Look at Unhinged History, we are known for a couple of things. A love of the National Parks Service content, stories you’ve never heard, and banter. This episode is basically more of the same.
Theresa takes the entire episode to share the story of Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi and the Battle of Attu. For most of us, we never realized that the Battle of Attu was the only time since the War of 1812 that the United States lost ground to a foreign invader. Dick Laird, the man who killed Paul Tatsuguchi, would spend 50 years living with the trauma of this battle, only to share his burden with Laura Tasuguchi Davis, Paul’s daughter. The two develop an unlikely friendship.
This story pairs well with:
The time the Japanese bombed Brookings, Oregon, during WWII
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Transcript
Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast. The podcast were two absolute nutjobs who are online way too dang much, are going to uncover bizarre stories and history memes and bizarre little comments left in threads on TikTok and turn around and compulsively research those stories and continue to tell friends, families and neighbors about these stories until we can join forces and verbally assault the other host. I’m host one.
Angie: Wait, you tell your neighbors.
Theresa: This is why I’m not friends with any of the neighbors. I avoid mine like a plague. I mean, I do too, but when we do see each other because the Pacific Northwest is weird where it is just hazy, cloudy and gross nine months out of the year and then like it just stops for summer and the sky is great. But if there’s ever a day of sunshine, everybody comes out at the same time. We all mow our lawns the freeways fill with cars because we all flee to go to the mountain and like go hike. And so then it’s like, hey, I haven’t seen you since the last time the sun came out.
You want me to tell you about the actual groundhog and how, you know, I talk to Tony Phil is really crap, but you should be paying attention to Staten Island Chunk because his stats are so much better. Yeah. Okay.
Angie: That works. Yeah. I make said though.
Theresa: That’s basically I save all of my extra version for five times a year and some of them are family events. So when I do see a neighbor, they, they make it assaulted or I may hide from them. Roll the dice. Libertry, you know, yeah. Let’s go. Oh, yeah. That’s my turn. It’s my turn to go. Isn’t it? Yes.
Angie: Oh my God. She’s Teresa. I’m Angie. Oh, I don’t even know. Did we knew that our names?
Theresa: I don’t know. Okay. Well, I’m host one. I’m Teresa and that’s Angie. I’m still Angie. Surprise. But Angie’s right. It is my turn to go first. Now my story comes from something I’ve been sitting on for a couple of years. Okay. Okay.
So one of the very first videos I ever did on TikTok to get any kind of traction was when I posted about the time the Japanese bombed Brookings, Oregon. Right? Yeah, you’re gay. Yeah. And so when that happened, there were a couple of stories that everyone was shocked and appalled that I also didn’t mention.
How did? Because apparently I need to cram everything in three minutes and shove it down everybody else’s throat. Yes. Okay. One of the stories is… You didn’t know that? You know, look, I’m rather slow on the uptake.
Angie: Okay. I’ll let you have it.
Theresa: But one of these stories is the story I’m going to tell you and it is because when I make the comment that our man, Nobodo Fujita, is the first person to bomb continental American soil and the only time that happened during World War II, there’s like, well, actually, and there is a will actually that I’m not getting to today. But there was another one of like, well, we actually did fight a full on battle on American soil during World War II. Today, I’m going to tell you about the battle that we fought on American soil during World War II.
Angie: Is this like going to be that little land bridge between Russia and Alaska? Yes, but not a land bridge. Okay. Okay. Oh, oh, okay.
Theresa: No, no, no, come on. No, I mean, let’s let me let me bust your hopes and dreams by getting you to say something and then coming out to the very different story. Let me lay it on me. What do you got? Is it a chain of islands? The the illusions. Oh, okay. That’s what I was going to say, but I was like, no, that’s not it.
Theresa: No, no, as soon as I have my mouth and say it, she’s going to be like, no, that’s that’s not even in that neck of the woods, Angie.
Angie: Your geography is low in the Mediterranean.
Theresa: Yeah, look, we’ve been recording saying things out loud long enough to know that we’re going to say the wrong thing as soon as we try.
Angie: I was right this time and I didn’t say it.
Theresa: Oh, you know, this podcast has taught us humility. If anything, I mean, or at least say it confident, but know that you’re going to be wrong. Like, to be able to walk it back in a second.
Yeah, just own it. Yeah. Okay, so I’m going to tell you because I enjoy when I’m able to tell you about a specific human in the story as opposed to being like the battle rage for four days and we saw division one, you know, like, I can’t, I can’t like I need a narrative arc.
Angie: You know, that makes sense. That’s very okay. So my sources.
Theresa: Book, The Storm on Our Shores by Mark Opsmackic. CBS has an article, the, they have a news article. It is titled How a Japanese Medic and American Soldier Became Linked by World War Two Battle of Attu by John Wurtime. And then surprising, absolutely nobody who’s listened to this episode or listened to this podcast for a couple episodes. The National Park Service. Yes, exactly. So breakout, if you’ve gone to our Patreon and you’ve gotten access to the bingo card, which is available for everybody, you can block out the National Park Service box for this one. Now.
