Calvin Shimogaki

Headquarters Company, 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate)

 
Calvin Shimogaki was born in 1913 in Honolulu to Kazuichi and Taka Shimogaki, immigrants from Japan. The son of a carpenter, Shimogaki followed in his father’s footsteps and took up the same trade after graduating from McKinley High School. He was one of six children, with four younger sisters. His older brother, Kazuto, was a photographer during the war for the Honolulu Advertiser and later became the newspaper’s Chief Photographer. He married Ethel Masako Hamada before he left Hawaiʻi on June 5, 1942, with the unit that would soon become the 100th Infantry Battalion (Separate).

Military Service

Calvin Shimogaki served in the Hawaii National Guard for more than seven years prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, gaining valuable experience that would later prove vital in combat. An original member of the 100th Infantry Battalion, Shimogaki served with the Ammunition and Pioneer Platoon, a unit responsible for some of the most dangerous and demanding work in the battalion.

Promoted to Technical Sergeant, the platoon consisted of a pool of men who were assigned to a variety of manual tasks – often dangerous tasks – including delivering ammunition to troops in forward positions and clearing minefields under enemy fire. His calm skill and courage earned him deep respect among his comrades.

Accounts of Shimogaki’s courage in checking routes for hidden trip wires so his comrades could move through minefields safely appear in several books: “Ambassadors in Arms: Hawaii’s 100th Infantry Battalion” by Thomas Murphy; “Honor By Fire: Japanese Americans at War in Europe and the Pacific” by Lyn Crost; and “Combat Chaplain: The Personal Story of the World War II Chaplain of the Japanese American 100th Infantry Battalion” edited by Monica Yost and Michael Markrich.

In his wartime journals later published in Combat Chaplain, Chaplain Israel Yost noted that the sergeant was “our expert on mines and demolitions.” After locating a mine, he had to dig it up and defuse it. During one of the battles in January 1944 at Cassino, a bullet shattered and disabled his mine detector. Undeterred, Shimogaki crawled through the mud for hours, probing the ground with his hands to search for trip wires and hidden mines, clearing and marking a path through the minefields. He, along with two other sergeants of the platoon, was awarded a Silver Star for his actions.

His Silver Star citation [Headquarters, Fifth U.S. Army, GO No. 88 (May 26, 1944)] reads in part:

“When his battalion could not advance in the Casino area because of anti-personnel mines, Sergeant Shimogaki’s Ammunition and Pioneer Platoon was ordered to clear a path through the machinegun-protected mine field at night. Despite mortar and machine gun fire, and with his mine detector disabled by a bullet, Sergeant Shimogaki proceeded to clear a path by crawling on his stomach and searching the ground for enemy mines and trip wires with his hands. He cleared a path five feet wide and fifty yards long to enable an advance. His gallant actions and dedicated devotion to duty, without regard for his own life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.”

Chaplain Yost also wrote of enlisting Shimogaki’s services to clear paths when he went to retrieve the corpses of men who had been killed. Shimogaki was awarded a Purple Heart after he was wounded in action in November 1943. He was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army in July 1945.

Post War Years

Following the war, Shimogaki returned home to Honolulu, where he worked as a carpenter for the U.S. Navy’s Public Works Center at Pearl Harbor. After three decades of service, he retired in 1973 as a Carpenter Supervisor. He and his wife, Ethel, raised two children, Alvin and June.

Shimogaki was an active and devoted member of Club 100, the organization formed by the 100th Infantry Battalion veterans after they returned to Hawaiʻi. His son Alvin said Club 100 was his father’s life. As a carpenter and overall handyman, he helped with the construction of the Clubhouse in Honolulu which was completed in 1952. Alvin remembers his father regularly checking the construction site and later helping to organize the yearly maintenance of the Clubhouse.

In 1955, Shimogaki was honored as Club 100’s “Man of the Year” for his dedication, at the 13th annual anniversary banquet attended by 800 members and guests. Among the guests were Hawaiʻi’s governor and mayor, along with the battalion’s original commander, Farrant Turner.

Shimogaki coordinated many of Headquarters Chapter’s Christmas parties and other family nights, often cooking all the food with other veterans. After he retired in 1973, he visited the Clubhouse almost daily until his stroke in 1981. He remained close to Chaplain Yost after the war. When the chaplain, his wife and their eleven children lived for four years in Honolulu in the 1960s, Alvin remembers the whole family coming over to their house for lunch.

Calvin Shimogaki passed away in 1984 and was laid to rest at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) among his many friends and comrades of the 100th Infantry Battalion.