March 21, 2025
Over the last week, the U.S. Army quietly removed and republished its webpage on the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT), the famed all-Japanese American unit that became one of the most decorated combat teams in World War II. While the page has now been republished, it has not been restored in its original form.
The most striking change is the removal of all references to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) in the page’s categorization and framing. Previously, the article was housed within the U.S. Army’s Asian Pacific Americans in the U.S. Army section, explicitly linking the 442nd to broader AAPI military history. The republished version is now simply listed as a Key Military Unit, a shift that scrubs the racial context that defined the formation of the 442nd in the first place. One of the most obvious indications of the reframing is in the URL structure and how the content is categorized on the Army’s website. This change is part of a larger trend of erasing race from American history.
The irony of this revisionist approach is that the 442nd Regimental Combat Team only existed because of race. When the War Department created the 442nd RCT in 1943, Japanese Americans were largely barred from enlisting in the military. Over 120,000, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens, were already forcibly incarcerated by their own government. However, the government recognized that a Japanese American unit could counter Axis propaganda about U.S. racism and provide a strategic tool for American war efforts by demonstrating America’s supposed racial tolerance to the rest of the world. This means that the racial framing of the 442nd is not an incidental part of the story, it is the story. Removing explicit references to race and identity erases the very conditions that led to the unit’s formation.
What’s particularly alarming about this case is how easily and quietly historical narratives can be rewritten or erased entirely in the digital age. Public institutions, including government websites, are repositories of official history. However, they can also become tools of historical revisionism. This raises serious concerns about who controls historical narratives in the digital age and how easily some histories can be made to disappear.
The digital erasure of 442nd’s racial framing is not an isolated incident, it is a part of a disturbing pattern. Just last month, the National Park Service scrubbed its webpage for the Stonewall National Monument, downplaying its significance to LGBTQ+ civil rights and removing references to the critical role transgender individuals played. Earlier this month, Arlington National Cemetery removed webpages documenting the histories of Black and female service members, including Medal of Honor recipients and members of the Tuskegee Airmen, the country’s first Black military airmen. These revisions are not neutral acts, they are politically motivated erasures designed to reshape public memory of U.S. military history. Removing references to race, gender, or LGBTQ+ identity does not make history more objective or neutral; it severs the truth from the reality in which these Americans lived, fought, and sacrificed, whether on a battlefield or for their civil rights. If left unchallenged, these digital erasures will fundamentally alter how future generations understand the past.
Densho will continue to monitor, document, and challenge these acts of erasure. We call on historians, educators, journalists, and community members to remain vigilant in preserving and amplifying histories that institutions seek to diminish. Our identities, our histories, and our communities are strengthened by the stories we choose to remember and ways in which we share them.
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By Naomi Ostwald Kawamura, Densho Executive Director