Okay. I finally got a hold of the, the Storm on Our Shores and I listened to it. I got the audio version, you know, and enjoyed it. Now. Here’s, here’s where we’re going to go. Attu, which is in the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, it is the most western point of the United States. It is quote, the jewel of Alaska’s necklace of Aleutian Islands. Oh, I know.
Now, so it should be very beautiful. It is so far west that apparently if you took a blind and drew down, just went south from Attu. You’d run into New Zealand. That is how far west it is. Okay. It is so far west and our western minds its east. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Now.
The Aleutian Islands are notorious for storms and bad weather. Shocking. Right? Gale forced winds, thick fog, rain, snow. This is, this is the most extreme weather in Alaska. Really? So Alaska, not known for its survivability. Yeah. This is survivability on hard mode.
Angie: This is like negative survivability. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Theresa: This is do not enter without life insurance policies and named beneficiaries.
Angie: And also you cannot get a life insurance policy because you’re going to enter.
Theresa: Actually, you know what this checks. Yeah. Now.
Angie: Are you going to the Aleutian Islands? Box ticked. Then no.
Theresa: Yeah. Oh, sorry. Thank you next. Yeah. We can’t help you. We don’t know anybody who will. Now, they get weather of something so bizarrely worded. They suffer from sudden storms called willy was.
Okay. Willy was sounds too beautiful and playful and joyful. You know, willy was sounds like I hosted a toddler party. We had a princess come over. We had cake ice cream and they broke out into willy was.
Angie: I am a boy mom. So that is not what I thought. Okay.
Theresa: Willy was are probably closer to the boy mom experience, which is sudden violence startling storms. Like it’s like the atmosphere just flips a switch and everything goes to hell in a hand basket.
Angie: Right then. Okay. Now, okay. Oh, you mean my son has come home. Wow. I’m beefing with him today. He hid every pair of my tongs.
Theresa: You know, I would teach you how to fight back, but I’m afraid I would destroy your entire household and your precious husband would be texting me going really, really.
Angie: I’m not scared of him. I just wanted all my tongs back.
Theresa: See, I just choose to go nuclear.
Angie: Yeah, no, I threatened vegetarian food for a week. He didn’t tell me where they were. He told me where they were after that. Well done.
Theresa: I just would have not threatened. I would have committed.
Angie: I don’t want to eat vegetarian food for a week. That’s fair. That’s fair.
Theresa: Okay. But back to the willy was, okay? Because trying to explain what this was, it took me kind of going around doing some research, like really kind of digging. So imagine you’re on a boat, like Steve, I see coastline.
Okay. You’re, you’re heading to the eye of the survivability storm. Now the air, it could feel calm, easy going, nice day. You could be like, okay, this isn’t something we should have been warned about.
This seems idyllic. Then there’s just this sudden blast as the wind barrels down from the mountains above. It doesn’t build gradually at all like a sudden storm. It just drops. So you’re going to experience a sharp temperature plunge as this air is rushing downhill. There’s going to be this explosive gust that’s powerful enough to knock somebody off balance or off the sailboat, maybe even cause it to, you know, shift dramatically.
Cap size. Exactly. There’s going to be a chaotic direction shift as the wind is going to whip and swirl around and it’s going to be just diving and barreling through these valleys and fjords. It also comes with this rushing sound, this roaring sound. Okay. It’s said to sound like a freight train that descends from the cliffs.
Angie: Right. Then I’ll just stay on the land, I think.
Theresa: Now there’s, apparently these are short but intense. So kind of like my anger. See immediate. It’s intense, but it’s not long lived. If you can survive the initial blast and just weather that, you’re good. But you just, you just got to buckle down. Yeah. Okay. Now, even though I did say it could last, you know, short, it’s going to be some, some rough moments that you have and they can, they can repeat.
Now, when I say that it blows really hard, the typical ranges are 40 to 60 miles per hour. But. Okay. Or yeah, 40 to 60 is what I should have said if I didn’t, but 60 to 80 is not unheard of. In extreme cases, there’s reports of over 100 mile per hour winds. 100 miles is a lot of miles. Yeah. And so it’s, it’s just, so suffice it to say, not so no thank yous.
Angie: Yeah. It’s like, it’s the other side of the North Atlantic. Yeah. You know, I mean, I guess we could consider this the North Pacific, but honestly, I think just when you’re North, the water is. Unforgiveness. Yes. Unforgiveness.
Theresa: Okay. So now we’re going to go back to June 1942. This is six months after Pearl Harbor. Okay. Okay. And this is when we have 2600 Japanese soldiers that invaded this island. You do say 2600.
Did I hear that right? 2600. Okay. I thought that’s what you said. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it. And it’s populated by 42 alute natives. Just 42. Just 42. Oh, actually 44 because there’s also a school teacher and her husband. Are they not?
Angie: They’re not native. No. Okay. The school teacher came there with her husband. I believe if I’m not mistaken, this is where I’m going from memories. This is where I could be very wrong. A husband works for the government in some capacity.
