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WWII soldiers posthumously receive Purple Heart medals nearly 80 years after fatal plane crash
Five Hawaiian men who served in a unit of Japanese-language linguists during World War II were recognized with posthumous Purple Heart medals nearly 80 years after their plane crashed in the final days of the conflict.
The men – Joseph Kuwada, Haruyuki Ikemoto, Kazuyoshi Inouye, Wilfred Motokane, and Masaru Sogi – were among 31 killed when their C-46 transport plane hit a cliff while attempting to land in Okinawa, Japan on Aug. 13, 1945. Army records indicate only two of the 31 received Purple Heart medals, which are awarded to service members wounded or killed during action against an enemy.
Audrey McAvoy / AP
The Purple Heart is the nation’s oldest military medal, dating back to the time of George Washington. It has been awarded almost two million times.
Researchers in Hawaii and Minnesota recently discovered the omission, leading the Army to agree to issue medals to families of the 29 men who were never recognized. Researchers located families of the five from Hawaii, and now the Army is asking family members of the other 24 men to contact them so their loved ones can finally receive recognition.
“I don’t have words. I’m just overwhelmed,” Wilfred Ikemoto said as he choked up while speaking of the belated honor given to his older brother Haruyuki during a ceremony in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Friday.
“I’m just happy that he got recognized,” Ikemoto said.
The older Ikemoto was the fourth of 10 children and the first in his family to attend college when he enrolled at the University of Hawaii. He was a photographer and developed film in a makeshift darkroom in a bedroom at home.
“I remember him as probably the smartest and most talented in our family,” said Wilfred Ikemoto, who was 10 years old when his brother died.
On board the plane were 12 paratroopers with the 11th Airborne Division, five soldiers in a Counter-intelligence Detachment assigned to the paratroopers, 10 Japanese American linguists in the Military Intelligence Service and four crew members.
They had all flown up from the Philippines to spearhead the occupation of Japan after Tokyo’s surrender, said Daniel Matthews, who looked into the ill-fated flight while researching his father’s postwar service in the 11th Airborne.
Audrey McAvoy / AP
Matthews attributed the Army’s failure to recognize all 31 soldiers with medals to administrative oversight in the waning hours of the war. The U.S. had been preparing to invade Japan’s main islands, but it formulated alternative plans after receiving indications Japan was getting ready to surrender. Complicating matters further, there were four different units on the plane.
Wilfred Motokane Jr. said he had mixed feelings after he accepted his father’s medal.
“I’m very happy that we’re finally recognizing some people,” he said. “I think it took a long time for it to happen. That’s the one part that I don’t feel that good about, if you will.”
The Hawaii five were all part of the Military Intelligence Service or MIS, a U.S. Army unit made up of mostly Japanese Americans who interrogated prisoners, translated intercepted messages and traveled behind enemy lines to gather intelligence.
They five had been inducted in January 1944 after the MIS, desperate to get more recruits, sent a team to Hawaii to find more linguists, historian Mark Matsunaga said.
Altogether some 6,000 served with the Military Intelligence Service. But much of their work has remained relatively unknown because it was classified until the 1970s.
During the U.S. occupation of Japan, they served crucial roles as liaisons between American and Japanese officials and overseeing regional governments.
Audrey McAvoy / AP
Retired Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, who recently stepped down as head of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, presented the medals to the families during the ceremony on the banks of Pearl Harbor. Nakasone’s Hawaii-born father served in the MIS after the war, giving him a personal connection to the event.
“What these Military Intelligence Service soldiers brought to the occupation of Japan was an understanding of culture that could take what was the vanquished to work with the victor,” Nakasone said. “I’m very proud of all the MIS soldiers not only during combat, but also during the occupation.”
During his research, Matthews also located the niece of the senior officer aboard the plane, Capt. John H. Norton, of Marion, South Carolina. She will soon be presented the Purple Heart in honor of her uncle, a 1943 West Point graduate who led the counterintelligence team attached to the 11th Airborne Division.
He hopes the ceremony in Hawaii and the other in South Carolina will help other families pursue the Purple Hearts their loved ones earned with their service.
Boeing announced plans to acquire Spirit AeroSystems for $4.7 billion in an all-stock transaction. Spirit is part of the aerospace giant’s supply chain.
