World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseShinyei Nakamine was born in Waianae, Oahu, US Territory of Hawaii in 1920 to Okinawan immigrants. He enlisted in the United States Army in Nov 1941 and later volunteered to join the 100th Infantry Battalion, which was consisted of Japanese-Americans. On 2 Jun 1944, while fighting north of Anzio, Italy near Alban Hills at a location named "La Torreto" in US records, his platoon was pinned down by fire from two German machine gun nests. Nakamine crawled toward one of the German positions, attacked, and silenced it after killing three and capturing two. This allowed his unit to maneuver to attack the second position. Later that afternoon, he located a German soldier on the right flank of his platoon's position, crawled toward the German, and killed him by gunfire. Spotting his third machine gun nest that day approximately 75 yards away, he returned to his platoon and led a fire team to the newly discovered machine gun nest. He once again advanced alone, reaching a point approximately 25 yards away, and threw hand grenades at the German position, wounding one German soldier and forcing the remaining four German soldiers to surrender. Spotting his fourth machine gun nest of the day, he had the fire team toward the new discovery, and was struck down and killed as he advanced. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross medal posthumously for the day's actions. His remains were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. In 1990, the award was upgraded to the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration of the United States. In Jun 2000, his sister Anita Korenaga received the award from President Bill Clinton in a ceremony at the White House in Washington DC, United States.

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