Theresa: Like he is just sending information on like weather reports and things like that. Okay. We’ve got access to like communication. It’s not the best, but it ain’t the worst. And so they’re like, they kind of enjoy this low key lifestyle, but they’re also like stockpiling money because of, you know, them being who they are in the community so that they can go home and like do the life that they want to live. Right. Okay. Okay. And so then they are just overrun with Japanese. Right.
Angie: That’s a huge difference in people. You have 44 to 2600.
Theresa: Yeah. That’s a foregone conclusion. Now, when the Japanese arrived in 1942, there’s zero resistance. There’s so much to say that there’s no resistance that the author of the book, the storm on our shores, he basically comes to the conclusion that the Japanese could have taken the island with a bullhorn.
Angie: I mean, yeah, just, just the numbers alone. Right.
Theresa: Just showing up in force could have been, you know, the thing.
Angie: Now, is there a reason why they’re coming for this island?
Theresa: So the reason it’s kind of a couple of fold, right? So it seems as if they want a position that they could theoretically have a staging post for future movements forward, but also because the Americans are American, we kind of need to have somebody kick us in the fields and say that they can do it on our turf. And so the Japanese need that win for their own military political gains. And they also want to kick the Americans down so that the Americans kind of get kicked in the fields.
Angie: I feel like invading an island of only 42 people is really not going to do the job to the fullest extent.
Theresa: You say that. You say that. And I don’t know if I, I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but I feel like if they played it correctly, the marketing could have been brilliant. Gotcha. Right. I mean, because you think about it Pearl Harbor, then, you know, there was this move here, then you have Nobito Fijitas who’s going to drop bombs in Brookings, Oregon to cause a forest fire. Like it’s just this massive campaign of shock and awe. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. Okay. So that’s kind of where we’re going with this. Now, nobody on the island of Atu is armed.
Angie: That seems like very poor planning on their part when you think about like any sort of wildlife you would be encountering. Well, okay.
Theresa: So when I say armed, I think it’s probably better to say weren’t prepared for a military onslaught. Now, are they willing and able to support their indigenous lifestyles and stock the pantries and smoke houses? Of course. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. Gotcha. But they’re not exactly playing with mortars to go out and catch fear. Yeah.
Angie: We don’t have any aircraft guns. Yes. Yeah.
Theresa: Now, with that in mind, so Atu ends up being the very first US soil lost since the war of 1812.
Angie: Wow. Oh, hey. So do you see how it came by political win? Yeah. Okay.
Theresa: Like a hundred plus years and the Japanese are like, I got you. I got your nose.
Angie: Got your nose. That’s now. That’s a great visual. Thank you. Yeah.
Theresa: You like that? There’s one Japanese soldier. We’re going to really zero in on here. This man is a rather conflicted and complex individual and I’m only going to kind of touch on some of his complexities, which is a bummer to me, but the storm on our shores. Excellent book.
Recommend it. His name is Paul Nobro Tatsuguchi. Not Nobro Fujita. No.
No, no, but Fujita is a previous episode. That is an early one. An early one. Let me actually look up when that was. I should have put that in my notes.
Angie: That was don’t just have that one off memory.
Theresa: 79. Episode 79 titled this checks.
Angie: Wow. I feel like that was a much earlier than 70.
Theresa: No, it was much earlier technically because that was one of the forgotten episodes that we recorded before the audio and we ended up canning it. And then I went back and went, you know what, this one never actually aired and you were like, because you had to sit through a story you already knew. It was so fun to hear.
It was so great here. But anyhow, so no, but it’s good. He goes by Paul. What? Okay. So, okay, let me back up. I’m back up because my notes don’t fully go into this.
Okay. So Paul is a Christian. Not only is he Christian, he’s a member of the Advantage Church. For seven day Adventists.
Seven day Adventists. Now, his family is Christian as well. So parents Christian. And so because most of Japan is Shinto or Buddhist or a combo.
And when you interact with Christians, they are typically Western white, European. He has a more Western name that he can go by. For those of the Western world and then he has a Japanese name. He can go for, you know, so you can kind of help blend, right? So Paul, given name from parents to help him live into this Christian identity grows up as a Christian in Japan. Okay. Does that make sense? Got it.
Angie: Okay, so. Yes. But before that, I was like, hold on. His name is Darryl, but it’s spelled like Sean. Yeah. I mean, look, I’m here to just mess with you. As you have proven time and time again. That’s a Gucci.
Theresa: This isn’t in my notes, but I’m going to, he comes from a fairly well-to-do family. He ends up coming to America, spent about 10 years here, and is going to medical school in California. Okay.
I think Loma Linda, if I’m not mistaken. Now, okay, halfway through his medical school, he is not the eldest child. Parents die. All of the money goes to Elvis son. Elvis son says sucks to be you, Paul and stops paying for his medical like school. What a dick.
