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ゴー・フォア・ブローク go for broke risk all

Go for Broke, the 442nd's motto: where it came from, what the men said it meant, and the Japanese that print has given it.

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Abstract

Go for Broke was the motto of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the American army's regiment of Japanese-American volunteers, and the earliest print of it read here is English: an Associated Press story from Camp Shelby in April 1943 gives it as the Hawaiʻi men's motto and glosses it risk all, go all out or shoot the works, and the camp papers and the press that followed, as far as they were read, call it crap-game slang, the men's pidgin or Hawaiian-Japanese slang, and never give it a Japanese source word [1][2][3]. The Japanese read here came after the war. Asked in Japan, in a book of 1949, a veteran of the regiment seemed to mean, as the writer Kimura Ki reports him, 「とことん迄行け」, 「徹底的にやっつけろ」 and 「いちかばちか」; Japanese books kept the motto in katakana from 1950 and glossed it one writer at a time; and in the National Diet Library snippets counted, 当たって砕けろ (atatte kudakero), an Edo phrase said of a man who goes at a thing and is smashed if need be, is its commonest gloss from 1966, once as a translator's rendering of the American shoot the works [4][5][6]. しかたがない (shikata ga nai), it cannot be helped, is another phrase with another stance, acceptance where the motto stakes everything; the earliest print read that calls it a motto is a memoir of the camps of 1973, which never prints the regiment's motto [7].

Overview

The sense. In 1943 the press gave the motto three English senses side by side: risk all, go all out, shoot the works [1]. The record ties shoot the works and risk all to the dice game, where a player who shoots the works stakes everything on one throw: a camp paper's dispatch of April 1944, reporting the War Department's announcement, calls the motto a Japanese-American slang term meaning "give your all," "all out in everything we do," or "shoot the works," and the regiment's song of the same month takes the motto as its theme and glosses it army slang born of the crap game, meaning "shoot the works" or "risk all" [8][3]. Green's Dictionary of Slang defines the verb to commit oneself unreservedly, esp. in a gambling or betting context [9]. The motto is that sense said by soldiers of themselves: everything, on this throw.

The words. To go for broke is to play until one has won or has nothing: He either goes broke or he wins, as a senator explained it in 1967 [10]. The motto carries no Japanese word. No witness read before 1949 gives it one, and the earliest that does gives three. The Japanese phrases set beside it since mean other things, and those dated here are older than it: 一か八か in a jōruri of 1738, 当たって砕ける in a line of a jōruri first staged in 1741 (as an 1898 edition prints it), shikata ga nai in a dictionary of 1867, each dated below. 当たって砕けろ is go at it, and be smashed if it comes to that; the デジタル大辞泉 defines it 《成功するかどうかわからなくても、思いきってやってみよということ》, do it boldly, even if you cannot tell whether you will succeed [11]. Its verb 当たる has among its senses 《対抗する》, to take on, the sense this paper reads in the phrase, as in 「強敵に―・る」, to take on a strong opponent; 砕ける is 《固い物やかたまりになっている物が、衝撃などで小さくばらばらになる》, for a hard thing to break into pieces from a blow, and, at the end of its second sense, 《…くじける》, to lose heart [12][13]. The one who may break is the one who goes. 一か八か (ichi ka bachi ka) is the gambler's phrase, 《結果はどうなろうと、運を天に任せてやってみること。のるかそるか》, to try it, leaving the outcome to heaven, whatever it turns out to be; sink or swim, which the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 calls a word from card gambling, first finding the sense of a venture in a jōruri of 1738 [14]. 一発勝負 (ippatsu shōbu), deciding the match in a single round, 《一回で勝敗を決すること》, is, by this paper's reading, the nearest Japanese to one throw of the dice [15]. 仕方が無い (shikata ga nai) is 《どうすることもできない。ほかによい方法がない。やむを得ない》, nothing can be done; there is no better way; it cannot be avoided [16].

The text in English. The motto is English, and its first English glosses are the ones above: the dice game, pidgin or Hawaiian-Japanese slang, shoot the works. JMdict, the open Japanese–English dictionary, gives 当たって砕けろ as take a chance; go for broke; nothing ventured, nothing gained [17], and a Japanese idiom dictionary for English readers of 2002 gives 一発勝負 as go for broke; all or nothing [18]. So the English motto now stands in the dictionaries as the gloss of two different Japanese phrases.

