TEXAS: Ben Kuroki battled two enemies during World War II: the Axis powers and racism in his home country.

On both fronts, he found an ally in Edward Weir.

Kuroki, a native Nebraskan of Japanese ancestry, ultimately overcame bigotry to become a decorated war hero.

But his hopes of seeing combat in the U.S. Army Air Corps might have been dashed if a vote of Weir’s B-24 Liberator crew had gone differently.

“He had been trying for months to get on a crew, and nobody else would take him because of the prejudice at that time,” said Weir, now 86 and living in Denton. “He knew we needed a replacement [gunner]. He came to our pilot begging for a chance.”

The pilot, Jake Epting of Tupelo, Miss., wanted the blessing of his crew, so he called for a vote, Weir said.

“He asked the other crew members, ‘Do you want him?’” Weir said, recalling that day in 1942. “And we held up our hands and said yes.”

Kuroki and Weir went on to fly multiple combat missions together, ending with a massive raid on Adolf Hitler’s oil refineries in Ploiesti, Romania, on Aug. 1, 1943.

But other than a chance meeting or two just after the war, they haven’t seen each other since.

That will change Aug. 1, when they reunite in Lincoln, Neb., for the premiere of Most Honorable Son, a documentary about Kuroki’s wartime struggles. The film, produced by Michigan-based KDN Films, is expected to air Sept. 17 on PBS.

“Ed and Ben are the last two surviving crew members of their last bomber that they were on together,” said Jim Wells of Denton, who’s writing a book based on Weir’s combat journal. “There’s going to be a lot of emotions tugging at their heartstrings when they get together.”

The premiere takes place on the 64th anniversary of the Ploiesti raid.

“So it’s going to be quite a reunion,” Wells said.

 

‘We certainly trusted this fellow’

Weir, a Stephenville native known as “Red” among his crewmates, served as a navigator on B-24 Liberator bombers during the war. He flew half his missions from England over Germany and half in North Africa, bombing targets in the Mediterranean, he said.

“Our crew was very fortunate because we survived our 25 missions,” Weir said. “At that time it was mathematically very, very difficult for anybody to complete 25 missions.”

Before the tour ended, the crew needed a replacement gunner. That’s when Kuroki stepped in to plead for the job.

Anti-Japanese sentiment was high in the United States after the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Fearing the Japanese would attack the U.S. mainland, the government removed more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent from the West Coast and forced many of them into internment camps.

Meanwhile, Kuroki, the son of Japanese immigrants, was eager to prove his devotion to his native country.

“There was at least one pilot that had turned me down,” said Kuroki, now 90 and living in California. “And I had for one whole year walked on eggshells because I was afraid that with one wrong move, my chances to prove my loyalty would be jeopardized.”

Finally, Weir’s crew, part of the 93rd Bombardment Group, was willing to give Kuroki a shot.

“It was a tremendous break in my life,” said Kuroki, adding that he wasn’t aware of the crew’s vote until decades later. “Nobody questioned my nationality on the crew anymore.”

Weir said the crew admired Kuroki for his character and skill.

“The Nisei [second-generation Japanese-Americans] weren’t trusted, but we certainly trusted this fellow,” Weir said.

 

‘I still can’t get a haircut downtown’

After Kuroki met his quota of 25 combat missions, he volunteered for five more to prove he was a “good, honorable American,” Weir said.

“All of his friends tried to talk him out of it, but he survived five more missions flying out of England over Germany, and it was just unheard of,” Weir said.

Kuroki went on to fight in a total of 58 combat missions in Europe, North Africa and the Pacific. He attracted national media attention as the “first Nisei war hero,” but he still faced discrimination at home.

Weir recalled a chance meeting with Kuroki in 1943 at an Army depot in Utah.

“I said, ‘How are things going?’” Weir said. “He said, ‘Well, I still can’t get a haircut downtown.’ And he had medals; his uniform over on the left side was covered with the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal and many other medals, but those were his words to me, ‘I still can’t get a haircut downtown.’”

Kuroki’s activism helped other Japanese-Americans slowly gain national acceptance, said Most Honorable Son producer Bill Kubota, whose father was interned in Idaho during the war at a camp Kuroki visited.

A 1944 speech before the San Francisco Commonwealth Club was especially influential, Kubota said.

“Kuroki was able to help people differentiate between the Japanese enemy and people of Japanese descent,” he said. “We’re not clear how many planes he shot down, but certainly that speech had an effect.”

 

59th mission

After the war, Weir made a career in the Air Force, retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1963 at Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso. He then worked for 20 years as business manager for the University of Texas at El Paso library system.

He moved to Denton in 2005 after the death of his wife, Helen.

Kuroki returned home and embarked on a long career in journalism.

Their lives came together again in 2005, when Weir provided eyewitness testimony needed for Kuroki to receive the U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal, one of the military’s top honors.

Weir said Kuroki deserved the medal “because of what I had seen him do, including the battles that he had to fight just to be able to fight.”

Kuroki said the documentary will shed more light on what he and other Japanese-Americans went through.

“I flew 58 missions,” he said. “My 59th mission is my fight against racial intolerance, and I’m hoping that the national showing will have some impact with helping with racial diversity and understanding.”

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com