I mean, look, these are things, right? Brothers are going to brother. Paul ends up having to like do a bunch of stuff and then go back to Japan for some time and like he goes through some bumpy roads. Okay. Right. Now the book gets into it. Incredible. You hear like this, Nassity and the just the soul of this man. Not fully going to go into that because again, complexity, inability to say everything all at once.
Now, okay. Paul falls absolutely in love with America. And he as he’s in Japan or as he’s in America, he has another Christian from Japan that he, he fancies. And he’s writing her letters and she’s thinking about coming to America. She comes from Japan to California. They start dating. They fall in love. He proposes to her at Yosemite National Park. Oh, okay.
Angie: And this is all pre war. This is all pre war.
Theresa: Okay. Okay. Now they are just so enamored with America, even though they are foreign nationals, right? They decide for their honeymoon. They’re going to go from Los Angeles to Niagara Falls, but they want to do it. And they want to see the most of the country that they can.
So they opt to do it via Greyhound bus. That is not what I thought you were going to say. Okay. Trust me. I was floored. I was like, absolutely not for love money or marbles.
Angie: I’m not getting on that bus for nothing. Like, yeah. Well, I mean, maybe it was different back then. It had to have been, right? Also, but then, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay.
Theresa: So like, and this is so important to the book because it talks about how they loved the size of the country. They loved the diversity of environment, the people. Like, everything about America to them was awe-inspiring because Japan is very homogenous. Right. But here, every time, like, each state is so different from the next state.
Yeah. And each pocket of the state is so different from another pocket. And they’re just able to kind of see and explore everything. And they are just in love with America.
Angie: It’s wild to me to think that, like, this is the 30s and I’m sure America wasn’t, for lack of a better word, race-friendly.
Theresa: Yeah. You’re not wrong. And so, like, when he’s in school, he is pretty much one of a handful of people of color. Right. Okay. And so, like, his fellow students, because his last name is Tatsuguchi, they call him Tansy.
Okay. And so, they all know him. He’s kind of like, everybody knows and loves him.
But he is, you know, but yes, he is kind of token in that regard. Okay. Now, so, they, the next line is, Paul loved America’s open roads, skyscrapers, and it’s ice cream.
Angie: He’s not wrong.
Theresa: I mean, look, we’re going to be known for a couple of things. I feel like he got a decent list going. Now, here’s where things kind of kick off because it’s 1941. He gets conscripted into the Japanese army. Hmm. And so, he has to go back to Japan.
Angie: Oh, so, okay. He’s still living in the U.S. at this point.
Theresa: I believe he was still living in the U.S. And that’s where I get, this is where I may have compla, contracted things too much. But either way, he goes back. Now, as a devout Christian, he’s also in this, in his regard, he is a pacifist as well. So, he is kind of struggling. And so, he ends up bringing his Bible to attitude. Now, some of the things I didn’t put in my notes, because he is Christian, he gets discriminated against in the Japanese army. He is not given the same pay and commiserate rank of others with the same level of education who have Shinto or Buddhist religion backgrounds.
Theresa: Oh, nice.
Theresa: Why would it matter? Japan is a very homogenous culture. Yeah. There you go. Now, Paul, who brought his favorite Bible or scratch that, who bought his Bible to attitude, he’s got a favorite Bible verse. And it comes right out of Deuteronomy. And it is Choose Life. Oh, okay. Now, for a surgeon, because he is a doctor, surgeon, this is like quintessential branding for him. This is his personal motto. Yeah.
Now, we’re going to look at Atu. The winds, the willow was, are just ripping through everything. The Japanese have embedded themselves in the mountains. They’re digging foxholes. They’re storing ammunition in sheds. And all of that can still be found in Atu today.
Angie: That is one of the things I did know about this story.
Theresa: Now, Tatsukuchi, he’s a medic. He’s hunkered down in this makeshift hospital. It’s in an area that’s referred to as Jarman Pass. And he knows for good and certain that the American counter-invasion is inevitable. Okay. Now, one of the things that makes this hair-raising is he’s writing letters back home. He’s got a three-year-old.
His wife was pregnant when he left. Mm-hmm. And he is writing her notes. And because everything is so heavily censored, she knows that he’s in harm’s way because he says he has a feeling he might end up seeing people that he went to medical school with. Now, he went to medical school in California. So now she knows, oh, no, you are in harm’s way.
Angie: This is a thing. Yeah.
Theresa: So May 1943, 11,000 Americans are sent north to recapture Ahtu.
Angie: We really do just the numbers thing, huh? We started with 44, then we got 2600. Yeah, I mean, but wait.
Theresa: Look, this is how you know I’m American is when you do something to me, I’m like, oh, yeah.
Angie: Let me get my brother.
Theresa: You know, it’s the Americans are just going to doc holiday this.
Angie: It is one of our most charming qualities. Love it or hate it. That is what it is. We’re consistent and we will be your Huckleberry. Yes.
Theresa: Love it. Get your bingo card out. That’s on there too. The Americans roll up. In one of the boats there’s a man named Private Harry Sasser. He’d heard about Otto and everything he heard sounded just hair-raising. Do not pass go to knock like $200.