Boeing, located in Arlington, Virginia, announced the purchase in a statement early Monday. Spirit is headquartered in Wichita, Kansas.
At about the same time, European aerospace giant Airbus said it had entered into an agreement to buy “major activities related to Airbus” from Spirit.
Under intentions laid out in the announcements, Boeing would take over most of Spirit’s operations.
Spirit builds fuselages and other significant parts for both Boeing and Airbus.
The Airbus agreement is set to commence when Boeing’s acquisition of Spirit is completed, the two U.S. companies said.
The Boeing acquisition’s equity value of $4.7 billion is $37.25 per share, while the total value of the deal is around $8.3 billion, which includes Spirit’s last reported net debt, Boeing said.
Airbus said it would “be compensated by payment of $559 million” from Spirit “for a nominal consideration of $1.00, subject to adjustments including based on the final transaction perimeter.”
Boeing on why it’s making the move
Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun said in the company’s statement that, “We believe this deal is in the best interest of the flying public, our airline customers, the employees of Spirit and Boeing, our shareholders and the country more broadly.”
Boeing previously owned Spirit, and Boeing said bringing the supplier back into the Boeing fold would improve plane quality and safety, which have come under increasing scrutiny by regulators, Congress and airlines.
“By reintegrating Spirit, we can fully align our commercial production systems, including our Safety and Quality Management Systems, and our workforce to the same priorities, incentives and outcomes – centered on safety and quality,” Calhoun said.
The purchase of Spirit would reverse a longtime Boeing strategy of outsourcing key work on its passenger planes. That approach has been criticized as problems at Spirit disrupted production and delivery of popular Boeing jetliners, including 737s and 787s.
Concerns about safety came to a head after the Jan. 5 blowout of a panel on an Alaska 737 Max 9 at 16,000 feet over Oregon. The Federal Aviation Administration soon after announced increased oversight of Boeing and Spirit.
Plea deal for Boeing?
Separately, the Justice Department on Sunday presented Boeing with a plea deal after it accused Boeing of violating the terms of a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement that was put in place following two 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019.
The department told Boeing it could plead guilty or go to trial, people familiar with the talks confirmed to CBS News. The agreement would have the company plead guilty to the conspiracy charge it originally faced in 2021. In exchange, Boeing would pay a fine and enter a three-year probationary period, the people said.
The DOJ outlined the deal in a presentation to family members of the 737 Max crash victims earlier Sunday before presenting it to Boeing.
News of the plea deal was first reported by Reuters.
If Boeing agrees, a judge would have to sign off on the accord.
But Paul Cassell, an attorney who represents 15 of the victims’ families, told CBS News the proposal was “another sweetheart plea deal” and said the families will “strenuously object” to the deal.
Titanium parts a concern
On another safety front, the FAA said in June it is investigating how titanium parts that were sold with falsified quality documentation were used in the construction of Boeing and Airbus passenger jets in recent years.
Boeing and Airbus said the planes with the falsely documented parts are safe to fly, but Boeing said it would remove affected parts from planes that had not yet shipped to airline customers.
Americans have a specific dollar figure in mind for what it would take to financially secure, according to a new survey from Bankrate. That magic number? $186,000 in annual income.
Currently, only 6% of U.S. adults make that amount or more, Bankrate said. The median family income falls between $51,500 and $86,000, according to the latest federal data.
Attaining a sense of financial security means paying all of one’s bills as well as purchasing some wants, while having enough left over to save for the future, the personal finance site said. However, many inflation-weary consumers are experiencing increased financial stress, with a new Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia survey finding that 35% of Americans are worried about making ends meet, up from 29% a year earlier.
That gap between what the typical American makes now and what they aspire to earn means “Americans have their eyes set on this high income, and they think they need to make more money even if they know it’s unrealistic they’ll never make that amount,” Sarah Foster, an analyst at Bankrate, told CBS MoneyWatch.
Earning more remains at the top of many Americans’ priorities as the price of shelter, food and medical care remain stubbornly high after two years of rising inflation. To cope, consumers are cutting spending on dining out, entertainment and travel, a TransUnion study found.
Bankrate’s survey of 2,400 Americans in mid-May found that younger generations are more optimistic about eventually earning enough to live comfortably.
What does it take to be rich?
