Honoring the Legacy, Part 1.4: Varsity Victory Volunteers

YMCA executive Hung Wai Ching encourages the dispirited former members of the HTG to serve their country by creating a volunteer labor battalion. A petition is sent to Delos C. Emmons, Military Governor, which reads in part:

Hawaii is our home; the United States, our country. We know but one loyalty and that is to the Stars and Stripes. We wish to do our part as loyal Americans in every way possible and we hereby offer ourselves for whatever service you may see fit to use us.

The petition is accepted on February 23, 1942, and the first all-Nisei volunteer unit of World War II, the Varsity Victory Volunteers (VVV), is created. Though still civilians, the 169 VVV members are assigned to the 34^th Combat Engineers Regiment at Schofield Army Base. They spend the next eleven months doing essential defense work, including backbreaking labor in the stone quarries, as well as construction and road work.