Angie: No, I’m out. I’m good. Thanks. I’ll stay here.
Theresa: In the article by CBS Sasser was interviewed at the time he was 96 years old. Okay. Now, he had said back when he was a boy in Mississippi he was assured that he’s not going to be on Otto for too long. This isn’t going to be too long. And you think that, right? Like $2,600 versus $11,000. You’re just going to wipe all the pieces off the board, call it a day. Deuces go back home to the ice cream barge. Bye.
Angie: Ice cream barge. I’m thinking the guys on the ice cream barge are like me. No, that’s a little too far north. We’re good.
Theresa: Yeah, no. You can make your own ice cream. It’s cold enough up there. Just put some milk on the barge. On the barge. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Now, a quote from Harry says, we were told it would take about three days. That would be it. But that wasn’t the case.
The Japanese were very tenacious fighters. I thought we knew this. Yeah.
And it’s funny you say that because that concept that the Japanese being tenacious fighters is going to come up in a different place in a different way. So put a pin in that. Pin. Now, we have the primary force, the US troops, they land on the beach. They start going through Ahtu. As they land on the shore, everyone’s adrenaline is just through the roof, as you’d expect, right? This is like storming the beach with the normity.
Angie: Are the people that live there still, like they’re still there?
Theresa: At the time, I can’t recall. I don’t want to say anything out loud because no matter what I say, I’ll be wrong. Okay. Maybe no, I think maybe they move. Like, okay, I’m going to stop. I’m just going to stop because I don’t know.
I’m not going to commit. Now, everyone’s adrenaline is just through the roof. They’re expecting to be shot, but there’s nothing. There’s just this black muck that they have to wade through to get to the shore.
That’s the yuck. Now, this kind of bog maternal stitch kind of starts swallowing the troops with every step that they’re taking. Meanwhile, the Japanese, they’re hiding in that thick mountain fog. Love this for them. Their snipers are waiting to pick off the Americans as they start to crawl at the valley.
Angie: Because they’re stuck in the bog of the central stench. Exactly. Now, I’m going to be honest, is my favorite part of the entire movie?
Theresa: I like the part of labyrinth where the sheepdog is going across the rocks.
Angie: Well, yeah, that’s in the labyrinth. The bog of the central stench is in Princess Bride. No, that’s the fire swamps.
Theresa: Because Garrett, the Goblin came. You’re right. You’re right. Sorry. I was thinking we just watched the Princess Bride the other day. I’m thinking of the fire swamps. Specifically the scene where he tells her how he became the Dreadpire Roberts.
Theresa: Fair. I’m cutting a corner off your nerd card though. That’s gone.
Angie: Listen, man, the 80s were full of great movies and they all had some sort of bog. They did. Anyhow, back to the story. No, no.
Theresa: So the Japanese who are hidden in this fog, as the fog moves up and down the mountain, the Japanese go with it. So they stay hidden.
Angie: That’s not terrifying at all. No. As the American forces, like you know there’s somebody up there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Theresa: The American said it was like trying to shoot birds out of a cloud. Yeah, okay. Which is brilliant visual. Frightening. Yeah. Now our man Paul, he’s writing a diary. On the second day of the battle, he noted, quote, took care of patients during bombardment. Our desperate defense is holding up well. But the Americans, they’ve got this 4-1 advantage with troops and it begins to exact the toll and by May 29, three weeks into the battle, the Japanese doomed. Three weeks? Three weeks.
Angie: They thought it was going to be three days and they’ve been, well they were stuck in the mud for three days. So I guess there’s that.
Theresa: Yeah, I mean look, these are things. Now, the Japanese realizing this is a foregone conclusion, the commander or yeah, the commander organizes a final bonsai attack. You know what I mean by that?
Angie: No, I’m going to say no. Like you know. Listen, I don’t know what I’m talking about now. Just go. Fair. Okay.
Theresa: So back in Pearl Harbor, you had the pilots who drove their planes into the ships, right? That was a bonsai attack. So in this case, it would be like, look, you’re going to go anyhow. You might as well take as many as you can with you. Okay. Okay. You with me now? So we’re talking, you have one grenade, pull the pen and run towards him.
Angie: Yeah, okay. I’m mortified stuck in a bog of a trunel stench. Sorry. Yeah, I have that effect on people.
Theresa: So meanwhile, Paul Tatsukuchi, he is riding in his diary. He writes a final entry. Quote, goodbye, Tycho, my beloved wife who loved me to the last. And then he bid well to his daughters, his younger one, quote, born February of this year and gone without seeing your father.
Hours after writing these words, Paul left his Bible behind with an advance to an outcrop overlooking the small lake. Below is a group of unsuspecting American soldiers like Dick Lard, who is an Army Sergeant from Appalachia. Okay. Now, that’s the name right there. I know. He is one hell of a guy. And in the book, you kind of get a deep dive on who Paul is and who Dick is. Okay. Paul is a man’s man or Dick, sorry, Dick is a man’s man.