The historical record

1931, reported. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Wiktionary reports a piece of 19 September 1931 by one Loui, Want a Lot of Action? See Barefoot Games: These shoeless gladiators "shoot the works" or as they themselves term it "go for broke" in each game [19]. If the clipping holds, the phrase was current in Honolulu twelve years before the regiment, glossed as the players' own term beside shoot the works. It is cited here as Wiktionary reports it. The earliest quotation in Green's Dictionary of Slang is of 1953 [9].

14 April 1943. The Associated Press, from Camp Shelby. The wire story that met the Hawaiʻi volunteers at their training camp in Mississippi, as the Springfield Weekly Republican printed it on 22 April under HAWAII JAPS IN U.S. FOR ARMY TRAINING [1]:

Their motto "Go for broke" told the world of their determination to "risk all," "go all out" or "shoot the works." Behind it, for many of them, were memories of Pearl Harbor.

The camp paper at Amache, Colorado, printed a version two days later, datelined 16 April, under 'GO FOR BROKE' IS THEIR MOTTO; it keeps go all-out and drops risk all and shoot the works [20]. In the earliest print read here, the motto arrives with the Hawaiʻi men, in the story of their arrival at Camp Shelby, and already as theirs.

12 June 1943. The mainland volunteers take it up. When the volunteers from the camps reached Camp Shelby, the Manzanar Free Press headed its story Nisei Volunteers Adopt 'Go For Broke' Slogan [21]. The mainland men adopted the motto the press had given as the Hawaiʻi men's two months before; it became the regiment's, not one island's.

17 August 1943. Pidgin, misprinted. A first-person piece in the Waterbury Democrat is the earliest read here to call the slogan the men's pidgin: the outfit's pigkin English slogan "Go for Broke" which in crapshooter language means "Shoot the Works—everything or nothing." [2]. Pigkin is the page's misprint for pidgin.

September 1943. The coat of arms. The regiment's coat of arms, approved by the War Department, carried the motto on a scroll: The famous "Go For Broke" motto is enscrolled beneath the shield [22].

22 September 1943. A soldier's gloss. A private from Salt Lake City, quoted from Camp Shelby in the camp paper at Amache [23]:

Look, you know our combat team motto? It's 'Go for broke.' In a crap game that means shoot the works. Well... that's what we're doing.

1944. The War Department, a film and a song. In April 1944 the Manzanar Free Press reported from Washington that the War Department had announced the motto as official: "Go For Broke," a Japanese-American slang term meaning "give your all," "all out in everything we do," or "shoot the works," has been adopted as the official motto of the 442nd Combat Team [8]. The War Relocation Authority's color film of the men in training, shown in the camps that spring, was titled for it: "Go For Broke", a new WRA technicolor picture, which depicts the nisei soldiers in training at Camp Shelby [24]. And the regiment's song took it as its theme, army slang born of the crap game, meaning "shoot the works" or "risk all" [3].

27 August 1945. Hodding Carter's editorial. The editorial in the Delta Democrat-Times of Greenville, Mississippi, that won its writer the Pulitzer Prize was titled Go for Broke, and Editor & Publisher reprinted it in May 1946 under the headnote Following is the editorial … It is entitled, "Go for Broke." (text layer, its misread letters read through) [25]:

Perhaps, when they gazed at their combat flag, the motto "Go for Broke" emblazoned thereon took on a different meaning. "Go for Broke" is the Hawaiian-Japanese slang expression for shooting the works in a dice game.

Its close, in the reprint's text layer: It seems to us that the Nisei slogan of "Go for Broke" could be adopted by all Americans of good will in the days ahead. We've got to shoot the works in a fight for tolerance. Those boys of Company D point the way. The wartime press read here called the phrase, in order of first appearance here, the men's motto (1943), pidgin English and crapshooter language (1943), a Japanese-American slang term (1944), army slang born of the crap game (1944), and Hawaiian-Japanese slang (1945). Every one of them glosses it in English; none names a Japanese source word.

