Italy. The 442nd was there from November 23, 1944, until March 15, 1945, when they were relieved and moved in relays to the new staging area at Marseilles. On March 20-22, the 442nd (without its 522nd Field Artillery Battalion that was sent to fight in Germany) left France to fight in the Po Valley Campaign for the final push to defeat the Nazis in Italy. They arrived at the Peninsular Base Section in Pisa on March 25 and were assigned to Fifth Army.
The objective of the 442nd was to execute a surprise diversionary attack on the western anchor of the German Gothic Line. This elaborate system of fortifications had been attacked in the fall of 1944, but no one had yet been able to pry the Germans loose from the western end. The Gothic Line in this area was hewn out of solid rock, reinforced with concrete, and constructed to give all-around protection and observation. The Germans were dug into mountain peaks rising almost sheer from the coastal plain, bare of vegetation save for scanty scrub growth.
The Combat Team left their initial staging area and moved to a bivouac at San Martino, near the walled city of Lucca. Starting on April 3, the 442nd conducted a surprise attack on the Germans at Mount Folgorito. One success after another saw the 442nd continuously moving farther north, finally taking Aulla on April 25, and penetrating as far north as Torino. The 442nd’s diversionary attack was relentlessly pursued by the Combat Team, resulting in a complete breakthrough of the Gothic Line in the west. Despite orders from Hitler to fight on, the German forces in Italy surrendered on May 2, 1945, a week before the rest of the German forces in Europe surrendered.
Endo was with the 442nd while in occupation at Ghedi Airfield guarding and processing German prisoners, the move to Lecco, and the move to the Livorno/Pisa/Florence area on July 12 for further guard duty. During the occupation, he married Giovanna S. Dal Canton, an Italian citizen born on February 26, 1926. Their first child, a daughter, was born in Italy in November 1946. The exact date that S/Sgt. Masami Endo left Italy was not found in our research; however, he was discharged from the Army after his return. He reenlisted on November 21, 1946.
For his World War II service, Staff Sergeant Masami Endo received the Bronze Star Medal, Good Conduct Medal, American Campaign Medal, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with four bronze stars, World War II Victory Medal, Army of Occupation Medal, Distinguished Unit Badge, and Combat Infantryman Badge. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal on October 5, 2010, along with the other veterans of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Conferred by the U.S. Congress, the award states: “The United States remains forever indebted to the bravery, valor, and dedication to country these men faced while fighting a two-fronted battle of discrimination at home and fascism abroad. Their commitment and sacrifice demonstrate a highly uncommon and commendable sense of patriotism and honor.”
Masami’s wife Giovanna and their daughter sailed from Livorno on the S.S. Gibbons on October 18, 1947, and arrived at New York on October 28. Masami was still in the Army, and may have been stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, as their second child, another daughter, was born in Washington in 1948.
On November 21, 1949, Masami reenlisted in the Army again. In 1950, the family was living at Fort Riley, Kansas, in Building 1295, Apartment 1, where Endo was a Sergeant First Class. Endo was discharged again on November 24, 1952, after serving in the Korean War. At the time, the family was living at 2540 Lincoln Avenue in Ogden, Utah.
By the 1960s, the family had settled in Los Angeles. In 1967, their eldest daughter was presented at the Sakura Debutante Ball sponsored by the Japan America Society of Southern California. It was held on June 10 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. In 1969, their younger daughter was presented at the same ball, held the end of April.
Masami Endo died on September 5, 1996, at the age of 80. He was buried on September 12 at Los Angeles National Cemetery, Section 1-A, Site 1165. Survivors included his wife, Giovanna, two daughters (one of whom was living in Japan), six grandchildren, one great-grandchild, and brother Takeshi (and wife Hatsue) also living in Japan. He was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 9902. Endo’s funeral was held at 7:00 p.m. at Union Church of Los Angeles, 410 East 3rd Street, with arrangements by Fukui Mortuary. Giovanna Endo died on December 7, 2022, and was buried with her husband.
Researched and written by the Sons & Daughters of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in 2026.