Angie: You don’t get a name like Dick without being a man’s man. Think Dick Gorgeous. Yeah.
Theresa: Now, all of the American training that Dick’s received is that the Japanese troops are bloodthirsty killing machines. This is propaganda at its finest, woven, chosen and emboldened into their hearts. We are so good at it too.
Right? Like now he looks up at this knoll, this group of trees. He sees a group of Japanese soldiers that they’ve captured an American mortar. So Dick pulls out two grenades. He pulls the pen and then he throws it. The grenade explodes and Lard finds that there’s still some troops who are alive.
And he and a fellow soldier finish him off. Okay. Like this is what it is, right? Like this is war. Yeah. Now, he goes on to kill eight Japanese men and then he earns a silver star for it. Okay. Then he sees an address book and he picks it up and he’s flipping through it and it’s full of names. Some of them are from California.
Angie: Because he’s found Paul’s stuff? Yes.
Theresa: And then he sees the diary. Okay. And so he starts, and if I believe he finds it, I think Paul’s diary, I’m not mistaken, is originally in Japanese and it gets translated back and forth. The original copy gets lost, but he’s got the Bible, he’s got the diary, he’s got the address book and he sees a bunch of American names, California addresses.
And so he kind of goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this doesn’t make sense. Fair. Right? Yeah. Like you don’t expect to see this level of thing because you’re thinking they’re all Shinto or Buddhist and this is a Christian.
Angie: And Japanese, not Japanese Americans.
Theresa: Right. And so now you’re kind of going through all these questions and really diving in. Now, he had thought that he had killed Tatsuguchi, that Tatsuguchi was joining in this Bondi attack, but as he starts to really tear down the sequence of events, he’s not sure. Okay. Because you start replaying it and you go, was there a hesitation? Was that an offensive movement?
You know, like, you really start going through this. Now, the Bondi attack and the Japanese occupation of Atu had come to an end later that day when 5,000 defeated Japanese soldiers gathered on this hill.
Angie: 5,000, I thought there were only 2,500.
Theresa: Oh, okay.
Theresa: Now, I was like, wait a minute, when did the other ones show up? No, no, you’re right. Thank you for calling that out. Now, Henry or Harry Sasser, the first guy I talked about, he ends up witnessing this mass suicide that the Japanese commit. Okay. Which is not something you want to really think about, live through or watch, but you got to remember, the code is this death before dishonor that we’ve covered in nearly every time I bring up a Japanese war hero. Right. So, of the 2600 men who started from Japan, 28 survived.
Angie: Please tell me, Paul, is one of them. I just remembered telling you that our man, Dick, finished off.
Theresa: Yeah, and then you said, but then he started questioning the order.
Theresa: No, you’re fair. You’re fair, but no, no, no, no, no, no. All right. But hold on to all of that. When you think about how bad this was, let me put this into some context. The only battle in the Pacific that had a worse casualty rate is at Eogema. That’s it. It’s Eogema and then Atu. Okay. And you never hear about Atu, ever. You really don’t. Now, at Atu, there’s 549 Americans that are unalived. Americans? Americans. Okay. So, nearly 550 American GI, 5,000.
Angie: Okay.
Theresa: There’s 3000 Americans that are wounded or end up suffering weather-related injuries. The weather was taken about. Got it. Yeah. I mean, look, we kind of use a bunch of stuff to offer ourselves. Like, you think about the Civil War, it was STDs.
Angie: Right. We’re too wild. Okay. Nothing is not consistent.
Theresa: Okay. Of the people who survived. I already told you, Paul, sorry about your luck. Dick Laird survives. Okay. So, we’ve got that going for us. Now, he turns over Paul’s diary to his superiors and they go through that thing with a fine-toothed comb because this is intel, right?
Right. It doesn’t have any military secrets, but it really contains a bunch of human sentiments. So, there’s English translations of this diary that really begins circulating.
It’s supposed to stay locked up in like a chain of custody kind of deal, but everyone starts sharing this. And now, this concept of the Japanese as every Japanese soldier being bloodthirsty is getting questions because now you’re reading about his hopes, his dreams, his family. You know, like, he’s a person?
Angie: Yeah. Like, he’s a whole-off human. Wild. That’s insane. Yeah.
Theresa: So, Henry Sasser, or Harry, I keep calling him Henry, Harry Sasser, he gets a copy in Mississippi. And Dick Laird, who ends up getting a copy as well, he reads the diary. Now, he reads it and he’s crestfallen.
Right. Like, literally just destroyed and he’s angry because Tatsuguchi is one of the eight men who had captured the mortar. And he’s like, they were going to try to kill him. So, he thought, right? But at the same time, he could see that Tatsuguchi really left his family.
And there’s like additional layers here, right? Because Tatsuguchi is a surgeon. He’s in charge of humans. He’s in charge of a hospital, in charge of nursing people back to health. He’s got this whole, you know, do no harm ethos.