1949. A veteran's Japanese. 『アメリカの二世殊勳物語 : 第四四二部隊』, by Sakamoto Kiju 坂本きじゅ and Kimura Ki 木村毅, published in July 1949, is a Japanese telling of the regiment by the mother of Lawrence Sakamoto, who volunteered for the regiment, and a Japanese writer who relays what the son told them; it is known here from the National Diet Library's snippets of its text. It prints the motto in roman letters, tells that the phrase sprang up on the train from the West Coast to Shelby, from no one knew whose mouth, and gives Kimura's question and the veteran's answer [4]:

ローレンス坂本君にきくとどうやら「とことん迄行け」「徹底的にやっつけろ」「いちかばちか」、"all or nothing"と言うような意味らしいのである。

When I asked Lawrence Sakamoto, it seems to mean something like "go all the way," "smash them thoroughly," "sink or swim," "all or nothing." Kimura adds that an American soldier of the occupation, asked the same, could not say, since it is slang the Japanese soldiers from Hawaiʻi made up. Elsewhere the book describes the "Go for broke" spirit as 捨て鉢に近い, close to desperation, and glosses it (とことんまでやれ), go at it to the very end [4]. This is the earliest Japanese for the motto read here: three equivalents a man of the regiment seemed to mean, as Kimura reports him, one of them the gambler's いちかばちか, and neither 当たって砕けろ nor しかたがない.

1950. A novel keeps the katakana. Lawrence Sakamoto's own Japanese novel of a Hawaiʻi family and its sons in the regiment, 『二世部隊』 (1950), writes the motto ゴー・フォア・ブローク and calls it a 合言葉, a watchword: 《「おい、ゴー·フォア·ブロークだ。」「ゴー·フォア·ブローク」この合言葉が壕から壕へ、兵から兵へと電流のように傳わっていった》, "Hey, it's go for broke!" "Go for broke": the watchword ran from trench to trench, from man to man, like an electric current [26]. In the seven hits for the motto that the index shows, it gives no Japanese gloss; of the four 一か八か the index's search finds in it, it shows three: two are the immigrant father's gamble on his farm, the third is too short a window to place, and the fourth is not shown [26].

1951–1952. The film in Japan. MGM's Go for Broke! (1951) was released in Japan on 11 January 1952, by the yearbook's line 封52年1·11 as the index's text gives it, as 『二世部隊』, the Nisei Unit, the same title as the novel; the 1953 yearbook of the film trade lists it (its text in the index reads C.O -01. Broke (MGM), the title garbled) and records that MGM decided on 『二世部隊』 as the first picture it would distribute in Japan itself [27]. A critic writing before the release, Iwasaki Akira 岩崎昶, offered his own rendering of the title: 《「決死突擊」とでも訳そうか、二世の合言葉で》, shall we say "a charge to the death": the watchword of the Nisei, a sentence repeated, with the rendering in parentheses, in Iwasaki's 『新しい映画の見方』 of 1952 [28]. The Japanese release title dropped the motto.

1954–1974. Glosses one writer at a time. In the National Diet Library's full-text index, searched for both katakana spellings of the motto, ゴー・フォア・ブローク from 1950 and ゴー・フォー・ブローク from 1958, the glosses beside it differ from book to book [29]. Nakano Gorō 中野五郎 (1954) has 突擊部隊, the assault unit, as the regiment's nickname [30]; Murayama Tamotsu 村山有 (1966) gives the earliest legible 当たって砕けろ beside the motto in the snippets counted, 《二世部隊の合いことばは「ゴー·フォア·ブローク」(当たって砕けろ)であった》 [31]; a travel book of 1973 has 当って砕けろ [32]; and a book of 1974 has 「ゴー・フォー・ブローク(倒れるまでやれ)」, keep at it till you fall [33]. Another of 1974 equates it with 撃ちてしやまん, we will not stop until we have struck [34]. These are known from the index's snippets.

