The Po Valley Campaign. The 100th and the 442d closed into the Peninsula Base Section Staging Area at Pisa on 5 March 1945 and were assigned to the 5th Army, attached to the IV Corps, and under the operational control of the 92d Infantry Division. The arrival of the 100/442 was kept a closely guarded secret from the Germans. Gen. Mark Clark had ordered . . . (
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"Go for Broke!"
FRANCE, OCTOBER 1944. The rain and chill which precedes winter in the Vosges mountains had started. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was weary and battle-scarred after fighting in Italy. Most of its members were Americans of Japanese ancestry. Men with names like Sumida, Miyamoto, Takemoto and Tanaka would write a bright page in the history of the U.S. Army.
On 27 October, the 442nd was called on to rescue a surrounded U.S. Battalion. They attacked the heavily fortified defenses of a superior German force. Fighting was desperate, often hand-to-hand. by 30 October, nearly half the regiment had become casualties.
Then, something happened in the 442nd. By ones and twos, almost spontaneously and without orders, the men got to their feet and, with a kind of universal anger, moved toward the enemy positions. Bitter hand-to-hand combat ensued as the Americans fought from one fortified position to the next. Finally, the enemy broke in disorder.
"Go for Broke" was more that a motto for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. At a special ceremony to honor the 442nd, seeing only a few hundred men, the Division Commander asked why the whole regiment was not present. Colonel Charles W. Pence is said to have replied, "Sir... this is the entire Regiment."