The Pied Piper of Saipan: Should he be given the Medal of Honor?

The Japan Times reports on a documentary advancing a campaign to award the Medal of Honor to Guy Gabaldon, a U.S. Marine who earned the nickname “the Pied Piper of Saipan” after convincing hundreds of Japanese to surrender during the battle for that island:

Using the Japanese language skills he learned as a boy, he warned the Japanese they would die if they stayed hidden and told them marines were not torturers as they had heard. The marines, he said, would feed them and give them medical care. Many agreed, and Gabaldon, just 18, led them back to U.S. lines.

By the battle’s end, Gabaldon had coaxed more than 1,000 Japanese out of the steamy caves. He was praised as being brave and compassionate, and he received a Silver Star — later upgraded to a Navy Cross. His actions were recounted on television and in movies.

Now, almost two years after his death, there is a renewed campaign to give Gabaldon the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award. A new documentary, “East LA Marine,” asks whether Gabaldon’s Hispanic heritage prevented him from receiving the medal, though others blame his tough and outspoken nature.

More details can be found on GetGuyTheMedal.com, the official website of the film.

OsakaGuy

Very interesting.
kekey

I believe he should receive one, for being showing these Japanese soldier by showing that we too are human beings.
http://www.hormel.com VonSkippy

Who freaking cares?

Lets all waste time and energy worrying about stuff that happened in a war that happened over 60 years ago. Lets throw in a movie deal and make sure to play the race card so that it’s got plenty of political fodder.

The guy actually did the right thing – a good deed for goodness sake. Not for some stupid medal 2 years AFTER he’s dead. I’m pretty sure the guy won’t care either way what happens to his stupid medal.

Rob

Of course he won’t care about the medal – and dead people in general don’t care about funerals either, but the folks left behind still hold them. Awarding Gabaldon a Medal of Honor posthumously will be for the sake of the history books, not for his sake.

ダビ

He learned Japanese by living from a young age with a family of Japanese immigrants who were sent to an internment camp when the war started. Fascinating story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Gabaldon

I wonder what the Japanese soldiers’ reactions were when they heard a round-eye speaking Japanese to them…. Considering the “WAAAAH! SUGOI!” reaction you still get to this day as a gaijin by just saying “konnichiwa” they must have been quite shocked.
TofuUnion

Ha ha ha, no kidding. Those Japanese soldiers were taught to ” no surrender but die “.
TofuUnion

When I was a kid a middle aged Japanese women told me about the time towards the end of WW2 that there were many leaflets being dropped from B29 airplanes. They were written in Japanese which read ” We American don’t want to kill Japanese citizens by bombings. Please evacuate from the urban / military base areas ” or ” Please surrender, then we won’t kill you ” and so on.

http://pontasmemorandum.blogspot.com/ ponta

Just for reference, there was no warning in case of Hiroshima.

the overthinker

Bit of a moot point really. The leaflets referred to gave about ten cities that the US was planning to bomb, but each bombing raid (each night) would only cover up to four. It was also forbidden to pick up, read, or act on any enemy leaflets.

http://pontasmemorandum.blogspot.com/ ponta

It might have been forbidden to pick up, but either people didn’t know it was forbidden or people didn’t care; they remember they read the leaflets where the leaflets were dropped. Actually people who read them had no place where they could escape and live. And I’ve never heard of the survivors in Hiroshima who said they had read the leaflets. From my dim memory of reading, there was no warning in case of Hiroshima, I might be mistaken– correct me if I am wrong.
the overthinker

The reason I said “moot point” was not about whether they read them or not, but because the number of cities given on each pamphlet was much more than the number bombed each time, so even being given a warning would not do much. Nor would the authorities take kindly to a mass exodus. Although it depends on the city: some cities developed what they termed a “肩透かし” policy of relocating material and people to the countryside in light of the fact that they couldn’t stop the bombs, couldn’t do much about the fires, and that it was best to save themselves to fight in the inevitable land war.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

The leaflets were vague. They included a list of cities but also claimed that unnamed cities would be bombed as well. Their might have been a humanitarian aim in dropping them, but the primary goal was probably to heighten the sense of fear and panic in Japan and make civilian workers flee industrial areas.

the overthinker

In fact US army records state specifically that some cities were bombed just to strike fear into people. Not because they were strategically important or anything.

The Pied Piper of Saipan: Should he be given the Medal of Honor?

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