1967 and 1972–1983. A translator's two renderings. Allan R. Bosworth's America's Concentration Camps (1967) writes: Their motto was "Go for Broke," which is a Hawaiian crapshooter's term for "shoot the works." [35]. Its Japanese translation by Morita Yukio 森田幸夫 renders the gloss twice. In 1972: 《"徹底的にやること"に相当するハワイのクラップばくちうちの用語である》, a Hawaiian crap-shooters' term equivalent to "doing it thoroughly" [36]. In the edition of 1983, the same sentence: 《"当たってくだけろ"に相当するハワイのクラップばくちうちの用語である》 [5]. Here 当たって砕けろ enters as the Japanese of the American shoot the works, replacing the translator's own earlier rendering.

1978. A Hawaiʻi Japanese-press editor. Tamaru Tadao 田丸忠雄, a sports reporter on the Honolulu Japanese daily 日布時事 before the war, whose book is subtitled 戦時下の邦字新聞を編集して, editing the Japanese press in wartime, describes the regiment's song in 1978: 《歌詞は"ゴー・フォア・ブローク"(軍隊のスラングで、さいころばくちに使う言葉からき"すべてを賭ける"という意味)をテーマにした、マーチ・テンポの行軍歌であ〔る〕》, a marching song in march tempo whose words take as their theme "go for broke" (army slang, from a word used in dice gambling, meaning "to stake everything") [37]. A man of Honolulu's Japanese press keeps the motto in katakana and glosses it as dice slang, with no Japanese equivalent.

1966–1987. The commonest gloss. Counted over the snippets of the oldest 50 items for ゴー・フォア・ブローク (to 1987) and the oldest 12 for ゴー・フォー・ブローク (to 1977), one count per title, a gloss counted where it stands within 40 characters after the motto, 当って砕けろ or 当たって砕けろ, with its variants (当って砕けよ, 1976; 当たってくだけろ, 1983; a form with one character garbled, 1977), stands beside the motto in eleven titles from 1966 to 1987: ten works, one novel being reprinted under a second title, and two of them using the phrase of a man outside the regiment (1986, 1987); 倒れるまでやれ and its variants (倒れるまで進め, 倒れてのちやむ) in four; 死力を尽くす in two; and 決死突撃, やっつけろ, 徹底的にやること and 撃ちてしやまん in one each, with a few other glosses in one title each. 一か八か is in none [29]. In the snippets counted, 当たって砕けろ is the commonest Japanese for the motto from 1966, never the only one.

Participants in English. Daniel K. Inouye's memoir of 1967 heads a chapter Go for Broke and writes that pretty soon our pidgin-English expression, "Go for broke!" became the Combat Team motto [38]; a study of the Japanese-English pidgin of Hawaiʻi calls it in 1972 the most widely known of all Hawaiianisms [39]; a study of 1996 reports, according to Morimoto, that "buddhahead" and "go for broke" originated before the war [40]. And a family history of 2013 quotes a speaker who explained the motto's layered meanings, tying the spirit, not the words, to the immigrant parents: This "Go for Broke" spirit comes from many ways—from our Issei parents who inculcated Japanese culture into us … And then on top of that, the American phrase for gambling "Go for Broke" would mean to shoot the works [41]. These four are known here only in short passages of their text, not at the page. In the Senate in 1967, Senator Long of Louisiana gave the American account: it is a term that one would use in gambling … He either goes broke or he wins [10].

しかたがない. The phrase is old Japanese, and English writers took it up as a word for the Japanese long before the war: Hepburn's dictionary of 1867 already has Shikata ga nai, no resource [42]. The motto is in the camp papers' English pages from 1943 [20][21][22]; the Library of Congress's search for shikata ga nai, 1900–1963, returns twenty pages and none of them is a camp paper. The twenty run from 1900 to 1960: American and Honolulu papers of 1900 to 1938, stories and reports among them, and after the war a Seattle paper of 1954 and an Alaska paper of 1960 [43]. In memory writing it is the camps' phrase. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's Farewell to Manzanar (1973) [7]:

There is a phrase the Japanese use in such situations, when something difficult must be endured. You would hear the older heads, the Issei, telling others very quietly, "Shikata ga nai" (It cannot be helped). "Shikata ga nai" (It must be done).

