Sue Suzuko Kato

Sue Suzuko Kato
Personal details
Born	7 September 1921 North Platte, Nebraska
Nativity	United States
Awards	Good Conduct Medal
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch	Women's Army Corps

Awards and honors

Good Conduct Medal

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Sue Suzuko “Susie” Kato (née Ogata; born 7 September 1921) was a Women's Army Corps (WAC) Japanese-language translator associated with Camp Ritchie, Maryland, and PACMIRS document work.

Biography

Sue Suzuko “Susie” Kato (née Ogata) was born on 7 September 1921 in North Platte, Nebraska, and grew up among a small Japanese American farming community before the family moved to a farm near Greeley, Colorado. After high school (1938) she lived in Colorado, where Japanese immigrants could own land.

She volunteered for the Women's Army Corps on 13 December 1943 in Denver—one of the first six Nisei women to enter the WAC—saying she joined “to prove my Americanism.” After basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, she did personnel clerical work at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, with two other Nisei WACs she had met at the Denver recruiting office. In 1945 she was ordered to the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, for an intense Japanese-language and military-terminology course (about eight months; classes roughly 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. plus evening study). She graduated in May 1945.

In December 1945 Kato was sent to Camp Ritchie for PACMIRS translation of captured Japanese documents; the translating section later moved to the Central / Washington Document Center in Washington, D.C. One of her brothers later served with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Europe. She received the Good Conduct Medal. After discharge in 1946 she later worked as a legal secretary in Long Beach, California.

Kato later said the WAC years were enriching and that Nisei women took desk jobs “so the fellows could go to the front,” adding, “We did it for all Japanese Americans. I was proud to be an American.”

Research notes

• Translator, Pacific Military Intelligence Research Section (PACMIRS)
• Maiden name: Ogata
• Maiden name: Ogata; also known as Sue Suzuko “Susie” Kato
• One of the first six Nisei WAC volunteers (13 December 1943, Denver)
• MISLS Fort Snelling graduate (May 1945); PACMIRS / Camp Ritchie translator (from December 1945); Washington Document Center
• Oral history (Go For Broke / NDAJAMS, 17 June 2006): https://ndajams.omeka.net/items/show/1056174

Gallery

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Technical record

Field	Imported value
row_source	wac_eddy_gross_2021
spreadsheet_row	93

Sources

• Sue Kato oral history interview (Go For Broke / NDAJAMS, 17 June 2006)
• Japanese American Veterans Association — Japanese American Women in World War II
• Discover Nikkei — Japanese American Military Experience Database: Sue Suzuko “Susie” Ogata
• English Wikipedia, Nisei women translators in World War II (Sue Suzuko Kato section)
• Dan Gross and Beverley Driver Eddy, WACs at Camp Ritchie roster research spreadsheet (Gross base list; Eddy additions, 2021)