World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseWilliam Kenzo Nakamura was born in Seattle, Washington, United States in 1922 to Japanese immigrants. He attended the Washington Middle School and graduated from Garfield High School, both in Seattle, and then attended the University of Washington. During WW2, in 1942, he and his family were interned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho, United States on the basis of their ancestry. He enlisted in the United States Army in Jul 1943 and volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team consisted of Japanese-Americans. On 4 Jul 1944, near Castellina Marittima in the Toscana region of Italy, Private First Class Nakamura's platoon was pinned down by German machine gun fire. He crawled 20 yards toward the source of the machine gun fire and threw four hand grenades, killing or wounding at least three Germans and silencing the machine gun. In the afternoon on the same day, he volunteered to stay back to cover a withdraw of his platoon from advancing Germans; he successfully pinned down a German machine position that was threatening the withdraw, but in the process he was struck down and killed. He was buried in Evergreen-Washelli Memorial Park in Seattle. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his sacrifice that day. In 1990, his Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded to the Medal of Honor, the highest American military award. On Jun 2000, Nakamura's surviving family was presented with the Medal of Honor by US President Bill Clinton at the White House in Washington DC, United States.

William Nakamura Interactive Map

Photographs

William Nakamura Timeline