Later in the same book: Shikata ga nai again became the motto, but under altered circumstances [7]. The book names the 442nd twice and never prints go for broke (its whole text searched, in both editions on the shelf); it is the earliest print read here in which shikata ga nai is called a motto, the word the regiment's phrase wore. The phrase's own history, from the dictionaries to the camps, is the subject of the Philology article on shikata ga nai [44]. The Japanese Wikipedia's sentence that the internees used the phrase often to overcome despair is sourced to a TBS broadcast of 5 November 2010, 『99年の愛〜JAPANESE AMERICANS〜』 [45].

The idiom 当たって砕けろ before the regiment. The phrase is in the proverb lists and the stage. 『古今俚諺類聚』 (1893) lists ○當つて碎ける among its proverbs [46]. In 新薄雪物語, a jōruri first staged at the Takemoto-za in Osaka in 1741, a line reads 《男は當つて碎けぢや、》, a man goes at it and breaks, as the 1898 edition prints it [6][47]. The phrase is older than the motto; the motto did not make it.

What is not a source. The 1950 Japanese translation of a history of the 442nd, Orville C. Shirey's Americans: The Story of the 442nd Combat Team (1946), carries 一かばちか three times, each of an act in battle, and in the index's text never the motto [48]. The pairing of the motto with しかたがない, on a headstone or in an article, is a use; no witness read before the 2016 article sets them together, and none gives one as the other's translation.

The motto in Japanese, today

A Japanese magazine of 2010 titled its translation of an article by Daniel Inouye 「合言葉は「当たって砕けろ(go for broke)」」, the watchword was "atatte kudakero (go for broke)" [49]. JMdict glosses 当たって砕けろ with go for broke [17]; Garrison's idiom dictionary glosses 一発勝負 the same way [18]. A 2016 article by Tim Jackowski for Takase Studios, answering a reader's question whether shikata ga nai, carried on a family headstone, translates the motto, weighs 当たって砕けろ and 一か八か, from the Japanese Wikipedia and from Weblio's copy of JMdict, against shikata ga nai, and closes by suggesting that the mainland nikkei used shikata ga nai while the nikkei from Hawaiʻi used the pidgin Go for Broke, to try and convey the same thing: resignation to the inevitable, and if the inevitable is one's life on the line in battle, then so be it [50]. Today. The motto has no single Japanese. A rendering that keeps the dice keeps stake everything: 一か八か, which the veteran gave in 1949, or 一発勝負. One that keeps the soldier's resolve, at whatever cost to myself, is 当たって砕けろ, the commonest in the snippets counted, from 1966. しかたがない belongs to another stance.

A reading

In every witness read here the motto has no Japanese original. The record from 1943 is in English, and every writer read who explained the phrase while the regiment was fighting explained it in English, most from the crap game, as pidgin or Hawaiian-Japanese slang, never from a Japanese word. When Japanese was wanted, after the war, it was made: by a veteran asked in Japan, in a book of 1949, who reached, as Kimura reports him, for three phrases at once; by a critic, a travel writer and others, each with their own; and by a translator who in 1983 replaced an earlier doing it thoroughly with 当たって砕けろ as the Japanese of shoot the works. That phrase won the count because it already meant what the men meant by the motto, a man staking himself, not because the men had said it.

I read the motto, then, as the dice: everything on one throw, said by men who were staking themselves. 当たって砕けろ keeps the man and the risk and loses the dice; 一か八か keeps the dice and the risk and loses the man. Sakamoto's 1949 answer, which carries both, 「とことん迄行け」 beside 「いちかばちか」, is the nearest to the motto in Japanese that any witness read gives, and it is a soldier's, as Kimura reports it.

しかたがない is not a translation of the motto and was not its counterpart in the record. It is acceptance: there is no way, so bear it. The motto is the opposite stance, a wager. The record does not divide the two by island and mainland: the mainland volunteers took the motto up in June 1943, the camp papers read carry it in 1943 and 1944, and none of the twenty pages the Library of Congress returns for shikata ga nai is a camp paper [21][22][43]. It does show where they meet: in memory, from 1973, when shikata ga nai came to be written as the camps' motto, and so could be set beside the regiment's. The 2016 article hears them as one thing said two ways, acceptance that becomes a wager when what cannot be helped is one's own life on the line [50]. The record holds the meeting and not the sameness: the families' phrase bears what comes, the sons' motto stakes everything on it. Read together, as the reader who wrote in read them, the families' phrase and the sons' motto are the two halves of one generation's war; that pairing is true as a life, and it is not a translation.