Americans have an even higher yardstick for feeling rich. The survey found they believe they would need to earn $520,000 a year to qualify as wealthy — up from their $483,000 response during the same survey last year.
The rising cost of consumer goods is a chief reason for the increase, Foster said. “Inflation is the centerpiece to this narrative,” Foster said. “Americans know where the bar is for living comfortably, but every time they get there, the cost of living goes up and the bar grows further and further away.”
Another recent report found that adults in major U.S. cities need to earn $96,500 annually before taxes to afford basic necessities and savings, while a two-parent household with two children needs a combined $235,000 for a comfortable life.
Interestingly, 2023 research from the late Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman and colleagues suggests that happiness does increase with income, up to about $500,000 – roughly the income Americans told Bankrate would make them feel rich.
Simone Biles is heading back to the Olympics and the white-hot spotlight that comes with it.
The gymnastics superstar earned a third trip to her sport’s biggest stage by cruising to victory at the U.S. Olympic trials on Sunday night, posting a two-day all-around total of 117.225 to clinch the lone automatic spot on the five-woman team.
Three years removed from the Tokyo Olympics — where she pulled out of multiple finals to prioritize her safety and mental health — Biles heads back to the games looking perhaps as good as ever.
“Trusting the process and (my coaches), I knew I’d be back,” Biles said.
A trip to France has never really been in doubt since she returned from a two-year break last summer. All she’s done over the last 12 months is win a sixth world all-around title and her eighth and ninth national championship — both records — while further cementing her status as the best-ever in her sport.
Jamie Squire/Getty Images
She’ll head to Paris as a prohibitive favorite to bookend the Olympic gold she won in 2016, but with things to work on, too.
Biles backpedaled after landing her Yurchenko double pike vault, a testament to both the vault’s difficulty and the immense power she generates during a skill few male gymnasts try and even fewer land as cleanly.
She hopped off the beam after failing to land her side aerial, though she wasn’t quite as frustrated as she was during a sloppy performance on Friday that left her uttering an expletive for all the world to see.
Biles finished with a flourish on floor exercise, her signature event. Though there was a small step out of bounds, there was also the unmatched world-class tumbling that recently drew a shoutout from pop star Taylor Swift, whose song “Ready For It” opens Biles’ routine.
She stepped off the podium to a standing ovation, then sat down atop the steps to take in the moment in what could be her last competitive round on American soil for quite a while.
Next stop, Paris.
The Americans will be loaded with experience as they try to return to the top of the podium after finishing second to Russia in 2020.
Reigning Olympic champion Sunisa Lee, 2020 Olympic floor exercise champion Jade Carey and 2020 Olympic silver medalist Jordan Chiles and Hezley Rivera all made the final roster for Team USA. Joscelyn Roberson and Leanne Wong will travel to Paris as alternates.
Elsa/Getty Images
Yet the Biles that will step onto the floor at Bercy Arena for Olympic qualifying in four weeks isn’t the same one that left Tokyo.
She’s taken intentional steps to make sure her life is no longer defined by her gymnastics. Biles married Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens in the spring of 2023 and the two are building a house in the northern Houston suburbs they hope to move into shortly after Biles returns from Paris.
Biles heads to France as perhaps the face of the U.S. Olympic movement, though she’s well aware that more than a few of the millions that will tune in to watch next month will be checking to see if the demons that derailed her in Tokyo resurface.
And while there are still moments of anxiety — including at last year’s world championships — she has put safeguards in place to protect herself. She meets with a therapist weekly, even during competition season, something she didn’t do in preparation for the 2020 games.
Biles, Lee, Carey, Chiles and Rivera will be considered heavy favorites in France, particularly with defending Olympic champion Russia unable to compete as part of the fallout from the war in Ukraine.
The Americans will take their oldest women’s team ever to the games, as Biles’ unrivaled longevity — she hasn’t lost a meet she’s started and finished since 2013 — and the easing of rules around name, image and likeness rules at the NCAA level allowed 2020 Olympic veterans Carey, Chiles and Lee to continue to compete while cashing in on their newfound fame at the same time.
They have relied on that experience to get back to this moment during a sometimes harrowing meet that saw leading contenders Shilese Jones, Skye Blakely and Kayla DiCello exit with leg injuries that took them out of the mix weeks before opening ceremonies.
