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from the issue of September 13, 2007
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PBS to premiere Kuroki documentary Sept. 17
At the time, Ben Kuroki may have seemed an unlikely hero.
A small-town boy from Hershey, Neb., and a Japanese-American, Kuroki wanted to fight for the United States during World War II.
Kuroki's fight against bias and bigotry is chronicled in "Most Honorable Son," a production of NET Television that premieres nationally on PBS (NET1) at 8 p.m. Sept. 17. It also airs at 9 p.m., Sept. 20 on NET1; 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., Sept. 18 on NET2; and 9 p.m., Sept. 21 on NET1.
The story is told through rare footage and emotional recollections of Kuroki and his fellow airmen of the 8th and 20th Army Air Forces.
After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the 23-year-old Kuroki - raised with his father's tenet that one does not bring shame upon your family - volunteered for the U.S. armed forces. He wanted to prove his loyalty - to prove that Nisei (first generation Americans of Japanese descent) were patriotic Americans.
He had to fight to get into the U.S. Army Air Corps. Kuroki was a long shot, as the few Japanese-Americans in the armed forces before the war started had been discharged due to their ancestry.
However, Kuroki was admitted to the air corps and flew numerous dangerous missions as an aerial gunner on a B-24 heavy bomber. During sorties from North Africa against targets around the Mediterranean he earned the nickname "Most Honorable Son" from his fellow crewmen.
After finishing 30 missions during this European tour - including the harrowing, costly attack on the Nazi oil fields of Ploesti, Romania - he returned to the United States, a decorated Nisei war hero.
Kuroki was sent to Santa Monica, Calif., for reassignment - working for a short time in a public relations effort, discussing his service with business leaders and touring Japanese-American internment camps in a push convince more Nisei to join the armed forces.
From there, Kuroki pushed to see more combat, this time in the Pacific. He found a place as a gunner with a B-29 bomber crew destined to fly against Japan. Confronted by a War Department policy against allowing Nisei in the Pacific Theater, Kuroki was finally granted permission by the Secretary of War.
At war's end, Kuroki spoke against racial intolerance. He attended the University of Nebraska on the G.I. Bill and became a newspaperman, retiring two decades ago.
Kuroki was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in August 2005. At the award ceremony he accepted it in remembrance of his father, saying that what sustained him during all those war years was his effort to prove his loyalty.
"Most Honorable Son" is a production of KDN Films, Madison Heights, MI, and NET Television, Nebraska's PBS Station, a service of NET. It is funded in part by the Independent Television Service (ITVS), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the Center For Asian American Media.
GO TO: ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 13
ARTS HEADLINES FOR SEPTEMBER 13
PBS to premiere Kuroki documentary Sept. 17
American Life in Poetry
Book prize winner opens Olson Seminars Sept. 19
Plains Song Review seeks submissions
Ross to host experimental cinema expo
School of Music offers organist training
'Sheldon Connections 3' exhibition opens Sept. 14
WWII programming complements Burns’ ‘The War' series
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