Story of Richard Sakakida

[VeeVee]

I first read about Richard Sakakida in the book "Corregidor, The American Alamo of WWII". He was a Japanese nissei intelligence officer for the US Army in Bataan. I found a lengthy story about him here:

www.fas.org/irp/congress/1996_cr/s960130a.htm

His story is incredible.

[johnbryan]

Wow! What a great story of survival in the face of all odds!

[dennym9]

If you want to read more about the war in the Philippines during WW II--in detail, you should get "LEST WE FORGET: The Brave & Honorable Guerrillas and Philippine Scouts of WW II" by Denny Milligan. Get it on Amazon.com or from me directly. It also covers Richard Sakakida as well as many, many of the Filipino and American heroes who were left there (aka "abandoned") for those 3+ horrendous years having to suffer through the starvation, tortures and rapes of the Japanese who have still refused to admit their atrocities.

[Carlos]

It seems not all people agree with flowering description of Sgt Richard Sakakida when he served the Japanese Imperial Army as an interpreter in Japanese occupied Manila. It is said that he was in an Japanese Army Officer uniform with sword and witnessed many executions in the North Manila Cemetery. This is from people that have lived in Manila during the war or live now in the Philippines.

AMERICAN HERO OR TURNCOAT?

In the January 2011 and May 2011 issues of "BEYOND THE WIRE" the BACEPOW Journal, the Bay Area Civilian Ex-Prisoners of War published the serialized story by Louis Lee Jurika of his father’s 1945 search in war torn Manila for his mother, Blanche Walker Jurika, Louis’s grandmother. The search ended when Tom Jurika discovered a Japanese-American named Richard Sakakida being interrogated by Military Intelligence who admitted to being present at Blanche’s 1944 trial and execution by the Japanese. What happened to Sakakida after he pointed out the location of the mass grave in which she was buried? Louis personally interviewed Sakakida twice, once in 1991 and again in 1992, at Sakakida’s home in Fremont, CA., and spent the better part of the last year further researching his background, drawing on a large group of others in both the U.S. and the Philippines. He summarizes his research in this article, and points out fraudulent claims that leave the reader to question whether Sakakida was a hero as he claims, or an opportunist who embellished his own history.

This is also addressed in these two websites:

corregidor.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=forum&thread=1107&page=1


corregidor.org/crypto/intel_01/sakakida_01.htm

[Carlos]

These are the URLs of the organization and their publication that addressed the subject of “Richard Sakakida-Hero or Turncoat”.

bacepow.net/

bacepow.net/newsl.htm