1 100 23 https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/e064150ef7948bfd985aff8fbb8bdca1.pdf 8ad63e62d762c1445806678048720a81 PDF Text Text Go For Broke National Education Center Oral History Project Oral History Interview with Warren Tsuneishi, June 28, 1999, Arlington, Virginia INTERVIEWER: Today is June 28, 1999. We're in Arlington, Virginia; interviewing Warren Michio Tsuneishi. On camera is Kenji [Lester]. Doing audio and cataloging is [Ian Kowata]. Interviewing is Joy Iwata. Could you please state your full name for us? TSUNEICHI: Warren Michio Tsuneishi. INTERVIEWER: And when were you born? TSUNEICHI: July 4, 1921. And [the presidency was] Warren G. Harding. That's right. I have my name Warren. My father wrote a sonnet to Warren G. Harding, I think. Maybe it's the only president who has ever been honored by sonnet. But my father must have had Republican leanings, because Harding, of course, was Republican. But all of his 10 children, 9 children, 1 died in infancy, all of his children grew up in the Depression years and became, for the most part, Roosevelt Democrats. That's where my name comes from, anyway. INTERVIEWER: And where were you born? TSUNEICHI: A place called Monrovia, California. That's in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California. INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood? About maybe where you went to school? TSUNEICHI: I was born in Monrovia because I think there was a Monrovia hospital that was---actually, we lived in Duarte, which is, when I was growing up in the 20s, a country place [that was a very underdeveloped] part of that region. Our family was the only---there were 2 Japanese families in Duarte, one was [INAUDIBLE], another was Kobayashi. There were Japanese families in nearby Arcadia, and nearby Monrovia. But we lived kind of isolated---the larger white community was basically citrus growing community at that time. The school that I attended, Duarte Grammar School, was all white. There was another school for blacks and Mexican Americans, I believe. My mother was a school---had been a school teacher in Japan and she was gonna be sure that we got the best education, that was available. So, she is finagled us to get into white school. Even so, Duarte Grammar School was---had a student body about 70 or 80, and that's the kind of community that I grew up in. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 1 of 30 �INTERVIEWER: What was that like for you then, going to an all-white school? TSUNEICHI: Well, I think it influenced us in this way. Whereas other families, Japanese families, in Arcadia and Monrovia, where---my wife is from Hawaii---in Hawaii, they thought of themselves or had a greater Japanese cultural influence on them. I think that we, as a kind of isolated family, were more integrated into the white community, not completely, but more integrated. So then, all my schoolmates and all my friends were, the most part, white Americans. Whereas the other Japnese families in the larger neighborhood, were---lived and worked more in with the other Japanese. So that, to that extent, I think that---and also my father, having come to this country as a young man, went to Monrovia High School. He was the first Japanese graduate from that high school. And he spoke and wrote in English so that we grew up that way. My mother never did learn much Japanese---English, and so we grew up kind of bilingual, in that respect. Speaking Japanese at home with my mother, English with my father. And I was, as I said, most of my friends were white Americans, Caucasian Americans. I was in the Boy Scouts and [was] Caucasian, strictly Caucasian. The Japanese community in Monrovia, Arcadia, Duarte, did get together to join common institutions: run the Japanese language school, which all of us attended through the grade school years 1 through 8. Mondays and Wednesdays after regular school, and Saturdays, all day Saturday. But, I was born on the 4th of July. I had the self-image of being an allAmerican boy. [Sings song]. “Real life nephew of Uncle Sam. Born on the 4th of July.” That kind of thing. I resisted Japanese language school. I was a very good student in Duarte Grammar School and regular school, but I resisted studying Japanese. “Why should I be studying this funny language that I'm never going to use?” So, I was an indifferent student when I was an all “A” student in regular school and I was a all “C” student at the Japanese school. And, much to my later regret, because I got into the Army, volunteered for my so-called Japanese language skills. When I got on the [field], I said, “I wish that I had been a better student.” Then ironically, I made my career as a Japanese Army specialist. And to this day I wish that I had been a better student. It is funny how life turns out. INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me your father's name and what his occupation was? TSUNEISHI: My father’s name was Satoru. S, A, T, O, R, U. His name in [poetry], in haiku, was Shisei. S, H, I, S, E, I. He loved poetry. That’s why he wrote that sonnet. That's what he mastered. I can't tell you an iambic pentameter from a hexameter, but my father was able to master that and write a sonnet in English. He came from a farming family in Kōchi Prefecture, southern part of Japan. There’s not many immigrants to this country from that part of Japan. He and a young friend of his both decided to [INAUDIBLE] to come to this country when they were both 17 or 18. and either [INAUDIBLE] to make their fortune, and that’s how they got---they were headed for Texas, where a young man had pioneered rice growing. A young man from the Kōchi Prefecture [pioneered rice growing] in Southern Texas. But both of them, this man named Kitamura; K, I, T, A, M, U, R, A, and my father landed in San Francisco, got as far as Los Angeles, and never went beyond California. Earlier, my father---one of the first things he decided to do is go to school to learn the language and that kind of thing. He was a middle school graduate in Japan. He finished This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 2 of 30 �his high school in the three years. He had become a Christian missionary and become converted. He had the ambition of becoming a [says the Japanese word for minister], a minister, a Christian minister. And he enrolled at University of Southern California and got 1 year---1 semester and then had to drop out. He says because of physical ailments, and I think it was probably because of financial considerations, also. He made his living, thereafter, as a farmer, initially growing watermelons and potatoes and strawberries. In the ‘20s, he became a real estate agent. Well no, before that in the early ‘20s, when I was born, he had moved into poultry farming. And then there was a flood, about 1924, so that wiped them out. We lived right alongside a wash. A dry wash most of the time, most of the years, but in a heavy rain, it [flooded] it over and drowned his poultry, and he became a real estate agent. And with the crash, ’29, ’30, ’31, we went back to farming. Dairy farming. Struggled. Had a roadside stand selling berries and vegetables. And during the Depression years, at the same time, he had a group of his friends, in the early 20s, organize a [portrait] society called the [Tachibana ginsha]. That's T, A, C, H, I, B, A, N, A. Ginsha: G, I, N, S, H, A. Tachibana, means mandarin oranges because they were in citrus country. But they published a [portrait] magazine called [Tachibano]. My father was the first editor of that. But I often wondered about this. He was---all of his colleagues were farmers or gardeners or small shopkeepers. No internet jobs or anything like that. No academics or professors or doctors. I often wonder about this immigrant group, who come to this country, and organizes a portrait society and publishes a periodical that starts in the early ‘20s and continues right up to the War. Of course, they suspend publication during the wartime but then they resumed publication after the War. But such an unlikely group were having enough interest in the subject to do this is astonishing cultural accomplishment, in my mind. So, on the one hand you ask me what my father did. On the one hand, he was a poor farmer, most of his life. But on the other hand, he had this cultural life, which is quite astonishing, when you think about it. My mother, on the other hand, was---you would have thought that she would be the one who would be doing this kind of thing. But, she was the one who was running the Issei community, when they had to get together to do work on common projects, such as the Japanese language school or the judo dojo. They had to put up 2 buildings: 1 for the school and 1 for the dojo, the building that housed the judo. The mat and the equipment, so forth. It was she attended these meetings, with the men, to raise funds, to run the organization. It was a curious distribution of responsibilities. I remember in the middle of the Depression, resenting the fact that my father was off with his 4 friends writing haiku and my mother was scrambling to hold things together, economically. That was a kind of life we led in those days. INTERVIEWER: What was your mother's name? TSUNEISHI: Sho. S, H, O. Her maiden name was Murakami. M, U, R, A, K, A, M, I. INTERVIEWER: Do you have any brothers and sisters? TSUNEISHI: There were 10 of us, originally. 1 died in infancy. We came about a year apart. My oldest brother was named Hughes, named after Charles Evans Hughes, who was also Republican. The This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 3 of 30 �Republican candidate [INAUDIBLE] for the president in 1916. My brother was born in June of 1916, and everyone thought that he was to be the winner over Woodrow Wilson. Well, California voted for Wilson, and that’s how Wilson got in. Anyway, so that's Hughes. I have an older sister--Hughes is now dead---I have an older sister named Florence. Florence Nakashima. Lives in Los Angeles. An older sister named Frances. Lives in Montebello with my brother, Noel. Noel was born on Christmas. That’s how he gets his name. Our older brother Arthur lives in San Gabriel. He's a retired minister. A younger brother, Paul. Lives in Southern California. He was also in the MIS. A younger brother, Noel, as I mentioned, born on Christmas, also in the MIS. There were 4 of us in the MIS, as a matter of fact. And then a younger brother James. He lives in the Los Angeles area. He was in the occupation. So, there are 4 of us who were in the MIS. My order sister Florence was as a teacher of Japanese at the University of Minnesota during their War there, teaching the Japanese language officers for young office---Caucasian officers who are being trained for Japanese language service. She wound up in the occupation working in the GHQ under MacArthur’s Allied Translator Interpreter Section of GHQ, as did my sister Frances. Frances had been sent to Japan to go to school. She graduated school, university, in 1941 and was caught there. She spent the War years in Japan, as a teacher in a Catholic girls’ school up in the northern part of Japan. My aunt, who was a legal guardian, my mother's younger sister---[had sent her] for safety, more than anything else. Frances lost her citizenship during the War, but after 7 years post-War, regained it. She is now back in Los Angeles living in Montebello area. So that's my---the last one, Henry, died in infancy. INTERVIEWER: I think you mentioned that your father had been converted to Christianity. TSUNEISHI: Yes. INTERVIEWER: So was your family religious? TSUNEISHI: Well, yes and no. My father had been converted to Christian Science and when we were young, growing up, we attended Christian Science. We had a neighbor [INAUDIBLE] it was our landlord. Rose Maxwell, who was a Methodist. And somehow or another, we got shifted over to the Methodist Church and I guess we grew up as Methodists. That, incidentally, is how I wound up at Syracuse University during the War because I was studying earlier. Or maybe we can get into that later when we talk about education. INTERVIEWER: We’ll make sure we cover that. What did you do for fun, growing up as a young child? TSUNEISHI: Well, I did all kinds of things. I said earlier, that there are not too many immigrants from Kōchi Prefecture, but there are, in the Southern California area, major immigrants came from the prefectures of Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, and from the Northern Kyushu areas, Fukuoka and Kumamoto. And these various prefectures [had] these kenjinkai. Kumamoto Kenjinkai. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 4 of 30 �Kumamoto Prefectural Society and they would have annual picnics and so forth. And there weren't enough immigrants from Kōchi to establish a Kōchi Kenjinkai. So we joined the Kumamoto Kenjinkai picnics and so forth. Annual picnics. The school, the Japanese language school, had these regular outings. And then the San Gabriel Valley Japanese American community had an annual outing in the Montebello area and I remember going to those things. We lived in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Mt. Wilson is right there. And I used to go climbing either Monrovia Peak or Monrovia---it used to be an all-day venture to walk from where we lived to the foot of Mt. Wilson, which is in Sierra Madre. And then we’d hike up and down and did that kind of thing. ‘Course, we were working the farm, but I don't remember that much, so much as all the other kinds of adventures we had. When I was a pre-teen and as a teenager, I joined the Boy Scouts Club in Monrovia, run by the Presbyterian Church. I went to scouting events. I went to the Cherry Valley Summer Camp and Catalina Islands. My older brother, he had been a Boy Scout, also. There were Japanese troops, Nisei troops, in Los Angeles, but not in the San Gabriel Valley area, so we joined a Caucasian troop. But then, we were more integrated into that community than most Japanese Americans, I believe. It was a completely unique, but it was a relative thing. INTERVIEWER: Now, if we move on to high school, could you tell us what high school you attended? TSUNEISHI: I went to Monrovia Arcadia Duarte High School in Monrovia. Still is there on Colorado Boulevard. In fact, my younger brother and I visited there last year, and for the first time since I graduated. 1939. INTERVIEWER: Were you involved in any activities during high school? TSUNEICHI: Yes, I was a member---in my junior year, I was the associate editor of the high school annual and senior year I was the editor of the annual. That’s why I went to Monrovia, because I'd lost my copy during the evacuation. I just wanted to take a look at it. They had a moth-eaten copy, but they said if I went to the Monrovia Museum, I could---we could find copies of the annual. And we went there and we did find a copy. And we found a copy of the 1913 annual showing a picture of my father, when he had graduated. Quite interesting that the Monrovia Museum is the former bathhouse of the Monrovia pool. [Plunge], it used to be called. You had these bittersweet memories because the Monrovia Plunge was segregated. I can't remember, I think it was maybe Monday it was open to the “colored people” and we could go there. And the story we understood that that was the day that, after we finished at the [INAUDIBLE], that they changed the water. Whether that was true or not, I'm not sure. [It’s] one of those things that you remember about growing up in California. Another thing I remember is that the barbershops are segregated. I can still see in my mind's eye the sign along the strip painted on the door: “White trade only.” And to this day, I feel uncomfortable going into a barber shop to get a haircut. When we were first married, my wife and I in 1946, lived in New York then, going to school. And I remember going to a barber shop there in New York City to get all dolled up. Haircut, shave. I didn't feel comfortable in that setting. But throughout our married life, my wife has cut my hair. And ,as I This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 5 of 30 �say, I feel uncomfortable about going into a barbershop because of that early childhood experiences. INTERVIEWER: Did you face any other forms of discrimination? TSUNEISHI: Not in school, so much. I don't remember that, except at the very end. I remember entering a DAR essay contest. Perhaps in my senior year, and the theme was preservation of natural resources. I won that contest and I made my presentation to the assembled ladies of the DAR. Again these bittersweet memories because the Sons and Daughters of the Golden West, and the DAR and the American Legion, these are the, in the forefront, of the anti-Chinese American, anti-Japanese movement in the West Coast. I met a young man, not a young man anymore, and he was a success. He followed me at Monrovia High School. A man named Kuromiya. I met him because he was one of these draft resistors who had resist going. He was---his family had been evacuated to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. Heart Mountain was the place where they the organized resistance to the draft. Fair Play Committee and all that. And I asked them, “How in the world did”---he was a young man of 18---“come to that conclusion that he should stand on his constitutional rights and not be---until his rights are restored, he wouldn’t be drafted?” He said, he had entered in that DAR contest and the subject had been the Bill of Rights. He said, “I know all about the Bill of Rights and his rights as an American citizen.” And that's why, when he found like-minded men at Heart Mountain, he joined them. He said, “You can't do this to me.” I didn't think that way and I volunteered. I said yes. But he said, “No, you can't do this to me. As an American citizen, under the Fifth Amendment, you can't take away my liberty and property without due process.” And so, that’s why he resisted. Well, I didn't feel that way at that time---but I said every day that I was a straight “A” student in grammar scholar and a straight-A student in high school, also I graduated at the top of my class. 225 some students. There were 2 other guys--twins. The Dunsmore twins who also got straight A’s. But I was not selected as the salutarian, or---And I knew it was because of my ancestry. And not being denied the opportunity to enter the high school annual but that sort of stuck in my [INAUDIBLE]. A number of my fellow students with lesser qualifications, in terms of their grades and so forth, in terms of accomplishments, received fairly fancy scholarships to go to Ivy League colleges. One of our best friends got a scholarship to Pepperdine College. I don't remember that my high school advisors even talked to me about going to college. My mother had always insisted on the---as much education as possible. All her brothers and sisters had gone on to college. My older sister, Florence, had gone to UCLA and worked her way through. But in those days, as a school [girl]. I followed that same trend. But in those days, in 1939, I paid $27 a semester in fees. No tuition. So I had to work for my room and board, which I did as a school boy. I don't know what the in-state fees for the University of California system is, but I don't think they’re $27 a semester. But at least it gave me a chance to go to school. But, I must say, that it did---I did resent at the time, and to this day, there’s this feeling of resentment, that---whereas my Caucasian friends had all these opportunities at the college level, [internships], scholarship, and so forth, encouraged to go onto the best schools in the country, there was not that kind of opportunity open to me. I worked the summer of ’39, as a [INAUDIBLE] Kuromiya [INAUDIBLE]. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 6 of 30 �BEGINNING OF TAPE TWO TSUNEISHI: During the summer of ’39, I spent it working at a fruit and vegetable stand in Monrovia. Owned by Kuromiya, I mentioned that name before. And there were 2 clerks---there were 3 clerks plus the owner and his wife. And we were paid $18 for a 60-hour week. 2 other guys, they asked me--I remember on the very first day and asked me if this was gonna be my permanent job--[INAUDIBLE] “I need save up some money so I could go to college.” And they laughed and pooh-poohed and said that, “They had college degrees and they're working as fruit stand clerks for $18 a week.” They said, “You're not going to get anywhere and you might as well do something else.” But that was a situation, where, even if you had a college degree, in those days you couldn't get a job. It’s in the Depression. Emerging from the Depression era, and a lot of people have jobs, job opportunities. But, it’s very clear to me, as a Japanese American in California, that you would not get---it would be very difficult to get any kind of a professional job, even if you had a college degree. It's those---a fact of life in California in those days. I often think about that in terms of our own psychology and how we look at life, and I often think, “Why didn’t we object to this kind of discrimination more than we did?” There was a JA, Japanese American Citizens League, JACL, which is a civil rights organization that was supposed to be fighting for our rights and all that kind of thing. But, then when the evacuation came, most of us went meekly. We're not objecting. And there are dissidents who didn't. But they were ostracized from us for standing up for their rights. I often think about that. But, I explained it in terms of the kind of discrimination that was pretty pervasive in those days in California. Even though, as I said, we were---our family was more integrated into the greater white community. Still, there was that thing in the background that you're constantly aware of---social contacts were restricted. You could go into restaurants or [INAUDIBLE], that kind of a thing, and you are aware of that, anyway. I wanted to get that in there. INTERVIEWER: After high school, you went on to UC Berkeley? TSUNEISHI: Well, I went to UCLA first and my major was political science, and one of the reasons for that--there was a man named [Togo] Tanaka, who was an editor of the Rafu Shimpo. He was one of the geniuses. Went to college at age 16 or something like that. I knew him because his father was a member of this Tachibana ginsha. So, his father, his name in haiku was Torin. T, O, R, I, N. Tanaka Torin. Was a small shop keeper in Los Angeles. I knew Togo because of that connection and our families knew each other. And Togo Tanaka had been a political science major. So, that’s why I went to UCLA as a political science major and minor in English. But somewhere along the way, I got interested in Asian studies and Berkeley was the major center for Asian studies in the University of California system. UCLA has subsequently developed, but was still in its nascent period. So, I transferred to Berkeley in my 3rd year, which is September of 1941, and that's when the Harbor and happened the evacuation happened, that kind of thing. TSUNEISHI: Can you tell us where you were on December 7th, 1941? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 7 of 30 �TSUNEISHI: I was out walking. I lived with 2 other guys. A guy named Ken Murase, who was---I'd met at UCLA. Ken is from Reedly, California, from a grape farm, but he subsequently became Professor of Social Work at California State---He’s pretty much an activist in Asian American affairs. Retired now. Another guy was--- a guy named Charles Kikuchi. Author of the Kikuchi Diary and other things. He was a student of social work at University of California Graduate School, and he worked on that evacuation study for Professor Dorothy Swain-Thomas. He was co-author in one of the books in that series. And he kept a daily journal throughout the evacuation. And subsequently, when he was relocated to Chicago and worked---continued to work with the evacuation relocation study for Dr. Thomas. All of those---all of his journals now all reside in the UCLA Library. The JARP, the Japanese American Research Project collection. As do, incidentally, my fathers’ papers are there in the JARP collection. Anybody wants to study either early Japanese culture or the evacuation. So Ken Murase, Charles Kikuchi, and I were rooming together in [INAUDIBLE] Street in Berkeley. I remember I was our walking or something. I went back to my room and the radio was on and they're talking about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. [INAUDIBLE] fell out of my life because my feeling was, “Why the hell did they have to do that? It ruins everything now.” Cuz things we a little, quite tenuous in the ‘30s. Growing up in California, the anti-Japanese feeling because of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in ‘31 and North China in ’37. There was growing hostility toward Japan. And when Pearl Harbor was attacked, we knew we were in for it. That is, Nisei students, knew we were in for it. We just feel that bad things were going to happen to us and [INAUDIBLE]. There wasn't much we could do about it. That was my reaction to Pearl Harbor when it came in. INTERVIEWER: What happened to your family, after that? TSUNEICHI: Well, I stayed on in Berkeley as long as possible, so that I could get my junior credits in. So, I was evacuated with the San Francisco Bay region group. About 13,000 Japanese Americans. My family was in