Right. Choose life, literally, as his commanding Bible verse. But then from a Japanese standpoint, it’s death before dishonor. And if you’re going to be captured, you need to, if you’re… Death before dishonor. Death before dishonor. And so, if you’re in charge of other humans and their lives, you need to give them the opportunity to opt out of life. And if they lack the capacity, you need to end their life for them.
Angie: Oh. Now, that duality is hard. Yeah. Like, what battle must be going on in his brain and like his heart? Yeah.
Theresa: And so now, imagine being Paul’s wife back home and wrestling with, did my husband break his faith to follow his emperor’s order? How do you…
Angie: How do you… I can’t figure out any of that. It’s a lose-lose.
Theresa: Yeah, you can’t… And so, she’s really struggling with this concept as she learns bits and pieces, right? And she only has bits and pieces. Now, Dick Lard, he cannot forget the date May 29th, 1943, because that’s the date that he went through this. Right. So, he’s suffering incredible nightmares and he keeps coming back to this thought, thinking that he’s killed a man who shouldn’t have been there. I mean, he shouldn’t have been.
He shouldn’t have been. Now, 41 years after the Battle of Attu, Dick Lard pulls up to this home in Sherman Oaks, California, in the spring of 1984. Okay. So, we just hit fast forward a bit. He pulls up to the home of Laura Tatsukuchi Davis. Is this the daughter? Yep.
Oh. Now, Laura Tatsukuchi Davis, she had moved to California with her mother to the place that her father had left, her parents had left in Southern California. Now, like, a little bit of background. Didn’t put this in my notes. We’re going to go from memory here.
During the war, Taiko is in Japan with two little girls. It is so bad that she is living in a shed in the backyard. In the backyard of her uncle’s house and dirt floor, they are destitute, scraping together. Right. Just to survive. Taiko’s parents are in Hawaii.
There is no ability to communicate because of the war. Oh, gosh. Okay. And so, struggling, surviving. After the war, they’re able to, like, her and the youngest into becoming a California daughter. I can’t remember at what time.
But the oldest daughter into becoming a nurse, I think, staying in Japan. Okay. Okay. So now you kind of see where we’re going.
Okay. So, back to Laura Tatsukuchi Davis’ house. Laura doesn’t fully understand why Dick Lard’s there. Like, she kind of agreed to see him, but she’s, throughout the year, she’s gotten a lot of information, like little bits of letters from different American soldiers, like, I think I’ve read your dad’s journal. Right.
You know, like, kind of deals. So she’s, for whatever reason, she says yes to Dick Lard showing up. And he has this really long drawn out conversation about nothing. And she’s kind of confused. There.
Right. Now, right until the end of the meeting, he doesn’t say pretty much anything of merit until she goes to walk him out. At that point, he says, I’m the one that killed your father. And then he just drives off. How dramatic. Yeah.
Angie: And she’s like, okay. Bomb drop. Deuces. Now, again, nothing is not consistent.
Theresa: Yeah, you know what? So, and it’s kind of interesting and sad because Dick Lard is this very strong silent type. And so I think that that’s basically all he had the ability to do.
Angie: No, that makes sense. I mean, how, what else do you? Yeah. You don’t start the conversation with hi and dick. I after dad. Yeah.
Theresa: 40 years ago. Yeah. And she is an adult woman. She’s got twin daughters in the backyard playing.
Angie: And she’s never met him because he, yeah. That’s crazy.
Theresa: So he’d left his phone number with Laura, but she doesn’t reach out, refuses to call. And then a decade later, there’s another American veteran of out to who tracks her down and he writes this letter saying he’d found something in 1943 at Otto’s German press. And he gives her the Bible of her father’s with the note on inside the front that says, therefore, choose life.
Angie: Oh, how did that not get set up through the chainie command? War is weird. War. Yeah.
Theresa: I think if you chat with somebody who like you look at the World War II memorabilia that I’ve got. Yeah. War is weird. There’s certain things where it’s like this technically should never be in a box in my closet, but it is because here we are paperwork, things fall through the cracks intentionally or unintentionally. Yeah. They gave me chills. Yeah. So the Bible is now in Los Angeles at the Japanese American National Museum. Oh, that’s cool. And tucked inside the Bible are reminders of what Paul Tamaguchi lost. There is a picture of Laura and her older sister, Joy. Joy, the older sister is three and Laura is three months.
Angie: And I’m assuming Ma had nailed this to him. Yeah.
Theresa: Wow. Because he’d never seen his youngest. That’s crazy. So for years, Laura is really struggling with this concept of why did Dick seem determined to kind of drop this bomb right as he left? And so she just kind of sits down one day and writes him a letter and kind of the sum of it is basically forgive yourself, please. Right. Like, what are you going to do?
Yeah. And then she says in an interview that she was thinking about it. She said this man didn’t belong in Ahtu just as much as my father. He was protecting his country and he had to protect himself.
Which war is weird. Yeah. And in an interview where she kind of speaks about it, the person interviewing her said, none of you should have been there, but you were. And that’s the fact that cast upon you, Dairble duties, duties you discharge the only way you could.
