MEDALS AWARDED NISEI IN ITALY

ANZIO BEACHHEAD, May 5.--(Delayed)--(AP)--A lei of daffodils, freshly picked from an abandoned Italian garden, hung on the faded G.I. combat jacket of the stocky little sergeant. The sergeant was humming "Kuu Ipo Aloha"--farewell sweetheart.

In the smoky, sandbagged dugout you could almost imagine that the distant crump of German mortars was the surf breaking on a coral reef.

Shuffling in past the blanket front door came two soldiers from a night's outpost guard to present themselves by request to Lieut. Col. Gordon Singles, Denver.

"For gallantry in action," reads the citation which the tall West Pointer with a proud smile handed to Sergt. Melvin Tesuda of Honolulu and Pfc. Kazunobu Yamomoto of Pahoa, winners of the Silver Star.

Heroism Is Common

One of them continued to lay a telephone wire while a German machine gun killed three men beside him. The other stayed with his mortar although wounded and fought off charging enemy infantry.

Heroism is a common commodity in the doughboy outfit known to the Territory of Hawaii as "one puka puka," in which all the enlisted men and more than half the officers are of Japanese descent and have the slogan, "Remember Pearl Harbor."

Bespectacled Lieut. Young Kim, 24, Los Angeles, has kept the record of such things since Japanese-Americans started fighting with the Fifth Army in Italy last September. The record is figuratively written in blood: Three Distinguished Service Crosses, 21 Bronze Stars, 36 Silver Stars and 900 Purple Hearts.

Many Posthumous Awards

Kim, who also has the Silver Star, points out that 900 wounded is indicative, in an outfit sent four times across the Volturno River and once into Cassino. A large share of awards, in fact, were made posthumously.

The Japanese-Americans don't put it into words, but you feel that they no longer feel it necessary to prove their patriotism. Generals have commended them honestly. They have gone through the infantrymen's hell and come out unshaken.