Uninvited Valor
The Forsaken Soldiers of WWII: Based on the Epic True Story of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team
John C. Kiyonaga, DartFrog Blue, 2024, 222 pages
Book Review published on: September 4, 2025
Uninvited Valor: The Forsaken Soldiers of WWII compellingly illuminates a little-known and largely unheralded chapter in American arms—the service of the Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) infantry regiment in the European Theater of Operations during World War II.
The book opens with a dedication to the author's father, 1st Lt. Joseph Yoshio Kiyonaga, a fitting tribute to his distinguished service in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT), whose enlisted ranks were comprised entirely of American soldiers of Japanese parents and remains to this day the most highly decorated unit in the Armed Forces. The unit's motto was "Go for Broke," and its soldiers lived it.
A work of fiction, this novel follows the unit's actual campaigns and incorporates historical leaders at the national, divisional, and regimental level—yet conveys through the fictional protagonist and his friends the experience of war as lived by the men who wear the boots. The result is an intensely readable trip through the mind and heart of a flesh and blood Soldier—not a cookie cutter hero, but a young man of principle still riven with the fear, anger and indecision that freight all of us at one time or another. Uninvited Valor is a novel not just for students of military history, but for anyone who enjoys a good story well told.
The story begins by describing the dilemma facing many young Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Should they support their America in the war against the Axis Powers—the same America that was placing mainland Japanese American friends and families in internment camps simply because they shared the heritage of their attackers?
Amazingly, young Nisei men volunteered—by their thousands—many from the very camps where they had been wrongly imprisoned.
Joe Horiuchi, the fictional 23-year-old English teacher protagonist, suffers a sharp internal debate as he navigates his own decision to serve.
Summary
"Never the Same Again" is the title of the first chapter which opens with the attack on Pearl Harbor and sets the tone for the events to come. Life in Hawaii, the United States, and virtually everywhere else in the world would never be the same—especially the lives of the characters in the story that unfolds over the next 3+ years. One minute the guys are playing golf on a beautiful Sunday morning and the next they find themselves in the middle of the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor and Honolulu.
From there, the story continues against the political backdrop of the United States Government decision that would upend the lives of Japanese Americans. We learn about the treatment of the Japanese immigrants and their US born children, whether living in the Islands and merely under suspicion or on the Pacific Coast mainland where they were forcibly relocated to remote camps. Never forgetting that they are "American" regardless of their current circumstances, the guys chart their individual futures and render, in the process, an unforgettable episode in this nation's story.
Consequent to a petition by Japanese Americans, President Roosevelt reversed the initial decision to bar Japanese Americans from service and created the first all Nisei unit, the 442.
Not quite two years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the guys find themselves reporting for the 442nd RCT Infantry bootcamp at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. This part of the book is where the author really excels in describing life as an enlisted Soldier in wartime. His military experience and writing style superbly combine to render the various situations confronting this unique group of recruits—fatigue, fights, a horrible training accident, cohesion, pride....
At the 30-month mark after Pear Harbor, the 442nd Infantry is in Italy clearing the Germans between the northern Tyrrhenian coast and Florence. Joe's assignment to the Heavy Weapons Platoon of "Mike" Company, 2nd Battalion, places him in the teeth of the unit's combat. First contact claims the first, but not the last, of Joe's fiends to fall.
Over the next year of war in Europe, the story continues through the toughest combat operations from Grosseto to Florence in Italy, to the Rhineland Campaign in the Vosges Mountains of France, then back to Florence for the Northern Apennines Campaign, and finally into the Po Valley Campaign which neutralized the largest remaining combat effective German formation. The book conveys in authentic detail the challenges facing Joe and his friends throughout these campaigns—bruising movements, searing firefights, fallen friends, a petty admin officer, a murder accusation, the capture of a German colonel...
Thematic Exploration
As I read this book, I could relate my own Soldier's experience to many of the situations and events portrayed. Combat during WWII, however, is not within my experience. Nonetheless, I believe that this book has enhanced my understanding of it. The flow of the book made it easy for me to think through what I might do in the situations the characters encountered. I considered, as if in their shoes, how my sense of duty, honor, and loyalty would guide me when tested repeatedly like that of the characters. Would I be able to raise my hand for the country that had scorned my people? Would repeated bloody engagement diminish my Soldier's zeal? Each chapter left me with food for reflection.
Writing Style
Spare in his prose, but rich in his detail, the author puts the reader on the ground with Joe. We feel the dense mass of his ruck, his inescapable heat and cold, his paralyzing fear, his grief, his anger...
Each chapter describes a discrete event in the chain of the story in a tempo that accelerates from the clamor and confusion following Pearl Harbor, to the resolve following the unit's formation, to the staccato engagements following its arrival in Europe. The masterful weaving of history, military humor and jargon, combat, brotherhood, and the day-to-day routines of Soldier life, adds a credible flavor to the story as these young men fight their war. This writing style makes for enjoyable reading and one for a long plane ride or a relaxing day on the deck.
Final Thoughts
Whether you are interested in learning the experience of Japanese Americans during WWII, in better appreciating the intense combat in the European Theater of the war or simply want to enjoy a beautifully written novel—this book will please. The book's granular detail sits the reader in a movie theater watching the story unfold on the screen. For the military historian, even though fictional, the situations are realistic and plausible. Following the 442nd RCT through its combat is dreadful at times, but the author keeps the story moving in a way that is captivating. You may find, as I did, that this book will generate a newfound appreciation for the wider impacts of the attack on Pearl Harbor and its serendipitous role in creating what may be the most distinguished chapter in this nation's immigrant saga.
This book tells an amazing story of a community who stood up for their/our country when they neither had to nor were expected to.
They Went for Broke.
Book Review written by: Col. Robert C. Shaw, U.S. Army, Retired, Culpeper, Virginia