Southern California. They went to the Pomona Assembly Center, then to Heart Mountain. Well, I went to Tanforan racetrack, assembly center. And, as I said, there were 13,000 of us and I got so fed up with my loss of liberty that when I had a chance to get out---sugar beet growers in Idaho need our agricultural labor, help. So, when they came recruiting, and I was one of 13 out of the 13,000 men who wanted to get out. That was---that's my idealistic reason for going. But, in fact, I was out of money also. I remember that I went into---I had odd jobs at Berkeley, so I had some cash in my pocket when I went in to camp. But, my friends, including Charlie Kikuchi, got me involved in poker. I was---I hadn’t played poker before, but they were teaching me how. They said, “We were playing for mills instead of a penny [INAUDIBLE] or [D1] mill.” Even so, in about a month, in less than a month, I was out of money because---so, that was the real reason. Perhaps, a realistic reason, at least, for my wanting to get out of there. I needed money. So I went to Southern Idaho. They put us in a former CCC camp, it must have been, about 100 volunteers from the various camps. And we thinned sugar beets that spring. That summer, a group of us went out to put up alfalfa on a hay farm---cattle farm in the desert there, an irrigated desert. That fall, we helped harvest the sugar beets and harvest potatoes. We worked at those jobs until the snows came. Harvest was over. It must have been late October, early November. By that time, my family was in Heart Mountain. Wyoming is next door to Idaho. We This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 8 of 30 �were still under WAR control, so I joined my family in Heart Mountain. And, I had a job as a hospital orderly there. I remember $15 or so a month, or whatever it was. But the American Friends Service Committee was, had established a program to get students out to finish schooling or to go to college if they wanted to. And I took advantage of that. I applied to go out to school. I wanted to go to Columbia because they had a journalism school, well renowned. And I wanted become a journalist like Togo Tanaka. Columbia rejected my application on the grounds that they had an ESTP Army Specialist Training Program there and the [INAUDIBLE] would object. I was eventually placed at Syracuse University with a scholarship from the Methodist Church. So, what I mentioned earlier, and got to Syracuse and completed my schooling there. It turned out that Syracuse had an AST Program and a Navy officer training program also. But the chancellor, a man named William P. Tolley, T, O, L, L, E, Y, was one of these conservatives with very strong convictions on constitutional rights. He told me that if you [INAUDIBLE], it was because he was of immigrant background from Great Britain. But his father had encountered all kinds of difficult, see. And he was convinced believer in fundamental rights of all American citizens. Anyway, it was because of that, that he opened up Syracuse University. When the American Friends Service Committee approached him, he was chancellor, and asked him to place---accept at least 5 students from the camps. He said, “I’ll do better than that. I’ll accept a 100.” Eventually, the University accepted over 50. I was 1 of them. Lucky to be given that opportunity. You see, when you’re growing up---this country has a way of Americanizing immigrants and you believe these things that you are taught in grade school. But, all of the wonderful things that American democracy has to offer you. And your rights as an American---and you believe all of these things. And I’d like to think that I believe that precisely because of people like Chancellor Tolley, who gave me that opportunity. I remember arguing this case with a boss in this hay ranch--this cattle ranch in Idaho. Cowboy type. I said, “I'm as American as you. The reason I'm not--was kicked out of California is because of the race prejudice and all that in California that led to the evacuation.” And he kept looking at me and I looked straight in his eye and told him, “I'm as American as you are.” And I could see that he wasn't believing me. I had to make that pitch. But at least he gave me a chance to work. And I could talk---argue with him on this issue. Tolley, he don't have to. He was already convinced most people like that are the true Americans in this country. INTERVIEWER: We’re gonna go ahead and move on now to your Service. Can you tell me if you volunteered or if you were drafted? TSUNEICHI: Yeah, I volunteered because my brother suggested that. The Army was closed to us. We were classified as enemy aliens, after 1942, after the Pearl Harbor. But this still had that---the Army was quite ambivalent. Even General DeWitt must've been ambivalent because it was at his headquarters. John L. DeWitt, the architect of the evacuation. He was the Commanding General of the 4th Army headquarters at the Presidio in San Francisco. It was his intelligence people in G-2 who started the Japanese language school in the---it wasn’t called the Japanese language school, it was called the intelligence school, at the Presidio in November of 1941. It was probably War Department policy to do something or to serve because the Navy began its Japanese language officer training program in September ‘41 at Berkeley and at Harvard. The military could see that's what---they we're going to need Japanese language specialists because of This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 9 of 30 �the coming war with Japan. I could see that something was going to happen. So, right there under General DeWitt’s nose, his G-2 people, and that's intelligence, G-2 is, were training Japanese--Nisei to be Japanese language specialists. There were 16 that initial class of November ’41. All of them, originally, all of them Nisei, a couple of Caucasians. The faculty was all Japanese American. And when the evacuation came, none of them could stay there in the West Coast, and they were moved out to this place, Camp Savage, outside of Minneapolis. It's a former CCC camp. Continued their operations there. Meantime, the initial graduates had begun to, of the MIS, joined in ’42, we're beginning to work and were active and participated in every major and minor battle of the Pacific beginning at [TURNKISKA], New Caledonia, New Guinea. So, they were building up a record. And Hawaii, the 100th Infantry was being formed out of the National Guard and that there were need---the 442nd was being organized, they needed recruits. So the War Department, in ’43, changed their policy. And began to accept volunteers. You know, what happened was that thousands of volunteers from Hawaii, there were volunteers from the camps, but not as great. But, my brother wrote to me, they’re having the opening of the draft again. Happened in early ‘43. My brother was at Camp Savage, at that time. I was a student in Syracuse. He wrote to me, sometime in the spring of ’43, suggesting that one way or another I was going to be drafted or being in military service. I mine as well volunteer for the MIS, rather than for the alternative being the 442nd. I'd be cannon fodder there and all this kind of thing. So, somewhere in early summer of ‘43 when it became apparent that I would be able to finish my--they speeded up [the] wartime program, I could complete my senior year from January to August, and it became apparent that I would get a degree, I volunteered. The Syracuse Draft Board was happy to get me. They had [INAUDIBLE] all their quarters too. And so I was inducted in Camp Upton in New York in early August of ’43 and was sent immediately to Savage because I [INAUDIBLE] expressed a desire to go. I spent 6 months there in a speeded-up training program. It was one of these sink or swim, total immersion types of training. From the [moment they played] “Taps,” 6 o'clock in the morning to 10 o'clock at night, except for meals, we were studying military Japanese. Fridays---every Monday through Friday. Examinations Saturday mornings. We’re at liberty late Saturday and Sunday. Could get into Minneapolis. Go to a Chinese restaurant having [soup] or noodles. But, that was our life for 6 months INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me a little bit more about what you studied during the language school? TSUNEISHI: That was when I wished that I had been a better student at Japanese language school, because we studied [kaiwa], spoken Japanese, reading, translating military terms. We read the standard manuals that the Japanese military officers study in military academies---army and navy academies in Japan. Essential service or a strategy, Japanese military thinking. We watched Japanese language movies and there was some close order drill there. Worked on, maybe on Saturdays. But that was a kind of training we had. Basically, I was---they test you for your Japanese language skills and I wound up with the MOS, the Military Occupation Series. Translator. My spoken Japanese was not good enough to be an interrogator, interpreter, but my reading skills were good enough so that I could serve as an effective translator for documents. INTERVIEWER: So did you have any specialized training for that? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 10 of 30 �TSUNEISHI: As I say, all of that was highly specialized, turned it into language. But, then after that, we all had to go through infantry basic training 2 months and that was done---they shipped us down to Camp Blanding in Florida, south of Jacksonville, to undergo that training. Then they shipped back to Fort Snelling in Minneapolis---St. Paul, where they held us for several weeks. I think I took that occasion to visit my parents at Heart Mountain. They were shipped---you know, I don't remember much about that experience visiting my parents. I don't even have a photograph of that period. There was a photograph of my brother, older brother, he was visiting my family in Heart Mountain [but not of me]. I don't remember much of that, except that my father, by that time, was the camp librarian. At least, he had converted his stall, his room, or part of his room, into a library of haiku. That's one thing I could never understand because I'm---when I was evacuated, I was told that I could take only what I could carry, a suitcase with some clothes and some books, I guess, that's what I took into camp. I can’t figure out how my father got all of his books to Heart Mountain. Later, he was able to even given authorization to travel to other camps to [collect Japanese literature]. I don’t know how he did it, but he did it. But aside from that I don't remember much about visiting Heart Mountain. We were formed into a small group, detachment, 306 headquarters---well, maybe we weren’t formed yet, we were small---shaped into smaller detachments and shipped to Camp Lewis, Washington to Honolulu. And we were assigned to Schofield Barracks in Wahiawa, Hawaii. Stayed there, got some jungle training. We may have been attached to something called [JICPOA]. It's a Navy operation at Pearl Harbor. Joint Intelligence Center Pacific Ocean Area. and the acronym was JICPOA. J, I, C, P, O, A. Navy operation. We weren't allowed because we were Japanese Americans in Pearl Harbor. So they established a station in Honolulu---facility in Honolulu. I think, administratively, we were under that organization. But we didn't do much except go to jungle training. I don't recall doing---by that time, this ’43, ‘44. They had prisoner---a Japanese prisoner of war camp in the outskirts of Honolulu, and some of the guys went out there to practice their interrogation skills and that kind of thing. I didn't do that. It must have been September of ’44 that we loaded onto troopships. We cruised around the South Pacific for about 6 weeks, as I recall. Got off at Eniwiktok. Went to Manus Island. Admiralty Islands. Then I was, yes, by that time we had been organized as the 306th Headquarters Intelligence Detachment and with our sister detachment of the 307 th. We were shipped aboard this thing to participate in the return of MacArthur to the Philippines in the Leyte, Philippines Operation. BEGINNING OF TAPE THREE TSUNEISHI: One of the things I remember about that is that, we were told, we were warned, that we should not take anything that might, that if captured, would be of use to the enemy. I had kept a diary from Berkeley days on, and I had to leave diary in Honolulu with one of my buddies, who was from Honolulu. He's dead now. I never did retrieve that diary. And I keep thinking if I had that diary, I could remember much more what happened in those---all kinds of details are missing. For example, how did I get from Snelling to Heart Mountain on leave, on furlough, and back. I must've gone by train. It could have been by bus, but I have no memory of that. I don't even remember how I got back from Korea, [or how] I wound up to Los Angeles, where I was discharged. It's funny how memory works or doesn't work. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 11 of 30 �INTERVIEWER: Let’s go ahead and start talking about the first campaign that you participated in. TSUNEISHI: Right. MacArthur, at the beginning of the War, when MacArthur's troops are backed up on Corregidor in the Philippines, and the War Department ordered him out, cuz they didn't want him captured. He had to retreat to Australia. He vowed to the Philippine people that he would return. [Imitates MacArthur] “I shall return.” And he returned on October 20, 1944. And when we landed on the beaches of Leyte, L, E, Y, T, E, Island, that's in the southern Philippines, we expected---the 306th and the 307th are rear echelon troops. We're at Corps Headquarters. That's the way back in the---you begin with the squad and the company and the battalion and the regiment and the division and then a couple of divisions form the Corps. So, we're way back. But ordinarily we’re not in the frontlines. But on Leyte they wanted---by that time the Army, Navy landings in the battles of the Pacific learned of the value quick battlefield intelligence, gathered from prisoners of war or from documents, captured documents, so they landed us on D-Day. And there's a really famous photograph of General MacArthur wading through the surf as he returns to the Philippines. And most of the GIs I knew were quite resentful of the fact that MacArthur got all the glory. There were all kinds of people on the beach there before he was. The great hero of the GIs during World War II was Ike Eisenhower. MacArthur was seen as kind of selfadvertising, Hollywood-type. But anyway, quite apart from that, he did return and that's the operation I was involved in. Almost immediately, from the captured documents that we translated, we knew what the enemy---one of the reasons that we didn't meet much resistance on the beach was---that was a tactical plan to suck us in. And there was a big Naval battle going on and they let us come ashore, and the Japanese Navy would defeat ours, and then we'd be trapped there, and they could hunt us down, and dispose of us at will. But, that was one of the things that we captured, that was captured, on we translated and found out what their plans were, what divisions they had there, and what force they were, what kind of artillery and equipment they had, all this kind of stuff. And we got most of that from captured documents, but we also got that from the---they had---the Japanese military was quite careless about their security of their topsecret documents, top secret battlefield orders, we got strategic documents, top secret--classified, top secret. [Gokuhi] or [Gunji Kimitsu]. That’s G, O, K, U, H, I, “very secret.” Or, gunji, G, U, N, J, I. That means military. Kimitsu. K, I, M I, T, S, U. That means “top secret.” This kind of documents are not your ordinary confidential documents that we captured and we translated. Extremely important. Then there's all that run of the mill soldiers’ diaries and so forth. From that, you get what the military call “Order of battle information.” That means---it's not orders. It’s what kinds of units are there, in front of you. What---in what strength they are, what kind of equipment they have, that kind of thing. And that comes from reading the soldiers’ diaries where these units came from, and all this kind of things, and translating them and providing tiny bits of information to an order of battle team in Corps G-2. And they pieced this all together and then they can find out what enemy units are out there, who their officers are, and that kind of stuff. INTERVIEWER: How did you find these documents? TSUNEISHI: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 12 of 30 �Well, we didn't find them. It’s the GIs in the front lines who are trained to, by that time, to whenever they came across a scrap of paper or a book or any piece of paper, to not destroy, but to send them back to headquarters. Either Division or Corps Headquarters. And then we were organized to go through these. That would be a major source of battlefield information to the operations and to the commanding officer and so forth. [They also sent] me to the interrogations of the prisoners of war. And I did some of that, but my primary job was translating. INTERVIEWER: Did you do any interrogations during the Leyte Campaign? TSNUEISHI: Yeah, I remember one guy. [INAUDIBLE], among other things, GI in the frontlines are trained also to bring captured POWs back to the of the [rail lines] for interrogation. Again, you know the Japanese are very sloppy about instructing. Well, they couldn't. See, they were caught in a real bind. Japanese military document---doctrine you're not supposed to be captured, to begin with. It was the greatest disgrace. A samurai warrior to be captured? If you're captured, you disemboweled yourself. You put a grenade to yourself before you’re captured. It disgraces you, it disgraces your family, it disgraces your nation, it disgraces your emperor to be captured. As a consequence, they were never given any instruction as to how to act if they were captured. Under the Geneva Convention, we were instructed in the US Army. All you are required to do, is give your name, rank, and serial number. If they ask you, you can't be tortured, [or anything like that], to give out any information. We [asked], “[Who your] officers are? What your unit is? What your intent mission is? What your plans are?” Japanese were willing to do that, almost without exception. Add to that, the fact that the ones that I interrogated, had been very badly wounded. And that's how they were captured. The men and others were captured healthy. But, I didn’t interrogate them once. [The ones that are] brought back to [Corps] Headquarters are the ones that are interrogated. I remember one guy was so badly hurt, that you could see---you pitted the guy because he was in such excruciating pain. And the very first question I asked him, “Could I get you a morphine shot to [kill] his pain?” That was the drug of use, in those days. I called a medic over and gave him a shot. And he drifted off into morphine haze. But after he revived, I was able to get from information---not that much information that we didn't know already. But it was that kind of thing that we did. The GIs are pretty good about it. They been trained, disciplined to just do that kind of thing. INTERVIEWER: What kind of tactics, if at all, did you use to interrogate? TSUNEISHI: Well, just divide---everybody smoked. We were issued cigarettes as part of our rations. The very first thing you do is offer the guy a cigarette, and almost always, they take a cigarette. We didn't have to bully---I didn't have to bully them. I didn't have to trick them or anything of that sort. Some other interrogators, especially if the POW was wounded---was not wounded, but apparently had problems. I didn't have that much experience interrogating to begin with and the ones I interrogated had really had no problem doing that. Back in Savage, we were given, we did have these mock interrogation sessions. And I don't remember how much psychological warfare training we got at that time. How to soften up POW and all that kind of thing. But, I just don't This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 13 of 30 �remember that part of it. When as I say, my experience, my personal experience was that you didn’t need to do that kind of thing much teach. INTERVIEWER: Did you have any memorable or notable translations that you might have done for that campaign? TSUNEISHI: Well, I don't know whether you interviewed Phil Ishio here in Washington, have you? Or is he on your group to interview here? Phil Ishio was in the South Pacific, but he had an experience similar to mine. The Japanese still had a fairly considerable Air Force in the Fall of 1944. And they mounted 2 aerial---airborne attacks on us on Leyte. And Phil covered the one in the northern part of Leyte, and I covered the one that was in the middle of Leyte where we went ashore. And they mounted an attack, as I remember with 2 or 3 [Bettys]. [Bettys] are the code word for 2 [mounted] bomber. Force of about 60, thereabouts. Their mission was to land on the airfield that we were---there was an existing airfield that we are enlarging and reinforcing. Knock it out, then join with the Japanese Division there on the island. All of that information came from a document that we---I translated that night of the airborne raid. Stayed up all night doing it and provided that information to---so that we knew almost immediately, what their mission was, and what force they were, what their immediate mission was, and what their long-term mission was. So, then there was a similar thing, in the [Sweet Potato Islands] campaign there. Sweet potato Islands, Camotes, it’s spelled C, A, M, O, T, E, S. It’s a small island between. Leyte and [INAUDIBLE] in the Philippines. MacArthur's headquarters received a message from the inhabitants that they were being massacred by the Japanese force there. And so the [24 th Corps] was to mount a liberation attack, with a reinforced battalion, that means about 1,600 men---a guy named Lloyd Shinsato, from Hawaii, ended up as a judge in Denver, Colorado. Lloyd and I volunteered for this operation to go [INAUDIBLE] We were---battalion level was pretty far up. As I say, you begin with squad, and then company. Squad of 16 men, and company of 200 men. Battalion of 100 men or 1,600, in this case, so were pretty far up there and joined the front lines. We volunteered for this thing and, again, almost immediately after landing there, from captured documents we translated, we knew that this was a shipping engineer outfit. Naval. Japanese Imperial Navy shipping engineers outfit. They were in force of about 400 men. We figured this is going to be a pushover because what could a shipping engineer Navy do---know about ground warfare? Well, turned out that they’re pretty well trained. They're a pretty disciplined group. Lloyd went ahead with the company and found that massacres of Filipino civilians stacked up to [cord wood] in the village houses. And he remained with the company, the battalion headquarters level. But, they were---the Japanese are pretty good fighters and things kind of reached a stalemate, after a few days. The air force, Japanese Air Force was there strafing us. We built our headquarters’ tents out in the open. Stupid. Anyway, they were wiped out by a bonzai attack. Just a few were captured. And that's how we prevailed. But, normally, I was never under fire but that time I was under strafing fire. I was under friendly fire a couple times but that's different. Headquarters area and back in Leyte somebody thought he spotted [INAUDIBLE] somebody. There were stories about Japanese snipers that tied themselves to the tops of palm trees so that they could fire down on us. Somebody thought he spotted a sniper up there and pretty soon, everybody was more in danger from our own fire. These undisciplined, reaction types. Anyway, this was the end of the year or early ’45, the Leyte Operation was pretty much over. I got a visit This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 14 of 30 �from an International Red Cross Officer telling me I had better write home to my mother in Heart Mountain because she was worried sick about me. She knew I was out there someplace. My older brother Hughes is also involved in the Philippines Operation. He was a little bit later. So I’m supposed to be a filial son and all that. Confucian doctrine says [koko]. Be filial to your parents. I was not a very good writer, I'm afraid. So, but when the Red Cross got off to me, I did send off for a letter. Couple of years ago, I ran across a haiku that my mother had written and when you're translated it doesn't seem to mean much. It goes something like this [says haiku in Japanese]. Hito sen. That’s spelled H, I, T, O, next word, S, E, N. That means the battle of the Philippines. Kakuru hito are. K, A, K, U R, U. Next word, H, I, T, O. Next word, ARE. There are people betting. Toshi no sua. T, O, S, H, I. Next word, N, O. Next word, S, U, A. The end of the year. This was undated, untitled. But I’m sure that that haiku, refers to the fact that---in Heart Mountain, where there was a pro-Japan contingent, as there was in every camp, there were people betting on the outcome of the Battle of the Philippines. That was a near thing. The US Navy turned it against Japan because there's