Re: Search for Kaua'i Korean War MIA Continues

Date: April 26, 2004

"The search for a Kaua‘i Korean War MIA goes on

By LESTER CHANG - TGI Staff Writer

April 25, 1951 is a date Kaua‘i residents Akiyo Matsuyama and Michie Sasaki will always remember.

That was when U.S. Army Private First Class Takeshi Sasaki was listed by the Army as missing in action while fighting against Chinese troops along the 38th Parallel in Korea during the Korean War.

After all these years, Matsuyama, the sister of Sasaki, and Michie Sasaki, a sister-in-law, are still trying to determine his whereabouts.

Matsuyama and Sasaki want "closure," and they are hoping their years of research and collecting of data will help them and families in Hawai‘i and on the Mainland with soldiers who are listed as missing in action from that war.

Takeshi Sasaki, 25 years old at the time, reportedly was hit in the stomach by mortar shell shrapnel as he and others from his battalion withdrew under heavy enemy fire.

Military officials told the Sasaki family their son was put on a stretcher by Army medical personnel and taken off the battlefield. Sasaki has never been heard from since.

With more information coming from veterans, Matsuyama, a retired businesswoman, and Michie Sasaki, a retired employee with the Kaua‘i County Clerk's Office, have intensified their research.

"I don't expect him back after so many years, but I want closure," Matsuyama said in an interview with The Garden Island.

Michie Sasaki, speaking solemnly, said she has joined the research "in memory of Takeshi." Takeshi is among at least five Kaua‘i Korean War-era servicemen who are missing in action.

With plane tickets paid for by the U.S. Department of Defense, the two ladies said they plan to attend a meeting at the Hilton Hotel in McLean, Va. on April 30 on the status of the search for MIAs from the Korean War.

Matsuyama said she hopes to find out the address of Duayne DeWitt, a soldier in Takeshi Sasaki's unit who may have been the last man to see the Kaua‘i soldier alive.

American casualties from the Korean War included 33,665 killed, 105,819 wounded and 8,177 missing in action, according to a military statistics Web site.

Accompanying Matsuyama and Sasaki on the Mainland trip will be her sister, Momoe Sato of Honolulu.

There, they plan to meet with families from the Coalition of Families of Korean and Cold War POW/MIA's.

The organization, based in Roanoke, Va., attempts to promote the fullest possible accounting for American servicemen who remain missing from the Korean and Cold War. Organization members are families of the missing servicemen.

Matsuyama and Michie Sasaki have become almost like sleuthhounds in their quest to find out what happened to Takeshi Sasaki.

They have called or written letters to veterans who served in the same unit as Sasaki. Reams of documents sit in neat piles in parts of Matsuyama's home.

Whenever they get new information, Matsuyama and Michie Sasaki go over it with a fine-tooth comb, and evaluate the information.

A highlight among the nuggets of information the ladies have found came in three years ago, during a yearly briefing of MIA families in Virginia, Matsuyama said.

There she met Richard Gallmeyer from Virginia Beach Va., who gave her a list of 45 American soldiers who fought in the same battle with her brother.

Some were in the unit at the time he was wounded, and some joined the unit after he was injured, however all might still be able to provide information that could shed light on his whereabouts today, Matsuyama said.

She has sent letters and black and white photos of Sasaki to 45 men from his former Army unit.

Getting information, she said, has been a challenge because the veterans are old and other veterans who might have had information have died.

"Hard for the soldiers to remember who my brother was, because there was so much fighting, and people were coming (into) and going (out of the battlefield)," Matsuyama said.

With the list from Gallmeyer, Matsuyama said she hopes to find someone who knew DeWitt.

"DeWitt was next to my brother at the time (Sasaki was wounded) and DeWitt helped put my brother on the stretcher by the medics," Matsuyama said she was told by some veterans.

"DeWitt said my brother got hit, and if he had died, I want to know where the body is," Matsuyama said.

During this month, Matsuyama said she also got in touch with Robert Pierce of New York, who confirmed DeWitt was with Sasaki after the Kaua‘i man was wounded.

Matsuyama said Pierce recognized her brother from copies of his photograph she had sent in letters to the Korean War veterans.

Matsuyama also was able to find out more about her brother's disappearance through Shigeru Murakami of Waimea.

In an interview with The Garden Island, Murakami said he went through basic training with Sasaki at Schofield Barracks in Central O‘ahu in early 1950s and was in the same squad with Sasaki.

Murakami said he discovered Sasaki had been missing from a news clipping that appeared in The Garden Island in 1951. He said his sister in Hawai‘i sent him the clipping.

Murakami said he wanted to find out what happened to his friend, and went to a military camp located away from the battlefield where Sasaki had been wounded, and found DeWitt.

"I talked to DeWitt, and he said that Takeshi got hit in the chest. A mortar shell fell right front of him," Murakami said. "He said he helped medics put Takeshi onto a stretcher. He said the way he was hit in the chest, that it would be hard to pull through."

Murakami said he met DeWitt only three times during the war, and that he might have been from the South because he spoke with an accent.

Takeshi Sasaki was inducted into the Army in October, 1950, went through basic training at Schofield Barracks on O‘ahu and left for Korea in February, 1951.

He was a member of Company F, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division.

His family members never really got to know about his personal views of the war. His letters he sent back home were censored because of war-time conditions, Matsuyama recalled.

But he was a Hawai‘i son at heart, Matsuyama said with a smile. Because he was used to the warm weather of Hawai‘i, her brother "couldn't get used to the cold (winters in Korea)," Matsuyama said.

According to military documents, Sasaki's regiment was located east of Chongong-ni about three kilometers north of the 38th Parallel and midway between Yonchon and Tongduchon, now part of South Korea.

Another Army battalion was located just outside Chongong-ni, and on April 24, 1951, both battalions came under heavy attack by Chinese forces, but halted the advance and withstood repeated assaults.

Heavy fighting continued through the night, and on the morning of April 25, the Chinese attack intensified on positions held by the battalions, forcing a controlled withdraw by American troops.

By April 26, both battalions combined forces and near Tokchon. During the battle, Sasaki became missing in action.

The news, which reached the Sakaki family on Kaua‘i nearly a month later, stunned family members, Matsuyama said.

"My father cried during the funeral," she said, swallowing hard. Matsuyama said Takeshi Sasaki was the apple in his father's eye, because he was the oldest son.

His father, Noboru Sasaki was a Grove Farm employee and well-known ulua fishermen on Kaua‘i in the 1940s to the 1950s.

The senior Sasaki and his wife, Tetsu, lived in a Grove Farm Plantation camp home by the Halfway Bridge in Kipu from about 1920 to 1974, when the sugar company got out of the business of subsidized employee housing.

The Sasaki family consisted of four sons and four daughters.

Matsuyama remembered her brother, who graduated from Huleia School in Kipu, as one who was "quiet" and one who liked to fish, like his father.

"He was good brother, and we (she and Michie Sasaki) hope to find out what happened (to him)," Matsuyama said.


The Garden Island © 2004, Pulitzer Inc."