Army Sgt. Joe Hayashi > United States Department of Defense > Story

Army Sgt. Joe Hayashi was days away from seeing the Germans surrender in Italy when he was killed. His actions in eliminating enemy positions prior to this were integral to his unit’s success in driving the enemy back. Hayashi initially posthumously earned a Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery, but that was eventually upgraded to the Medal of Honor.

Hayashi was born on August 14, 1920 in Salinas, California. His parents, Chiukichi and Toyo Hayashi, had emigrated from Japan almost twenty years earlier. Hayashi had two sisters, Chiye and Kiyo.

When Hayashi was four, his father died in a work-related accident. His mother then moved the family to Pasadena, California, remarried and had three more children.

Hayashi grew up as a typical American child. He played football and baseball, was a member of the Boy Scouts and enjoyed playing outside. A slight man – Hayashi was recorded as being 6 feet tall, 125 pounds – he was also skilled at auto mechanics, which is what he chose as a career after high school.

In October 1940, Hayashi registered for the draft. Seven months later he enlisted in the army. Initially he was stationed in California, but after the Pearl Harbor attacks, which led to a deep distrust of Japanese Americans, he was transferred to Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Because of that same distrust, Hayashi’s mother, stepfather, and half-siblings were all forced to live in an internment camp in Wyoming until the end of the war.

Hayashi was already in the military, but when the war began, other Japanese Americans – known as Nisei – were barred from service. However, they still wanted to serve and were eventually able to do so in a few units, including the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which was activated in February 1943 and consisted of all Nisei men. Hayashi was reassigned as a drill sergeant in the unit as part of Company K.

The 442nd trained at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, before deploying to Italy in June 1944. Hayashi was left with a cadre to continue training soldiers. Shortly afterwards, however, he volunteered for combat and was shipped to France in November 1944.

In March 1945, the 442nd took part in the Po Valley Campaign. Their mission was to be a distraction for enemy forces to break them up and weaken their defense line, known as the Gothic Line. The 442nd was ultimately incredibly successful in this endeavor; They not only drove enemy forces out of that area, but also pushed them far behind the Gothic Line.

By mid-April, almost all German troops in the area attempted to withdraw. The 442nd followed them and had advanced to within 10 miles of a strategically located railway center, where the Germans were preparing to make a last stand.

At this stage of his career, Hayashi held the rank of staff sergeant; But at one point overseas, he was demoted to private after apparently defending fellow soldiers who had deserted their unit during heavy fighting, according to a June 2000 article in the Billings Gazette from Billings, Montana. That is why he is listed as private in his Medal of Honor entry.

On April 20, 1945, Hayashi’s unit was tasked with finding enemy machine gun nests along a heavily defended hill near the small village of Tendola, Italy. Hayashi led his men to within 75 yards of enemy positions before they were spotted and fired upon.

Hayashi dragged some of his wounded comrades to safety before returning to danger and exposing himself to small arms fire so that he could direct deadly mortar fire on the enemy positions. With the remaining men in his squad, Hayashi then attacked the hill and took over the enemy position. There they discovered that the mortars Hayashi helped target had destroyed three enemy machine guns, killed 27 enemy soldiers, and wounded several more.

Meanwhile, the town of Tendola was still in the hands of about 50 Germans. So two days later, Hayashi’s unit attacked in an all-night firefight with house-to-house fighting. Hayashi eventually maneuvered his squad up a steep, terraced hill to get within about 100 yards of another enemy machine gun nest. Under heavy fire, Hayashi crawled over and threw a grenade, killing an enemy soldier and forcing the other members of the gun crew to surrender.

From there, Hayashi spotted four more enemy machine gun nests targeting members of his platoon. He threw another grenade that destroyed one of them, then crawled to the right flank for a second and killed four enemy soldiers there.

Hayashi tried to follow the remaining members of the crew who were running away. Unfortunately, he was struck by gunfire and killed.

Hayashi’s courage and leadership were integral to his company’s success. A day later they took control of that enemy position, and within a few days the Germans began surrendering en masse since their retreat route had been cut off. On May 2 – ten days after Hayashi died – the fighting in Italy ended when German troops formally surrendered.

The 442nd became one of the most decorated military units in American history. Due to its success, the design was reintroduced into internment camps in the US. Many of the men who served in the 442nd went on to have distinguished careers in science, higher education, and government.

Hayashi posthumously earned the Distinguished Service Cross for his self-sacrificing actions. It wasn’t until about half a century later that a Congressional investigation revealed that many Nisei soldiers like Hayashi had been passed over for the nation’s highest award for valor due to racial prejudice.

That error was finally corrected on June 21, 2000 – 55 years after Hayashi’s death – when his medal was upgraded to the Medal of Honor and he was promoted to sergeant. President Bill Clinton presented the medal to Hayashi’s surviving family at a White House ceremony that also honored 21 other Asian American military heroes whose medals were upgraded. Unfortunately, only seven of the recipients were still alive. Eleven had died in battle and the rest had died in the years after the war.

For their heroic actions in combat and steadfast loyalty in the face of ethnic discrimination, members of the 442nd and their families – including Hayashi’s – were also honored in 2011 with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian service award presented by the U.S. .


Hayashi was initially buried in an American military cemetery in Italy, but his family requested that he be brought home in 1948. In March 1949, he was reburied with full military honors at the Evergreen Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.


At LA’s Nishi Hongwanji Temple, a bronze plaque bears Hayashi’s name, along with the names of 15 other LA-area Nisei servicemen who died in the war.

This article is part of a weekly series called “Medal of Honor Monday,” in which we highlight one of the more than 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients who have earned the U.S. military’s highest medal for valor.