was a very famous naval battle there, where the Navy shot the Japanese Navy---U.S. Navy shot the Japanese Navy out of the water. If that hadn't happened, that would have been a real near thing. Anyway, that was towards the end of the war. What I think my mother was worried sick about what was that pro-Japan contingent was betting that the Japanese forces would you finally prevail. They’d been nothing---after the initial successes in early ’42. From late ’42 on had been nothing but defeats for the Japanese. But there are people betting there, the pro-Japan contingent, betting that, this time, the Japanese force would prevail, if they did, I would be gone. That's what---I think that’s what that haiku was about. It’s one of those things. She never mentioned it to me, later. She never said anything about it. As I said, she eventually had 4 of her sons in the Army. There's a photograph taken of her with another Issei mother. They're holding these little bannerettes with 4 stars. These mothers had sent 4 of their sons to the Army. That photograph has been reprinted in the book of photographs called Executive Order 9066. And this is one of the photographs in there. She's not identified there. There’s a WAR official photograph and is now in the National Archives. But, that's my mother. INTERVIEWER: How did that feel to you, knowing that you're serving your country, fighting against Japanese people, and having your family… TSUNEISHI: Well, [I’m indebted to them]. There’s no question about them. But---and you gotta get away from stereotypes. I said earlier, GIs on the front who captured these POWs. You would think that they would have been indoctrinated with propaganda and so they'd be thinking about the Japanese soldiers [stereotyped] with buck teeth. Evil. The ones, the Americans GIs that I work with, didn't see them that way. They saw beyond the stereotype. And as Japanese Americans, in a way, I could’ve seen them in terms of that stereotype. I saw them as human beings that are on one side and we’re on the other side. If I were, had been a prisoner of war, the Japanese, as some of the American soldiers captured on Corregidor, I would probably have undying hatred for these guys. But with the enemy Japanese---but I just I just didn't feel that way. I could see them as a normal human being. In the case where I was involved with them as an interrogator. I couldn't see them as a hated enemy or anything. It would be like hating myself. So I didn't see them that way. Time does things to people. In 1995, at the 50th anniversary of the end of the War, 3-day ceremony, I This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 15 of 30 �attended that in Honolulu. [Ronald Day] at Fort DeRussy, military R&R center, a big party, organized on our side by the [Spark Matsunaba Peace Research Institute] and other organizations in Hawaii: Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. And, on the Japanese side, something called the Unabara Kai. U, N, A, B, A, R, A. Next word is K, A, I. And that's the overseas society---over the waves society. Let's say it's a veterans’ organization of Japanese Imperial Navy people. Well these two groups, the Unabara Kai and the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association get together, and this 50 years after the event---55 years, and the hostility is gone. Maybe, there are some reserved hostility, but it was all buddy-buddy kind of thing. Time does soften memories, but at the time ’43, ’44, ’45. I don't personally remember having that kind of hostility towards the enemy, at the time. I don't even remember it being---I was doing my duty as a patriotic American. I was doing that, but I didn’t feel that way. BEGINNING OF TAPE FOUR TSUNEISHI: And, then all of a sudden, he turns up in Leyte. He’s working for FEAF. F, E, A, F [Far East Air Force]. As a Japanese language specialist. So he gets to know all these pilots and things. And he gets close to a guy who pilots one of these artillery observation planes. You know, Piper Cub type of thing. And I guess this guy had to teach him how to fly. This guy can barely see. And he takes lessons. And on his solo flight, he cracks up and he's killed. I thought “Oh what a waste of [INAUDIBLE].” If he hadn't volunteered, if he had stayed on and gone to school, what a contribution that guy could have made. One of the great tragedies. CREW: What was his name again? TSUNEISHI: Daniel Wolfgang Amadeus Ota. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His father--- Daniel, I don’t know where Daniel comes from, maybe the Bible. INTERVIEWER: I always meant to ask … TSUNEISHI: O, H, T, A. I think that’s how he spelled his name. No, no. O, T, A. INTERVIEWER: If we can move on then, to the next campaign that you participated in, which was Okinawa, and if you can tell us a little bit about what your role was during that campaign? TSUNEISHI: Okinawa was a bloody battle. It was the bloodiest single battle in the whole of the Pacific. Our outfit landed also on D-Day. First thing I noticed on that beach, was this woman lying dead on the beach. The casualties were enormous, especially on the Japanese Okinawan side. Our casualties, I learned this on later, the extent of our casualties, they just anticipate, our casualties were about 45,000. About 1/3 were killed in action. 15,000, I’d say. The Japanese casualties were This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 16 of 30 �unimaginable. They had a force of about 90,000. there They were literally decimated there. Only about 10,000 survived in the military. But the civilian casualties were even higher. Beginning with that woman, there were over 100,000 killed. Died. There are two cities, Naha and Shuri, twin cities, still. Naha, I believe, is the capital. But I remember driving down there in a Jeep after the island was secured and seeing how the War had destroyed---the two cities were completely leveled. Completely. Not a single building standing. The only structure standing was a bombed out high-rise school building. A steel skeleton remained. Everything else was rubble. There was naval gunfire, aerial bombing, all that. That’s right, we were under fire, enemy fire, and that's a second time I was under enemy---artillery shelling this time. Twice now. Anyway, one of the first things, again we kept captured top-secret documents about [their] strategy. Once again, they were going to let us land, relative safety. That's why we were---detaching troops there on the beach on the first day. But they would hold the line at the center of that island. [INAUDIBLE], escarpment, cliffs, and there would let us---suck us inland, and then the kamikazes would bomb the Navy, out of the water, and we be trapped. The same strategy used on Leyte, the basic principles are the same. Didn’t turn out that way, because there was a kamikaze that was shot out of the air. And---but the bombardments, and the land warfare that followed, was murderous, especially to the civilians. One of the documents we captured was to, translated, was a tactic to--what the troops do, there are caves all over Okinawa. And there were tombs carved out of the living rock. It’s a South China custom to carve a mound, a rounded mound, and make that a mausoleum. And hollow out the inside, that's where the family bones would be buried. They corpse would be buried there, after the flesh fell off, then they buried---they put the bones in a jar and buried them. These are throughout the island. And then there are caves that either dug out there, and it was a tactic to hide in those caves and use them as, what the call, [says words in Japanese]. That’s Jack-in---translation “Jack-In-The-Box positions.” Idea was that they would hide---the troops would hide in there. And after we passed them, our troops passed them, they’d jump and “surprise!” [makes machine gun sound]. Well, I don't know that they ever used this position for those caves and mausoleum for that purpose. But the civilians did to hide from the bombardment and the machine gun fire. The tactic to get people out was to use fire---sprays a fire [Crew member says flamethrower]. Flamethrower! That’s it, thank you. And that was used against the troops and I don't know if they were used against the civilians also, but, hiding in the caves. I don't know what accounts for, what really accounts for that high civilian casualties figure. That’s something that people don't talk about much. Something that you don't like---you don't think about. There was another important document that was captured. The Japanese tactic was to retreat to this escarpment, dig in. Dig in the artillery. And these protected positions, not only the caves but in other parts. We captured---troops captured---4 troops captured documents showing all of the artillery and placements, [field artillery] placements. Normally, this wouldn't be much help because the field artillery, artillery by its very nature, is mobile. They were dig in. There was another job that our whole team spent all night translating. Transposed onto an American---our own map showing our own coordinates and all that. Use counterbattery fire to neutralize the Japanese artillery. And, not 100%, but they're very effective. Then, towards the end of the battle---Oh yes, there's a very famous case, where we tried to use propaganda warfare. Dropping surrender leaflets behind the enemy lines. My Japanese---written Japanese wasn't good enough for me to write things in Japanese, but we had Kibei on our staff who were---they to do this kind of thing. Printed out these leaflets, dropped them behind, promising we weren't---telling them we weren’t ogres and we would promise them safety. Food, safety. [Comes a] Japanese officer with an Okinawan nurse holding one of these surrender leaflets. They didn't want to die This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 17 of 30 �for the emperor. They wanted to live, fall in love, and get married. And, so there's---so the Intelligence people got a [hold on them], found out their intentions. And the idea was “Well, let's make use of this.” So they rigged up a Torii. A Shinto gate. Got these guys, 2 people married. Got photographs of them. Printed them on these surrender leaflets, just to show---just to drop behind enemy lines. And just to show them that we wouldn't kill them all. Use that as a ploy. So there was---you see, so the stereotype of the Japanese troops fighting to the very bitter end, was--committing hara kiri before surrendering, wasn't entirely true. Now, I don't know about all--there was another guy who was captured, kamikaze, this is a middle-aged kamikaze. They must've been scraping the bottom of the barrel because he was a civilian pilot in his late 20s, early 30s. Are given this mission, you know, the kamikaze they are---it's a one-way mission. You fly out, [slowly], dive into any American Naval ship you can find. This guy, instead of diving his plane into a Naval ship, splashed down alongside the ship so that he can be fished out. And then the interrogation of him, as a captive POW, turned out that he wanted to live, he didn’t want to die for the emperor, service of the emperor. There was, after the island was secured, perhaps in July, sometime by mid-July, the commanding general of the Japanese Forces, General Ushijima, U, S, H, I, J, I, M, A. First name Mitsuru, M, I, T, S, U, R, U. And his chief of staff, Cho Isamu, C, H, O. First name Isamu, I, S, A, M, U. They committed ritual suicide. Disembowelment in a cave in the southern part of Okinawa. The island of Okinawa. We captured---the troops captured one of the witnesses to this. He was interrogated and gave a complete statement of as to what had happened on that ritual suicide. So, it's quite a moving thing when you think about it. Enemy, faced with complete disaster away, the only way to atone for his failure is to commit suicide. You asked how I felt about that. As I said, I'm [ambivalent], when I encounter something like that. He’s a man of honor, you can’t---got to respect them. You can't hate them or anything like that. Maybe you can hate them for what they did. The Philippines, massacring civilians, and mistreating prisoners, so forth. In their extremity to do what they did, you got to kind of respect them. INTERVIEWER: Did you see any bodies or civilians or … TSUNEISHI: Well, as I said, I was always pretty fortunate that way. Aside from that one woman, maybe the others I blotted from my memory, because I don't want to remember. After the island was secure, we helped, impart a civilian government---military government, civil government of Okinawa. Got to know---got to meet quite a few of the survivors, especially the young women. Always the young---well, got to know them, and one of