Notes

The Waterbury Democrat of 17 August 1943 prints pigkin English, a misprint for pidgin; it is quoted as the page prints it [2].

Kimura's 1949 telling and Lawrence Sakamoto's 1950 novel describe the watchword passing like an electric current in nearly the same words; they are one author's story, told twice, not two witnesses [4][26].

The 2016 article quotes Houston's second gloss as It must be endured; the edition read here prints (It must be done), with endured in the sentence before [7][50].

The library records gathered in NDL Search write the 1949 author both 坂本きじゅ (read サカモト キジュ) and 坂本きじゆ; the National Diet Library's own record and the book's text write きじゆ [4].

A book of essays on America of 1955 by Nakaya Ukichirō 中谷宇吉郎, 『知られざるアメリカ』, may set 當つて碎けろ beside the motto; the index's text of that line is garbled, and the page is open only on the National Diet Library's premises [51].

Every National Diet Library item cited here other than [6] and [46] is known only from the index's snippets of its text, as displayed, not at the page: references 4, 5, 26 to 28, 30 to 34, 36, 37, 47 and 50. References 35 and 38 to 41 are known only from fragments of the Internet Archive's text of lending items, not at the page.

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Sources not seen

Susumu Nagara, Japanese Pidgin English in Hawaii: A Bilingual Description (University Press of Hawaii, 1972), Internet Archive lending item japanesepidginen0000naga. A bilingual description of the pidgin that lists go for broke among its words; its entry may give the Japanese a speaker of the pidgin would have set beside it, which would answer whether the men had a Japanese for the motto.

Daniel K. Inouye with Lawrence Elliott, Journey to Washington (Prentice-Hall, 1967), chapter 5, Internet Archive lending item journeytowashing00inou. The sentence after if a newcomer to Shelby asked what "Go for broke" meant, chances are he'd be told is a participant's own gloss and may change the Abstract's account of what the men said it meant.

Orville C. Shirey, Americans: The Story of the 442nd Combat Team (Infantry Journal Press, 1946), Internet Archive lending item americansstoryof00shir. A history of the 442nd; it may say how the motto came about, which would set the 1949 train story beside another account.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 19 September 1931, p. 11, the column Wiktionary quotes (newspapers.com clipping 110542575). Read at the page, it would date the phrase in Honolulu twelve years before the regiment.

The Japanese sections of the wartime camp papers and of The New Canadian, 1943–1952, held by the Library of Congress and the Internet Archive as page images whose Japanese is not in their text. A Japanese rendering of the motto in any of them would be earlier than 1949.

