World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseKazuo Otani was born in Visalia, California, United States in 1918 to immigrants from Japan. When WW2 began, his family was interned at the Gila River War Relocation Center in Arizona, United States simply because of their ancestry. Otani enlisted in the US Army and volunteered to join the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which was consisted mostly of Americans with Japanese ancestry. On 15 Jul 1944, near Pieve di Santa Luce, Toscana, Italy, his unit became pinned down in a wheat field by German machine gun and sniper fire. Staff Sergeant Otani left his cover and shot and killed a German sniper who had previously killed a number of his platoon mates. Dashing across the open field and drawing German fire, he allowed the others to reach cover. Noticing one of his men becoming seriously wounded, he ordered the rest of his men to remain under cover while he crawled to the wounded soldier and dragged him to a shallow ditch. While rendering first aid to the soldier, he was killed by machine gun fire. Otani was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross medal for this action. He was buried in the Veterans Liberty Cemetery, Fresno, California. After the 1990s review of Asian American recipients of Distinguished Service Cross during WW2, his award was upgraded to the Medal of Honor, the highest award of the US military. The medal was presented to his family by US President Bill Clinton in Jun 2000 at the White House in Washington DC, United States.

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