the things that caught my attention was that---I had known this before, I guess intellectually---in Japan, there's Naichi, which means “home islands,” and then there's the rest of Japan, the Japanese Empire. And the Okinawans are not treated as the Naichi. The “inner islands,” N, A, I, C, H, I. That means the “inner lands.” They are not treated as part of the inner home country, as it were. They're kind of outsiders. They felt that way. They're felt discriminated against. And, as a Japanese American growing up in California, in principal, against all kinds of race discrimination or anything, I felt empathetic with, very sympathetic with their plight, only to find than had really been massacred. Well, then we wound up, after the War ended---the War ended in effect, officially, on September, 2nd with the signing of the peace treaty on the Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The War ended effectively after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We all knew that that was the end. But, again, you have another This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 18 of 30 �stereotype of the Japanese [kept fighting] until the bitter end. And that's why we couldn't accept the---we dropped the bomb because we didn’t really believe that---we really believed that they would fight to the bitter end. As a matter of fact, when we were---where we were, when Okinawa was secure, we were in training for landings on the Japanese mainland, homeland. Our target was Kyushu. We were not looking forward to the casualties that would result there, after what we'd gone through in Okinawa. But, the War did end. We wound up in--- our 24th Corps was sent for duty---for our occupation duties in Korea. We landed there shortly after September 2nd, official signing of the peace---surrender and the Japanese occupied Korea beginning in---took over Korea as a protectorate in 1910. Occupied Korea and try to turn Koreans into Japanese, but still didn’t treat them as Japanese citizens. And in many ways, it [might be] like Nisei in California. We’re Americans, but not quite treated as first class Americans. But the Japanese did this in spades. They forced the Koreans to adopt Japanese names. In Asia, and especially under Confucian---in the Confucian tradition your family name is most important. You cannot sully your family name. Cannot disgrace your family name or be disgracing your ancestors. The Japanese did that. Forced the Koreans to take Japanese names. They forced them to speak Japanese. Even little old ladies. I remember, we were put up in the [Bando] Hotel, in Japanese, it would be the [Hanto] Hotel. H, A, N, T, O. It means “the peninsula hotel.” Bando is the Korean pronunciation. B, A, N, D, O. We're headquarted there. Modern, hotel structure. I got to know this elevator girl, Korean girl. And I got talking to her. Talking about all kinds of things and she said, “You know, they even made Grandma. She was 68 years old. Made her take---learn Japanese and she couldn't remember.” The Japanese were claiming that they were discriminated against, their fighting for their honor of the colored peoples of the world against white imperialism. When they got into positions of political power, they themselves did the same things and well anyway. So, that's what I remember from our responsibilities and duties. What we did in Korea. The War ended so quickly that the US military had not really planning on any kind of occupation of Korea. They had to use interpreters. The only ones they had where us. There were some Korean civilians---the Japanese army for the most part did not---while they conscripted Koreans, did not use them as frontline troops or anything. They used them as--attached to the military. Civilians attached to the military and menial jobs as porters and work in front yards and that kind of thing. They were captured, along with the Japanese in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia. The Army got as many of them together, as possible, and attached them to us. That is the 306th and 307th to help us as interpreters and translators once we got to Korea. But once we got to Korea, we were able to hire other civilians, Koreans, who either knew Japanese or English, and so we did the translation, [interpreting] became a kind of a 3-way business. English into Japanese into Korean and back. Got to be quite awkward. INTERVIEWER: So what was your role, then? What were duties during the occupation of Korea? TSUNEISHI: Well, this was [INAUDIBLE] civil government, by that time, and our job was to interpret, translate, the military occupation policy into Korean or Japanese and work with the civilians. I must say, the Koreans themselves are, who we met, were quite ambivalent about their, initially, towards their attitudes towards us, the Japanese-Americans, the Nisei. But, I remember the very first night we got into that hotel, the Bando Hotel. We came by jeep, along dusty roads from the port of Incheon. I, N, C, H, O, N. It must've been about a 20, 30-kilometer drive. On the way, we This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 19 of 30 �saw the Japanese troops being marched to their detention. They were still fully armed, where they were returning their arms. By the time we reached the hotel, we were pretty dirty, unkempt, dusty looking group. And here, at the entrance to the Bando Hotel, is the manager coming out to greet us. He's dressed in cutaways with the silk hat. And around him is this bevy of these beautiful gisang girls. Or the geisha girls. I felt like the Goths who sacked Rome [INAUDIBLE]. But that guy was so relieved to be able to speak us in Japanese and not in kind of a pidgin English. They had a banquet for us and everything, and we attended as interpreters. They were very happy to see us and, at least, be able to communicate with us. I don’t know what they may have felt, deep down, but as soon as they realized that we were part of the U.S. troops, that we were born and brought up in the United States, they got to be quite friendly and to a point where they told us how they really felt being humiliated by the---under the Japanese occupation for so many years. INTERVIEWER: What did they say? TSUNEISHI: Well, some of the things I said earlier. That, on the one hand, the Japanese promised them all kinds of things. But when it came right down to it, they were treated as second class citizens. [They weren’t accorded] the quality they would---might have expected. But deep down, I think that they never wanted to be become Japanese to begin with, you know. That occupation of Korea lasted from 1910 to 1945, just 35 years. And it's now been over half a century. But, Koreans I met nowadays still remember that with, especially on the older Koreans I meet, still remember that with some bitterness. BEGINNING OF TAPE FIVE TSUNEISHI: My mother got after me again. After some time in the Fall of 1945---I told you that my sister had been caught in Japan. She was she was 1 of 2 foreign students accepted at the then Tokyo Women's Higher Normal School in Tokyo [says name of school in Japanese]. It was the top university for women teachers. The other one was a [lady from Korea]. And she was---I remember my parents sent her to Japan. They put her under the guardianship of my aunt, [who] was a school teacher in Tokyo. She lived with the aunt and went to school there. Then somewhere around the way, in 1941, my aunt took steps to remove her U.S. citizenship. You know, she was---in those days, you were---most Niseis were dual citizens under the Nationality Laws of Japan and the United States. [You] have Japanese blood according to the Japanese principle, you're automatically Japanese citizen. And the U.S. Nationality Law: if you were born in this country you’re---so, we’re all dual citizens, unless you took positive action to remove one or the other. And then, my parents did that [for most of us] I don't know why they didn't do that for Frances. Anyway, she was caught there. Then, when I was in Korea, I got a message through the International Red Cross from my mother again and saying---asking if I could visit my sister. Somehow, do that. I asked my superiors and they approved a trip and I flew from Seoul, Korea to Osaka. Then took a train up to Tokyo to visit my aunt, who had been my sister's guardian, stayed overnight there. Tokyo, Osaka were completely bombed out. Not completely, but not as level as Naha and Shuri in Okinawa, but; nevertheless, there are people sleeping in the Tokyo Station and This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 20 of 30 �carrying their belongings on their back and in rags and so forth. Burned out streets. Took a train up to the north of Honshu, to Akita, where my sister had been. Visit her there. She had this, [as far as I can determine], a fairly uneventful life there. She was working as an interpreter-translator for the U.S. Occupation Forces there. And then, when the ATIS, the Allied Translator Interpreters Section of GHQ, which had been organized in Australia; Brisbane, Australia; moved first to Manila and then to Tokyo, after the war. They needed interpreters and translators. A lot of us were getting out of service or still in the pipeline at Fort Snelling, were coming aboard. But my sister, Florence, who had been a teacher of Japanese at University of Minnesota, was asked if she would go to serve at ATIS, and she did. And with a friend, when she got there, my sister Frances turned up, having moved back to Tokyo with her--- to live with her aunt. And my sister Florence got Francis a job with ATIS. Well, Frances was a Japanese National and ATIS, was a US---well, it was supposed to be an Allied operation, but it was basically a U.S. operation. U.S. Army headquarters. General Headquarters. My sister Florence got classified documents to translate, but my sister Frances had the better Japanese. So, once in a while, Frances---or Florence, got the document to Frances, so that she could get some help in the translation of the document. Well, anyways, that's kind of an aside. Worked in [the end to the better working] of the occupation. That's---so, I did see some of the Occupation of Japan but not really [in turn,] and I didn't really get into Japan, until after the war when I was involved in a number of U.S.-Japan Projects. INTERVIEWER: Is there anything else, that you might like to talk about, either the Occupation that you participated in Korea and what your experience was? TSUNEISHI: No, as I said, the memory begins to fail you after a while. I did write a fairly extensive letter and it was published later, and that's about the only memory that I can---that’s the only document that I can rely on, as to what was going on in those days. I wrote all kinds of letters to a friend I had met at Camp Savage. A young lady from Minnesota, and all of those letters are gone, as far as I know. Any letters that I might’ve written to my family, I don't know where they are. 1 or 2 letters I wrote to friends, still survive. But mostly it’s here [points to his head]. I can only use my memory to remember what went on in those days. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember how you felt when you heard that---when you heard about the bombings in Hiroshima and at Nagasaki? TSUNEISHI: Well, it's a funny thing how your mind were---how selfish you are at certain times. I always up for [field] commission. See, at Camp savage, we had Caucasians being trained as Military Intelligence Service Specialists, OK. As soon as they got their 6 months training, they got their 2nd Lieutenant Commissions. All the Nisei, almost all the Niseis, went out as technician---as noncommissioned officers, T-3s. I eventually went up to Tech Sergeant. That's the 2nd from the top. Master Sergeant of the enlisted, [events, grades]. The leader of the team was the white officers. The noncommissioned officer was a Nisei, in our case, a man named George Takabayashi from Hawaii. George got his Commission, Field Commission in Okinawa, on Okinawa. And I was moved up as an NCO in charge of the team, and the [promise was] that I This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 21 of 30 �would get our 2nd Lieutenant some boys after Okinawa. So here it is, in August of ’45, and I'm expecting the---the Battle of Okinawa has virtually come to an end and I’m expecting to promoted to 2nd Lieutenant, and a bomb is dropped, and we know, almost immediately, that this is going to mean the end of the War and I think, “Oh hell, why couldn’t the War continue a little bit longer, so I could get my bonus.” It’s funny how selfish you are in times like that. But it was a relief. It was only later, when you begin to realize what a disaster this was. How many people were killed and all that. We were kind of accustomed, hardened to the numbers, as we knew that the fire bombing raids in Tokyo and Osaka had killed tens of thousands of people, and we'd come through Okinawa, where all those civilians died. So, the numbers Hiroshima killed are [under] 70,000, or whatever it was. The numbers were not that meaningful but to be killed in one blow, that many people, that gets to be pretty horrifying. The emotional impact of that doesn't really hit you until you, as my wife and I did, visited Hiroshima years later, in regard to that memorial there, the bombed-out Cathedral. And then you read the cenotaph that says, in Japanese, “Sleep peacefully. We shall never let this happen again.” Or something, words to that effect. And [it’s] the emotional impact gets to you, just as---I was a guest of the German Government, to visit her books and libraries in Germany over 10 years ago. A group of us representing various [rival] collections from the Newbury Library in Chicago and the American [INAUDIBLE] Library in Worcester, Massachusetts. Half a dozen of us were invited. We were there for a couple of weeks, starting in a with the Gutenberg Library---Museum and Library. [INAUDIBLE] ending up in Munich. The king of kings of Bavaria [kept up being] in Munich, collected Chinese books beginning in the 18th century. They have a very lovely, [rival] collection. So we wound up in Munich. In the outskirts of Munich is the memorial, the Dachau Memorial to the---Another guy and a guy from the Newberry Library and I asked to visit that Memorial. Well, they had to make--hadn’t made arrangements for that kind of thing. But we hired a cab and were out there. You go there---I just wanted to compare what a German concentration camp looked like compared to Heart Mountain or Tanforan. And, I found that it's physically, basically the same. You know, you need to concentrate a few thousand people. You build an enclosure square and [INAUDIBLE] rectangular enclosure, put barbed wire around this circumference, put up watchtowers and so forth. But the Army barracks, and the army barracks there looked like the barracks that were in Heart Mountain. You need an administration building, put up an administration building. They had---the Germans turned that into a memorial. They had removed just about everything, except a couple sample barracks, administration building turned into a museum, and the crematorium in the back. You go in there, and the emotional impact of the thing really hits you. The tears come out. You’re thinking about their crime. So, it takes a bit of time to realize what all these things were, whether it’s a Nazi concentration camp or the Bombing of Hiroshima. The emotional impact doesn't hit you really, and all the rationalization you can---we used to---I remember initially, we said, “Well, we saved a lot of lives because if it cost all those lives just for Okinawa, think what it would have cost to invade Kyushu and Honshu and Hokkaido and Shikoku.” I mean, the 4 major islands of Japan. “Shortened the War, saved not only American lives but Japanese lives.” We can rationalize and justify all you want, but still you think of all those people dying, and one bomb. You can’t imagine. You just can't. All you can do is react when you go visit the place and “Oh my God, what happened here.” When I was in post-war Japan---I don’t know if you've ever been to Japan---today, it's a glittering city on the hill, hilltop. [Rid of] poverty over there, the evidence of---everything is spick and span. Department stores, jewels. Then in ’45, the end of the War, it was a decimate burnt-out hulk of the city of Tokyo. People in poverty, in rags. The train that I took from Tokyo to Akita was completely loaded. People hanging out the This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 22 of 30 �window. No Shinkansen, bullet train, or anything like that. [INAUDIBLE]. Well, that's the difference. INTERVIEWER: What was the circumstances then for your being able to get discharged? TSUNEISHI: Well, I had---by that time I had enough points and you had to have so many points, I forget the number, but you could get discharged. I was, again, offered a commission if I stayed and I could have stayed as far as---but [I made my life] in the Army. But I think, I was [a Tolstoy] pacifist. In the first 2 years at UCLA, I was running around with a pacifist crowd and our hero was Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy, Gandhi, that group. People without the violence [INAUDIBLE] less than you need for any kind of social stability. So, I was, basically, I must have been anti-military, but I didn’t want to stay. I didn't want to make my life as a solider. I opted out. And the GI Bill was there for the taking. So I took it. Did I say earlier that I wanted to go to Columbia for journalism school? Yeah. So, I had been inducted in New York and my family by that time was back, Jaunuary ’46, back in Monrovia, so I was discharged at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, but the government gave me rail fare back to New York, because I’ve been inducted in New York, and coincidentally I wanted to go over there anyway, because I enroll at Columbia at the journalism school. When I got there, I found out that they were not taking mid-term students, but the Department of Chinese and Japanese was, so I enrolled there. I never did apply for the journalism school. I got a masters’ degree in Chinese and Japanese. I did take a job on Time magazine. I was at Columbia, they paid your tuition and $110 a month for living expenses if you were married, I was married by then. I took a job as a copy boy on Time magazine. I still had these dreams of being a journalist or a writer trying to write fiction. Got married. Child was on its way. So, my wife, being more realistic than me, said I really needed to get some kind of a degree that would enable me to get a job. So, I went to the library school at Columbia and got a second master's in that. Got my first job in 1950 at Yale University in the library as a Japanese cataloguer of Japanese and English books. And then, a few years---I was a curator, became the curator of the Far Eastern Languages Collection at Yale. At that time there are about 10 major Japanese collections: at Harvard, and Yale, and Princeton, and Chicago, and Michigan, and Berkeley, and Washington, Hawaii and the Library of Congress. And Yale was one of the places that was hiring Japanese language people. Specialists. So, I got my first job there. That's what got me started on a career as a librarian. I’m a [failed] retail writer. A [failed] journalist. Still connected with writing, books. A Bookish person, anyway. So, turned out to be a good career. INTERVIEWER: What did you---you said you got married? TSUNEISHI: Yeah. My wife is Betty Takei, which is from Honolulu. She was attending Pratt Institute, design--School of Design. Art and Design. She wanted to be a costume designer---dress designer. She was living at the International House, which is right near Columbia University, where I had my lodgings. We met---there was a Japanese American community in New York, even then. There was a Buddhist church. They had putting on an April Fool's dance. And, in 1946, we met at an April Fool’s dance. 52 years ago, we’re still married. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 23 of 30 �INTERVIEWER: Do you have any children? TSUNEISHI: We have 3 children. Older son David, who is a librarian working for the National Library of Education. A son, who is a carpenter in Harpers Ferry in West Virginia. And a daughter who lives with her husband in Warrington, Virginia. She’s a---she and her husband are antiquarian book people. My older son married a young lady from Taiwan. My second son, the carpenter, married a young lady from Pennsylvania, of Irish descent. My daughter married Rob Jordan of Irish descent. So, all of our children married outside the coop. That seems to be the fare of Sansei, Yonsei. Or a lot of them to a greater extent than Nisei. All of my brothers and sisters married other Nisei. But all of our---their children seem to be married---marrying outside the Japanese group. INTERVIEWER: And how many grandchildren do you have? TSUNEISHI: Oh, 5---4. 3 from my 2nd son. One from the older son. All very bright kids. INTERVIEWER: And what was the highest level of education that you received? TSUNEISHI: Well, I had this job at Yale, working at the library, but as an employee of Yale, I could also attend the graduate school there without paying tuition. I did get a fellowship for 1 year, so I could spend full time in classes. My wife convinced me that I should get a Ph.D, if I was going to stay in academia. It was like a union card. If you have it, you can go high, If you don’t, [you’ll] be stuck at a lower level. So, I did go to graduate school there, going back to political science. Got a Ph.D. and that took me about eight years to do that. But, I wrote my dissertation on changes in the emperor system, constitutionally and politically. I had always been interested in the Emperor of Japan, the emperor system, because in Japanese language school on the Emperor's birthday each year, in April, whenever it was, the Japanese language teacher---the school had this portrait of the Emperor and Empress covered by a sheet. On 10 [speaks Japanese], which is the Emperor's birthday, you uncovered that. They had the ceremony and the teacher would put on this white [blouse] and unroll this imperial rescript on education. Because [all] citizens to be educated. It’s more than that. It's a kind of prayer how to behave as a citizen of Japan. I always resented that, you see. I didn't think of myself as a Japanese citizen. But then, in the War, you read about these kamikaze, and the Bonzai attacks, and Japanese soldiers are going to commit suicide rather than surrender. As I said earlier, not all of them, did but a very high percentage did, and that got me interested in the psychology of the “How can you indoctrinate people to do that---behave like that?” And then, when it came down to writing a dissertation, I wanted to look into what it was, in the emperor system, that brought about this kind of behavior. And I studied it in terms of the constitutional and political changes that have occurred in that system, the emperor system, beginning with the Meiji Period, 1868 on to the drafting of the new constitution---Democratic Constitution of Japan under the Occupation of Japan. So that’s how This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 24 of 30 �we got into that whole subject. Never did get into the individual psychology and the individual behavior. Except, that I got to be very good friends with their former kamikaze pilot later in my career. BEGINNING OF TAPE SIX TSUNEISHI: Large collection of team---of photographs. I think he’s gonna give them to NJAHS: National Japanese American Historical Society. Cause he lives in that area and I think he might be connected with the MIS in Northern California. But I have a photograph of George with his new commissioned stripes on. INTERVIEWER: Have you talked to your children or your grandchildren about your experiences during war? TSUNEISHI: Not really. I’ve mention one thing or another, but not---I've done more talking today than I ever did. INTERVIEWER: I forgot to ask you earlier about any awards or citations that you received. TSUNEISHI: Well, everybody who served got their---gets the Pacific or Philippine Liberation, all those medals. I did get a Bronze Star. There are 2 types of Bronze Stars. For valor, you know, for exposing yourself to a [INAUDIBLE] machine gunfire. And the other is a kind of glorified good conduct medal, I believe. And I think it's the latter that I got for the Leyte and Okinawa Operations. I lost the certificates. I'm not sure what it says, but I think that the Bronze Star for Valor has a “V” on it. I lost my Bronze Star too. But I'm quite sure it wasn't for valor, it was for being a good citizen, essentially. As I said earlier, I should’ve gotten my Field Commission, which would have been a award of some type. INTERVIEWER: Are you involved in any Japanese American community organizations? TSUNEISHI: I'm not been much of a joiner, as far as community groups are concerned. I have been an officer of the Japanese American Veterans Association of Washington D.C. JAVA. J, A, V, A. That was organized fairly recently in 1991, as a matter of fact. And this first job was to convene a reunion of MIS veterans that was held in this hotel in 1993. I served as vice president of that organization and I remain as a member of the executive committee. The proceedings of the papers---talks presented at the reunion