Yanks at Front Denounce Legion Post for Barring Nisei
By CLINTON B. CONGER
United Press War Correspondent

WITH THE UNITED STATES SEVENTH ARMY ON THE WESTERN FRONT, Dec. 30.--Hundreds of veteran American soldiers were indignant tonight over an item in the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes, which said that an American Legion post in Hood River, Or., had advised Americans of Japanese ancestry to sell any property they own and leave town.

The dispatch, which moved dozens of G.I.'s to prepare to write letters of protest to President Roosevelt and congressmen, said the Legion post had advertised in local newspapers that citizens of Japanese ancestry were unwanted.

There was violent vocal reaction among doughboys of Lieut. Gen. Alexander Patch's original divisions--the 36th and 45th--who know the gallant record of the 442nd Infantry Regiment, composed mostly of loyal Japanese-Americans, and with which the 36th Division fought in Italy.

Reaction Vituperative

Reaction was particularly vituperative against the Legion post's action, among the 1st Battalion of the 141st Regiment of the 36th Division--a battalion which just two months ago today was rescued from a German trap near Bruyeres by Japanese-American troops who slashed through German lines to the isolated battalion at great coast to themselves.

There were 81 men on that encircled hilltop when they were rescued and 23 of those men still are with the company, including Lieut. Joseph Kimble of Scranton, Pa., and Sergt. Hiler Hull of San Antonio, Tex.

Hull already has started writing a letter. Kimble said he also would write one, but was undecided whether to address it to President Roosevelt, some congressman or the Legion post in Hood River.

Veterans Indignant

Kimble called in four other veterans who were rescued on the hill. Sergt. Enrique Garcia, Brownsville, Tex.; Technical Sergt. Clyde E. Armstrong, Farmers, Ky.; Pfc. Virgil Lindell, Billings, Mont., and Pvt. Edwin J. Krukowski, Chicago.

"Those boys deserve a hell of a lot more than the men sitting back in the Oregon town who don't want them around," one of them observed, "and we feel pretty lousy having to fight for the rights and liberties of people who do something like that to these Japanese-Americans fighting over here."

Another said his father belonged to the American Legion but he "won't when he gets the letter I'm writing."

One said he was of German descent, but that didn't make him an unwanted enemy and that the same should apply to a person of Japanese descent.