At the time of the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Tanouye was working in the produce department of Ray's Friendly Market, a local Japanese American owned grocery store.

[2] On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 authorizing the incarceration of Japanese Americans in designated internment camps.

[6] Tanouye joined the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a unit composed almost entirely of Japanese American soldiers, in 1943 and shipped out for Europe in 1944.

A funeral service was held at the Buddhist Temple in Little Tokyo and Tanouye was interred in Evergreen Cemetery, Los Angeles, California.

[8] For his heroic actions on July 7, 1944, Ted T. Tanouye was posthumously awarded the Army's second-highest decoration, the Distinguished Service Cross.

In a ceremony at the White House on June 21, 2000, his surviving family was presented with his Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton.

Technical Sergeant Tanouye led his platoon in an attack to capture the crest of a strategically important hill that afforded little cover.

Finally taking his objective, Technical Sergeant Tanouye organized a defensive position on the reverse slope of the hill before accepting first aid treatment and evacuation.