Gender

Male

Birth date

1923-12-14

Place of birth

Ventura CA, U.S.A.

Inducted

1944-5-15, Phoenix AZ

Enlistment type

Draftee

Service branch

Army

Service type

War

Unit type

Combat

Units served

442nd Regimental Combat Team, 2nd Battalion, Company G

Military specialty

Rifleman

Stationed

4 months: Basic Training, Camp Blanding, FL
19 months: France and Italy

Separated

Ft. Bliss TX

Unit responsibility

April 1945: Make frontal attack on the Gothic Line which had withstood attacks for four or five months.

Personal responsibility

Member of rifle squad.

Major battles (if served in a war zone)

Rhineland Campaign
Po Valley Campaign
North Apennines Campaign

Awards, medals, citations (individual or unit)

Bronze Star Medal
Good Conduct Medal
Combat Infantryman Badge
Sharpshooters Badge w/Rifle Bar
Distinguished Unit Badge w/1 Bronze Star
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
World War II Victory Medal

Living conditions

Lived and slept in fox holes and abandoned buildings.
Seldom bathed.
C-rations were terrible.
Lucky if you got a couple day pass to the rest area.

Missed most whilst in the military

Family in camp.

Additional information

With the death of John, there is only one brother left of the four Takasugi brothers, Katsumi Leonard, George Joji, John Hiroshi and Knox Haruo, who served in Europe during World War II with the US Army's famed Japanese American unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The Takasugis came out of an internment camp in Gila, AZ to fight for flag and country as their parents, brothers and sisters remained in the camp, behind barbed wire and under the rifles of Army guards.

Leonard was the first Takasugi brother to die. He was killed in action on April 5, 1945, as his outfit, the 100th Battalion (part of the 442nd RCT), moved against the German's heavily fortified Gothic Line in northern Italy. Knox a resident of Ojai, died in 1996.

John, of Oxnard, retired in 1983 after 30 years of working as an electronic technician at the Point Mugu Pacific Missile Range and died at age 75 on May 21, 1999. George of Gardena is the last surviving family veteran of the 442nd.

John and George entered the Army in the summer of 1944 and Knox joined after them. Leonard, however, had been selected in the first peacetime draft in 1941 and was in the Army when Pearl Harbor was bombed. By 1945 all the brothers were in different companies of the 442nd, but they fought in the same battles. George was wounded the same day Leonard was killed.