The Japanese-subtitled print of Go for Broke! as released in Japan in January 1952, if one survives; its subtitles would show what Japanese audiences first read for the motto.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. Associated Press, dateline Camp Shelby, Miss., 14 April 1943, "Hawaii Japs in U.S. for Army Training", Springfield Weekly Republican, 22 April 1943, p. 7 (image 7). https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83020847/1943-04-22/ed-1/?sp=7
  2. The Waterbury Democrat (Waterbury, Conn.), 17 August 1943, p. 8 (image 8). https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82014085/1943-08-17/ed-1/?sp=8
  3. Manzanar Free Press, 15 April 1944, p. 1 (image 1), the regiment's song. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84025948/1944-04-15/ed-1/?sp=1
  4. 坂本きじゅ・木村毅『アメリカの二世殊勳物語 : 第四四二部隊』, 旺文社, 1949, scans 57, 81 and 83. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/8323146/1/57
  5. A. ボズワース 著, 森田幸夫 訳『アメリカの強制収容所 : 戦時下日系米人の悲劇』, 新泉社, 1983, scan 8. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12179341/1/8
  6. 水谷不倒 校訂『竹田出雲浄瑠璃集』, 博文館, 1898, p. 937 (scan 478), 新薄雪物語. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1882729/1/478
  7. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, Farewell to Manzanar, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973; New York: Bantam, 1974, pp. 12 and 71.
  8. "442nd Combat Team Adopt Slang Slogan", Manzanar Free Press, 5 April 1944, p. 2 (image 2). https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84025948/1944-04-05/ed-1/?sp=2
  9. Jonathon Green, Green's Dictionary of Slang, online edition, "go for broke v.". https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/l2ignby
  10. Congressional Record, Senate, 25 April 1967, vol. 113, part 8, pp. 10606–10607. https://archive.org/details/congressionalrec113nunit
  11. デジタル大辞泉, 「当たって砕けろ」, at Weblio. https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E5%BD%93%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6%E7%A0%95%E3%81%91%E3%82%8D
  12. デジタル大辞泉, 「当たる」, sense 1㋔, at Weblio. https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E5%BD%93%E3%81%9F%E3%82%8B
  13. デジタル大辞泉, 「砕ける」, senses 1 and 2, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%A0%95%E3%81%91%E3%82%8B-483807
  14. デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 「一か八か」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%80%E3%81%8B%E5%85%AB%E3%81%8B-433154
  15. デジタル大辞泉, 「一発勝負」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E4%B8%80%E7%99%BA%E5%8B%9D%E8%B2%A0-434533
  16. デジタル大辞泉, 「仕方が無い」, sense 1, at Weblio. https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E4%BB%95%E6%96%B9%E3%81%8C%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84
  17. JMdict (Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group), entry 2769040, 当たって砕けろ, at jisho.org. https://jisho.org/word/%E5%BD%93%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6%E7%A0%95%E3%81%91%E3%82%8D
  18. Jeff Garrison, Kayoko Kimiya, George Wallace and Masahiko Goshi, Kodansha's Dictionary of Basic Japanese Idioms, Kodansha International, 2002, p. 144.
  19. Wiktionary, "go for broke", quoting the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 19 September 1931, p. 11. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/go_for_broke
  20. "'Go for Broke' Is Their Motto", Granada Pioneer (Amache, Colo.), 24 April 1943, p. 3 (image 3). https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83025522/1943-04-24/ed-1/?sp=3
  21. "Nisei Volunteers Adopt 'Go For Broke' Slogan", Manzanar Free Press (Manzanar, Calif.), 12 June 1943, p. 1 (image 1). https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84025948/1943-06-12/ed-1/?sp=1
  22. Manzanar Free Press, 4 September 1943, p. 3 (image 3), the regimental coat of arms. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84025948/1943-09-04/ed-1/?sp=3
  23. "Don't Hyphenate Japanese American", Granada Pioneer, 22 September 1943, p. 3 (image 3). https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83025522/1943-09-22/ed-1/?sp=3
  24. "'Go For Broke' Film Slated Here Tonight", Manzanar Free Press, 12 April 1944, p. 3 (image 3). https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn84025948/1944-04-12/ed-1/?sp=3
  25. Hodding Carter, "Go for Broke", editorial, Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), 27 August 1945; reprinted under "Appeal for Tolerance Takes Coveted Award", Editor & Publisher 79:20, 11 May 1946, p. 76. https://archive.org/details/sim_editor-publisher_1946-05-11_79_20/page/n77
  26. 坂本ローレンス (Lawrence Sakamoto)『二世部隊』, 住吉書房, 1950, scans 25 and 138. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1706487/1/138
  27. 『映画年鑑』1953, 時事通信社, scans 87 and 161. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2472546/1/161
  28. 岩崎昶・北川冬彦 共編『世界映画の鑑賞』, 双竜社, 1951, scan 23. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2457885/1/23 ; and 岩崎昶『新しい映画の見方』, 三笠書房, 1952, scan 63. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2460394/1/63