What happened happened and you were not at fault. So Laird gets these letters and he cried. And that night he said was the first time in a long time that he’s able to sleep without nightmares.
Angie: Oh. With 50 years he walked around at that. Yeah.
Theresa: And it’s not only that, but in the book they go in and describe that because he is this man’s man, you and he’s earning medals for these things. You don’t discuss the toll that it took.
Angie: Right now. Silence. Yeah. Yeah.
Theresa: It’s toxic masculinity, but the craziest thing and this seems just so incredible. Laura and Dick ended up becoming friends. Friends. Because he’s living in Tucson and that’s where her son’s going to college. And so every time she goes to Tucson to visit her son, she goes to dinner with Dick.
Oh, good. And like for the first several meetings that it seemed like they kind of talk about the war and, you know, what that kind of experience was. And towards the end of, you know, meeting, they stopped talking about the war in general. And it’s like, how are the wife, how’s your orchids, how’s the kids, how’s the, da, da, da. And like they’ve built a relationship around things they have in common, not DNA and links it from the past. That’s kind of how you hope it would go. Yeah. It’s this whole like reconciliation that I feel should happen more. Yeah. Dick Lard would go and die in 2005. Okay.
Which is still a decent lifespan, right? Now, for Paul, near the spot that he is killed on Ahtu, there’s a monument of peace that is erected by the Japanese government. I love that. And apparently, according to National Park Service, which you alluded to, a lot of the area is still pretty much intact and you can go and explore the battlements. But you got to be careful if you go because apparently there’s some, there’s potentially live mines.
Land mines. Still there. Yeah. And there’s going to be a little bit of a hiccup getting there because from what I understand, the cost is around $25,000 a person to get there. Yeah.
Angie: It’s like one of the most unreachable even today. Yeah. Like, yeah, you’re not just going to like book a flight.
Theresa: No. No. This isn’t going to be a quick little flight, little jump. A high-drive. Puddle jump. Puddle jump. That’s what I was going to go. That’s not it. That’s not it. But I got pictures. Bog of doom.
Angie: Oh. That’s Paul Tatsuki. Okay. It’s black and white. He is in his uniform. Very dapper. Beautiful lips. I didn’t think I was going to say that today. Beautiful lips. You can kind of see what kind of man he is just by his face. Does that make sense? Very resolute. Yeah.
Oh. Like him. And that’s him and his wife, Tycho.
Tycho is not at all what I expected. She’s so cute. She’s got the shoes, the 30s pumps on and the covered dress. Oh. Literally perfect. They’re perfect for each other. Yeah.
Theresa: And then this right here, let me shrink my screen down again so I can get to the thing. Okay. So this is the Japanese telephone control shack that was taken over by the Americans. Oh, okay. So it’s a black and white photo of a shack. It has the word telephone control or telephone central in English haphazardly painted above the doorway. Yeah. A couple of soldiers in the foreground. And the
Angie: Germanship was down in front. I love that.
Theresa: And then that’s the peace memorial on Engineer Hill. Wow.
Angie: That is, it looks like a spiky star. Yeah.
Theresa: It’s like a Christmas tree slash Eiffel Tower combo. Yes. Don’t touch the ends. Yes. But what’s interesting is there was a very mixed reception for that going in because there were some people of the American variety who were in their fields that the Japanese dared put a monument on American soil. And others said, you know, this is a joint effort where both sides are honored. Yeah.
Angie: You know. Move it along. Let them do the thing.
Theresa: But then here is a memorial plaque on an anti-aircraft gun that is above Masqueray and Ahtu. So it is called Masqueray. Yeah.
Angie: Oh, okay. Wow. Interesting ways to both honor both places.
Theresa: And I mean, honestly, the concept of just kind of mounting a plaque directly on the gun. Yeah. Like I had seen that before.
Angie: Listen, our courthouse has an anti-aircraft gun and a cannon out front.
Theresa: You will pay attention to the law or else. Yeah.
Angie: Yeah. It makes me laugh every time I walk by. I’m like, what? Okay. You know, it made sense at the time. It’s still, I mean, it’s a historic town. It makes sense. Yeah. But it’s weird because we have neither a reason for a cannon or an anti-aircraft gun here in, yeah, Sonora, California, you know?
Theresa: What I’m going to do for the humans who hear this and go, gee golly, Willikers, I really wish they finally released a video version of this podcast. If you are a paid subscriber on the Patreon, I’ll make sure these are there. And I say paid because the free version automatically ports into the Patreon.
I can’t append the photos there, but we’ll also make sure they’re in the social media as well. So if money is not something that’s disposable, we totally hear you because in this economy, dudes. Yeah.
For reals. But yeah, if you do have access to the Patreon, we’ll make sure you’ve got access to that. If you want to get ahold of us because why the heck would you not? It is on hens.historypod at gmail.com. And yeah, I was supposed to come up with an ending. And on that note, goodbye. Stormily you.
Angie: I did the intro. You forgot to say her name.
Theresa: You know, I am nothing if not
Theresa: consistent.
Unhinged History 
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