2 BATTALIONS OF NISEI GET HONOR

ROME, Sept. 5, -- (AP) -- Lieut. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., presented Presidential and Distinguished Unit Citations to two American-Japanese battalions at Leghorn yesterday, and declared the combat record of the Nisei 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team was one which "any regiment in history would be proud to own."

The 2nd Battalion, now commanded by Maj. Robert a Gopel of Chillicothe, Ill., was cited for breaking through German defenses in the Vosges Mountains of Eastern France in October, 1944, and for spearheading the Fifth Army's spring offensive up the Ligurian coast of Italy.

The 3rd Battalion, now commanded by Maj. Ralph J. Graham of Baltimore, was cited for rescuing a "lost battalion" last fall in Alsace, France, after being trapped for a week in wooded hills. The Nisei in that operation lost three times the number of men they rescued.