D-Day: June 6, 1944

The Greatest Generation

Joe Nagata

On Jan. 1, 1944 – the height of World War II – Tiger coach Bernie Moore inserted Nagata, a Japanese-American, at fullback in the Orange Bowl game against Texas A&M. Nagata was not a proto-typical fullback. He was a slender, 165-pound wingback. It was his ball-handling skills and footwork that Moore wanted in the lineup rather than a fullback whose strength was blocking and power running.

It was a surprising move by the LSU staff. Steve Van Buren, who would later be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, was LSU's primary weapon. In the third game of the regular season, Texas A&M focused its defense on stopping Van Buren, and A&M won, 28-13.

World War II shut down many college programs, so the Orange Bowl scheduled a rematch between the Aggies and LSU's 5-3 Tigers. Van Buren, one of the nation's most productive running backs, was the drawing card.

Moore hoped that tweaking the Tiger offense might puzzle A&M the second time around. Nagata took direct snaps from center in LSU's version of the "Notre Dame box." He stepped forward, pivoted left or right, and handed off to Van Buren. This action froze the A&M linebackers for an instant, allowing Van Buren to capitalize on his explosive speed. This ploy, as well as Nagata's occasional bursts up the middle on the spinner series, provided the necessary distraction. Van Buren gained 160 of LSU's 181 yards rushing. The Tigers won, 19-14, a satisfying victory for Moore and his collection of 4-Fs.

The Orange Bowl trip was one of the highlights of Nagata's LSU years. Just getting back to Baton Rouge was a challenge for the team. War-time troop movements kept the Tigers from returning by train, so Baton Rouge banker Lewis Gottleib solved the problem by purchasing 18 used cars to transport the players. He later sold the cars at his automobile agency.

Nagata enjoyed telling of the eventful ride home.

"We ran out of gas rationing stamps and couldn't buy gas," Nagata once told this writer. "At every gas station we came to, we had to beg the station manager to sell us one gallon of gas, then go across the street and beg another station to sell us a gallon of gas. We did that repeatedly. It took us a lot longer to get home."

"Our car broke down at one point," Nagata said. "It took a couple of days to get it fixed. But we enjoyed swimming in the Gulf of Mexico while we were waiting."

The Reality of War

The inconvenience of war as a civilian soon transformed into the reality of war as a combatant for Nagata.

The Nisei, Japanese-Americans, were allowed to enlist in the Army and be assigned to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. By the fall of 1944, Nagata was fighting in the mountains of northern Italy with the 442nd, trying to dislodge the Germans from Italy's "Gothic Line," a series of mountainous fortresses defended by 2,300 machine-gun nests and preventing the Allies from entering the Po River Valley, where the Allied superiority in tanks would be exploited.

In 20 months and in seven major campaigns in Italy, France, and Central Europe, the 442nd was awarded 18,143 individual metals – including 9,486 Purple Hearts – for an outfit with a maximum strength of 4,500 men.

"I was no hero," Nagata told Marty Mulé of the Times-Picayune. "They kept telling us to take the high ground, and the high ground always had a lot of Germans."

Let the record show that Nagata was awarded the Bronze Star and the Infantry Combat Medal, two decorations always associated with combat. He was involved in three campaigns with the 442nd Regimental Combat team, including the Po Valley campaign, and awarded eight medals in his tour of duty.



Author Bud Johnson, director of the Andonie Sports Museum, is a former LSU Sports Information director and author of "The Perfect Season: LSU's Magic Year – 1958."

These men had the biggest pair of truck nuts and nuts of our time.

True Fact: D-Day was originally planned for the 5th of June, but due to strong winds and raging seas, Group Cpt. James Martin Stagg convinced Gen. Eisenhower to postpone it by a day.

Had they gone with the original plan, the invasion had a higher chance for failure and could've changed the outcome of the war drastically.

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The Greatest Generation

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why?

Both of my grandfathers and my great uncle fought in WWII. None of them particularly liked to talk about it but one of my grandfathers would occasionally after a few pops. It's fascinating and equally horrifying what those kids had to endure.

I remember my grandmother telling us about her cousin that was killed on the beaches that day. Apparently he had the bad luck of taking a direct hit from incoming artillery. He was totally obliterated. When his mother was notifed she broke down and died a couple days later herself.

My dad was in Panama City as a gunnery instructor working primarily on B-17's. When he heard the radio broadcast announcing the invasion had begun, he put on his best pressed uniform and went to the Captain's office and asked to be put on a bomber crew and go overseas. The Captain asked if he was crazy and my dad replied "Sir, this war is passing me by and I intend to be part of it". The Captain sent him to talk to the shrink who verified dad's sanity. He was assigned to a B-24 crew shortly afterward and flew 19-20 missions over Germany.

I had six uncles who fought in the war, four on my Mom's side of the family, two on Dad's side.

Mom had one brother, he was in the Army Air Corps, a top turret gunner/flight engineer on a B-17 in the ETO. Of my 3 other uncles by marriage on that side, two were Army (ETO) and one was a Navy Corpsman in the Pacific.

On Dad's side, one of my uncles was on a Navy ship in the Pacific, the other was a Jug pilot, who got into the war shortly after D-Day.

He's still around, in his 90's, and so is my uncle who was a Navy Corpsman, they're the last of them.