  29. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search for ゴー・フォア・ブローク (116 items, the oldest 1950) and ゴー・フォー・ブローク (109 items, the oldest 1958), all access levels, sorted oldest first (searched 28 October 2026); glosses counted in the snippets of the oldest items of both. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=ゴー・フォア・ブローク
  30. 中野五郎『アメリカの暗黒』, 1954, scan 80. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2985214/1/80
  31. 村山有『ハワイ二世 : 屈辱から栄光へ』, 1966, scan 49. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3019682/1/49
  32. 『ハワイ・歴史の旅』, 1973, scan 95. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12215817/1/95
  33. 『世界の国 : 文化誌』, 1974, scan 46. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12185520/1/46
  34. 『鎮魂戦艦大和』, 1974, scan 116. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12398374/1/116
  35. Allan R. Bosworth, America's Concentration Camps, New York: Norton, 1967, p. 13. https://archive.org/details/americasconcentr0000bosw
  36. A. ボズワース 著, 森田幸夫 訳『アメリカの強制収容所 : 危機状況における少数民族』, 新泉社, 1972, scan 9. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12182690/1/9
  37. 田丸忠雄『ハワイに報道の自由はなかった : 戦時下の邦字新聞を編集して』, 毎日新聞社, 1978, scan 54. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11972050/1/54
  38. Daniel K. Inouye with Lawrence Elliott, Journey to Washington, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967, chapter 5, "Go for Broke", which begins on p. 111. https://archive.org/details/journeytowashing00inou
  39. Susumu Nagara, Japanese Pidgin English in Hawaii: A Bilingual Description, Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1972. https://archive.org/details/japanesepidginen0000naga
  40. Nobuhiro Adachi, Linguistic Americanization of Japanese-Americans in Hawaii, Osaka: Ōsaka Kyōiku Tosho, 1996. https://archive.org/details/linguisticameric0000unse
  41. Mark Howland Rawitsch, The House on Lemon Street: Japanese Pioneers and the American Dream, Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2013. https://archive.org/details/houseonlemonstre0000rawi
  42. J. C. Hepburn, A Japanese and English Dictionary; with an English and Japanese Index, London: Trübner, 1867, p. 402 (archive.org scan 420). https://archive.org/details/japaneseenglishd00hepb
  43. Library of Congress, Chronicling America, search for "shikata ga nai" and "shikataganai", 1900–1963, 20 pages (searched 28 October 2026). https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/?q=%22shikata+ga+nai%22
  44. 典 Ten, 仕方が無い · 仕様が無い · 仕方無い · shikata ga nai · shiyō ga nai · shikatanai · It cannot be helped, Philology, Takase Studios. https://takase.com/library/philology/shikata-ga-nai-shiyo-ga-nai-shikatanai
  45. ウィキペディア, 「仕方がない」, version of 30 July 2026, as copied at Weblio, its note 2. https://www.weblio.jp/content/%E4%BB%95%E6%96%B9%E3%81%8C%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84
  46. 岡本経朝 編『古今俚諺類聚』 第1類, 1893, scan 58. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/767886/1/58
  47. デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 「新薄雪物語」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%96%B0%E8%96%84%E9%9B%AA%E7%89%A9%E8%AA%9E-536668
  48. オヴィル・C.シヤーレイ (Orville C. Shirey) 著, 永田稠 訳『四四二部隊』, 東京堂, 1950, scans 47, 78 and 84. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1689981/1/78
  49. ダニエル イノウエ「合言葉は「当たって砕けろ(go for broke)」」, 『歴史通』, November 2010, a translation (CiNii Research record). https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1523388079712100224
  50. Tim Jackowski, "442nd's Motto 'Go For Broke' in Japanese", Takase Studios, 29 September 2016 (unsigned on the page). https://www.takase.com/library/blog/442nd-motto-go-for-broke-japanese
  51. 中谷宇吉郎『知られざるアメリカ』, 文芸春秋新社, 1955, scan 99. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2934657/1/99

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-10-28, citations — 50 references; the five the check could open (Houston pp. 12 and 71, Garrison p. 144, Hepburn p. 402, the 1893 and 1898 pages) resolve with no differing reading; the rest are live library, newspaper, archive and dictionary addresses a reader opens, the newspapers and the Japanese pages read by hand at their page images · two fresh-context readers per round (Claude), 2026-10-28, every claim in the summary block traced to its source, and the body checked against the same packet: round 1 FAIL, both (unscoped absences, read-method lists the body did not name); round 2 FAIL, both (Green's and Wiktionary do enter go for broke as an English headword; one unsourced sentence; the AP dateline, Houston's pages and the 1898 page re-read at the leaf and held); round 3 FAIL, both, on one name reading the packet did not carry, now footed at the library catalogue, and narrowed under the third-round rule; wordings taken

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of ゴー・フォア・ブローク (go for broke)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/go-for-broke.