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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Something magical happens when you unbox the best of British TV with BritBox. Stream acclaimed series starring Olivia Colman, Idris Elba, Sophie Turner, Matthew McFadyen and more of Britain's brightest talent. See what's inside. Discover something remarkable and uncover what perhaps you were looking for all along.
Unbox BritBox and stream the best of British TV. Start your free trial at BritBox.com. Morning people wake up for peace and quiet. McDonald's breakfast people, we wake up for the sweet rush of getting that warm, delicious breakfast right before it ends.
Crush your morning goals with a steak, egg, and cheese bagel or any breakfast sandwich and snag another one for just a buck with the buy one, get one deal. Only in the McDonald's app. Limited time only at participating McDonald's. Valid once per day. Must opt into rewards. Dramas. Immersive storytelling from the BBC World Service. Coming soon. Purple Heart Warriors by Iris Yamashita.
An original six-part drama series inspired by real events. Here's Will Sharp. You might know him as Ethan from the second season of The White Lotus, or as Shun from the TV series he created called Flowers. He's also leading the cast of Purple Heart Warriors right here. Italy, 1944. Allied troops have landed at Naples and are fighting their way north, attacking entrenched German machine gun positions in the fields of Tuscany.
These troops would become the US's most decorated military unit, the 100th Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated fighting unit comprised of Japanese Americans, the Purple Heart Warriors. I'm Ken Morioka from Los Angeles, and I had just turned Grandpa Allen's Japanese mochi bakery into Go Nuts Donuts.
Not sure how it happened or why, but I suddenly found myself in the 1940s, trapped in my grandpa's 18-year-old body, fighting in the war. Ken finds himself in combat training with second-generation Japanese-Americans known as Nisei, who have volunteered from the incarceration camps on the mainland.
They are joined by pigeon-accented Japanese Americans from the Hawaiian Islands who had been placed under martial law. Aloha, bunkmates. I'm from Maui. They call me Lui Nui because Nui means big and my first name Richie. So I'm kind of like Lui. This here is Sonny. Aloha. Hey, this place is like one onsen, hot and steamy. I think I need an interpreter to live in this barrack.
The islanders are sobered by a visit to an incarceration camp as they prepare to be transported to Europe. This is camp? Yeah, nothing like I would imagine. That barbed wire. Oh, and look up there. A guard's holding a rifle? So you finally got the point. Why you never say anything before? Like we're supposed to boast? Hey, by the way, my family lives in a prison camp. I thought everybody knew.
They arrive in Italy, where they are initiated into bloody and costly battles against the hardened and crack-shot Germans. Ken believes he has been put there to save his grandfather's buddy, Sonny, from dying. Listen, Sonny, when we get to France, you stick with me, alright? Eh, loco moco. I know we're friends and all and you're bigger than me, but I can take care of myself, brother. I know. It's just... never mind.
I'd come to believe that I had some insider info, so to speak. The fairy tales my grandfather used to tell me as a kid were actually disguised stories about the war, and if I could just remember them and interpret them, maybe I could keep his buddy Sonny and everyone else alive. The mythic warriors of Usa reached a village full of wheat fields. The ogres had hidden in the mountains, waiting for the trap they had set, silently waiting like vultures for their prey.
Then they started pelting the warriors with deadly folders and killed them on the spot. The Niseis are thrown into battle after battle and will face their toughest challenge when they are at their most weary. We need the 442nd back in there. But sir, they've only had two days rest. You know that there were heavy casualties at Bifontaine. We can't abandon our Texans.
To find out whether Ken succeeds and what happens to the rest of the Nisei who fought in Europe in the Second World War, listen to Purple Heart Warriors, an original drama inspired by real events by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Iris Yamashita, with Will Sharp and Aki Katabe as Ken. Purple Heart Warriors is available from the 9th of December. Follow or subscribe to Dramas so you never miss an episode.
Something magical happens when you unbox the best of British TV with BritBox. Stream acclaimed series starring Olivia Colman, Idris Elba, Sophie Turner, Matthew McFadden and more of Britain's brightest talent. See what's inside. Discover something remarkable and uncover what perhaps you were looking for all along. Unbox BritBox and stream the best of British TV. Start your free trial at BritBox.com.