Rejebian Series Presents Gregg Jones: "Most Honorable Son: A Forgotten Hero's Fight Against Fascism and Hate During World War II"

Ben Kuroki was a 24-year-old Japanese American farm boy whose heritage was never a problem in remote Nebraska—until Pearl Harbor. Among the millions of Americans who flocked to military stations to enlist, Ben wanted to avenge the attack, reclaim his family honor, and prove his patriotism. But as anti-Japanese sentiment soared, Ben had to fight to be allowed to fight for America. And fight he did. As a gunner on Army Air Forces bombers, Ben flew 58 missions spanning three combat theaters: Europe, North Africa, and the Pacific, including the climactic B-29 firebombing campaign against Japan that culminated with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He flew some of the war’s boldest and bloodiest air missions and lived to tell about it. In between his tours in Europe and the Pacific, he challenged Franklin D. Roosevelt’s shameful incarceration of more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry in America, and he would be credited by some with setting in motion the debate that reversed a grave national dishonor.

In the euphoric wake of America’s victory, the decorated war hero used his national platform to carry out what he called his “59th mission,” urging his fellow Americans to do more to eliminate bigotry and racism at home. Told in full for the first time, and long overdue, Ben’s extraordinary story is a quintessentially American one of patriotism, principle, perseverance, and courage. It’s about being in the vanguard of history, the bonding of a band of brothers united in a just cause, a timeless and unflinching account of racial bigotry, and one man’s transcendent sense of belonging—in war, in peace, abroad, and at home.

About Gregg Jones
Gregg Jones is an award-winning journalist, historian, teacher, and author of four critically acclaimed nonfiction books. In a journalism career spanning four decades and five continents, Jones was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and wrote about war in Afghanistan, revolutionary upheaval in Asia, steroid abuse among U.S. high school athletes, oil exploration in the Amazon rainforest, and many other topics. Since 2018, Jones has focused on writing books and teaching at Greenhill School in Addison, Texas. Jones lives in Plano, Texas, with his wife of 40 years, Plano ISD special education teacher Ali Jones, and two orange-tabby cats, Woodward and Bernstein.

A family tragedy inspired Jones to write “Most Honorable Son: A Forgotten Hero’s Fight Against Fascism and Hate During World War II,” a biography of Ben Kuroki, the first Japanese American combat hero of World War II. As a child, while learning about the wartime disappearance of his mother’s oldest brother, Jones first encountered Kuroki’s story. His uncle and Ben Kuroki flew daylight bombing missions against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy as comrades in the same Eighth Air Force bomber unit in 1943. Jones is also the author of “Last Stand at Khe Sanh: The U.S. Marines’ Finest Hour in Vietnam,” “Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines and the Rise and Fall of America’s Imperial Dream,” and “Red Revolution: Inside the Philippine Guerrilla Movement.”