in ’93. Another fellow and I edited---entered a booklet called, American Patriots: MIS in the War against Japan. I’m a member of the JACL. Not an active member. I received the [PC] and read it, but don't participate very actively and I’ve never held office. I think I must be a little bit ambivalent about the JACL. In part, because of the stand they took This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 25 of 30 �during World War II, I guess. Urging us to cooperate. Don't make waves, volunteer for the Army. But maybe, it's because I've never been much of a joiner in any case. INTERVIEWER: Do you feel it's important to preserve these stories and have them recorded? And if you do, why? TSUNEISHI: Indeed, I do. All kinds of books have been published, but they're not very satisfactory. Joseph Hunnington---Harrington published a book called Yankee Samurai. But it’s loaded with names and 1 to 2 sentences about what these people, [these brothers]---there's no continuity in it. I don't know that much about books about their 100th/442nd but about, as far as the MIS veterans are concerned---Lyn Crost’s book Honor by Fire, does cover both the MIS and the 442nd. But aside from those 2 books, I don't think that there have been that much published about---there are individual [pamphlets], including a small volume, 150 pages on the vets who gave---who told their stories here at the reunion in ’93. But aside from these---our story, especially on the MIS side, is not that well-known, I don't think. And I think it's important for not only the Japanese Americans but the American people generally to know what was---what we did, what we accomplished during World War II. Lyn Crost told me---I asked her once, how she got to write this book, Honor by Fire. She lived here in Washington D.C. She said, well, she attended the redress hearings in the 1980s: congressional hearings on the redress of wrongs done under their evacuation. And she said, she heard one woman from California, Caucasian woman, got up and said, “Well, you guys might’ve---Japanese---Nisei may have done remarkable things in the European theater, but they never fought against their own kind in the Pacific.” This got her riled up, because she had been a combat reporter, war correspondent for covering the 442nd. Well, she also knew about those of us who had served in the Pacific. This got her riled up. She’s of Irish background and her grandmother [filled] her with stories about all the discrimination they, the Irish, suffered in this country and Ireland, the British Occupation. She’s always for the underdog just like [William Turner] was for the underdog. And this---she really got her riled up and she was bound and determined that she would write this story and inform the American people about what we had done in the Pacific, as well as in the European theater. But, I think you need to flesh out these books with these individual accounts. And that's why I think you people are doing such a good job---great job. That’s why, when I was asked to do this, I said, “Sure, I'd be happy to do this.” You asked if I talk to my children and grandchildren, I don't---they don't know much about it either. So I'm happy to have this record in the larger record that you people are putting together. They will be permanently housed and made available, as I understand it, to anybody else who wants to study these things. It's important that people know about it. So, thank you. INTERVIEWER: Thank you. Before we finish up, are there any other thoughts that you might like to add? TSUNEISHI: Well, it's---I said earlier, that I wished I had been a better student of the Japanese language, because my whole professional career, has been as a Japanese language specialist, really. First, as a curator of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language books at Yale. Then, when I came to the Library of Congress as a Chief of the [Oriental] Division, that means all of Asia and the Middle This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 26 of 30 �East. The Library of Congress has this enormous collection of books in these languages of Asian and the Middle East. Close to 2,000,000 volumes. The largest single collection of Asian language books is Japanese. There are about 800,000 volumes. And most of them came---are a very large percentage of them came because of the Occupation of Japan. Well, in the process, and my working as a professional librarian concerned with Asian language materials, I became involved in a number of binational US-Japan projects. US-China projects. The U.S. and other parts of Asia projects through the American Library Association, through Association of Research Libraries. And another fellow and I, a guy named Yukihisa Suzuki, who is now retired from the University of Hawaii, and the university--- Kyoto University of Foreign Studies in Japan, got involved in a number of US-Japan library projects. Suzuki was the kamikaze pilot I talked to you about. He was---he grew up in Yokohama, became friends in his youth with an American son of a missionary. Got interested in the United States. And he's a failed kamikaze. Why? Because he survived. He was one of the last groups to be trained by the Imperial Navy to go on this kamikaze attack on the ships and Okinawa, or off the ocean on Okinawa. On graduation night, of his kamikaze pilot training, they had a great big banquet for the graduating class. Lots of liquor, [Nippon] brandy, and he drank too much and on the march to his [building], he was so drunk that he fell, dropped out of the march, and fell asleep in the field, and wound up with pneumonia, was in sick bay when his class started. Unfortunately, they were all killed. And if had started, he probably would have been hit, trying to hit one of the ships that I was looking at. [When the] kamikazes came over, it was quite a show. [Demonstrates battle between kamikaze pilots and Americans with hand motions and sounds]. Going up and bombers coming over. So, you're watching this thing, and if he come in and that day---anyway he survived. And because of his English language, he got in with the Occupation troops in Tokyo. And they got him to the University of California-Berkeley. He had literary ambitions, despite being---and he wound up at the library school, became a librarian. And I met him when he was working at the University of Michigan, Asia Library. 1966 or ‘67 or thereabouts. There was something called, at that time, begun by President Kennedy and Prime Minister---what’s it called in Japan---called the USJapan Conference on Educational and Cultural Exchange in Higher Education. Cultural Conference for short. [Cul-Con] for abbreviation. In one of their periodic, biennial conferences, they recommended that the librarians in the 2 countries get together to hold sub-conferences. And Yuki Suzuki and I were members of the International Relations Committee of the American Library Association. We decided that we should try to do something [to follow up on] that recommendation, and we got the American Library Association, International Relations Office, to help us out on this. And we began to raise money for this and began to be serious about national conferences and eventually there were 5 altogether in the last---about 5 years ago. But, the ironic thing is, as I said earlier, here I am, the only American-born, refusing to take his Japanese studies seriously, winding up as a professional Japanologist. [That’s what it amounts to]. And then, I got involved in some---when Kissinger and Nixon opened up China in 1973, through the same ALA organization---not the Japanese connection, but the---through the Library of Congress and the ALA and the Association of Research Libraries, we organized an official delegation of American librarians to China. That didn't take place until 6 years later, but there it got me on board on that thing. Yuki and I also gotten involved in something called the International Association of Orientalist Librarians. [There’s] something called the International Congress of Orientalists, begun in Paris in 1873. And in their Centennial Congress in 1973, Yuki and I got involved---headed the library seminars connected with the International Congress. Got involved in setting up this organization called the International Congress of Orientalist This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 27 of 30 �Librarians. I served as the president of that for several years. So, my whole professional career has been based on my limited knowledge of Japanese. [That’s one of those supreme] ironies. I would have been a much better professional librarian, I think, if my Japanese had been better. INTERVIEWER: [You’ve] had an illustrious career, so I think you have much to be proud of, already. You mentioned earlier, and I'd like to expand on it real quick, you said that you had seen the kamikazes coming in. Can you describe what that looked like and what you were thinking when you saw that? TSUNEISHI: Well, if you’ve ever been to any fireworks shows, the bombs or the bombs---rockets really go up and down and explode and all the lights come out. Well anti-aircraft fire is not that way. They use tracer bullets, so that you can follow the trajectory of a tracer bullet as it goes up. As it continues on [the right], and when the kamikazes attack, the tracer bullets start going up, and especially if they come in the evening, they’d light up the sky with the tracer---out there in the Ocean you have a 100 or more naval ships being attacked by the kamikazes and the anti-aircraft fire is going up. And you wonder how anybody can survive that anti-aircraft fire, but on the other hand, you wonder how any of the gunners can hit any of the planes because these are very elusive targets coming in. Coming at a high speed, at [INAUDIBLE] angles, and some very steep, some more shallow. All this was going on, [INAUDIBLE] an aircraft will be hit, and then they start---this plume of smoke comes out and either crash into the sea, and sometimes they hit the ship. And I saw this in Okinawa. Not in Leyte, but in Okinawa, where the hills come right out the ocean and we set up camp, right on top of a hill. Kind of foolish thing to do, but it was on the [lee] of a hill so that the artillery from the other side couldn't hit us. But anyway, that's the best vantage point to watch, see kamikaze attacks. And we were standing there watching this thing, because, as I said, it's quite a show to watch. The guys standing right next to me got hit by shrapnel, and got his eye shot out. And you wonder how these guys, the kamikazes, can even---how they can steel themselves to point the planes at a ship, knowing that there were going to die. Overall, the major [casualty] of the 100th/442nd were 800 or something like that killed?! Thousands wounded. Of the MIS, in terms of numbers, I think we had as many men out there as the 100th/442nd did. But of the total killed, in the MIS, were 20-something? Something like that. The number wounded, was very small. The number under actual enemy fire, and that kind of thing, and individual battles--Iwo Jima was one. I know a friend who was under fire there. Right with the infantry troops and the Marines right on the front lines. My brother Hughes was in New Guinea. There's another guy named Grant Hirabayashi who lives here. I remember [INAUDIBLE] was with Merrill's Marauders. And Roy Matsumoto, he lives in Berkeley, with Merrill’s Marauders, those guys were under actual enemy fire at the front line, enemy fire. But, by and large, if you're with MIS, you’re a language specialist, you’re in the rear lines. You don't get exposed to that kind of enemy fire. INTERVIEWER: Were all of your brothers fine during the War? Did they … This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 28 of 30 �TSUNEISHI: Right. As I said, my brother got was actually at Division Headquarters level and usually the Division Headquarters don't get attacked either. But this time, this is New Guinea, the Japanese troops overran that. His sergeant, a guy named, Mizutari. Terry Mizutari was killed right by him. My brother used an expression that I don't like to use politely, as to how he felt, in the foxhole. So there were incidents in which this kind of thing happened. But by and large we were pretty much in it. There were theoretical dangers of our being mistaken for the Japanese by our own troops, or being captured by our own troops, but I don't know of anybody except Richard Sakakita who has captured. Richard Sakakita was a ROTC cadet---high school ROTC graduate in Honolulu in 1941. And the Army got a hold of him, spring of ’41, and asked him to go to the Philippines as an undercover agent and he agreed. He went to [INAUDIBLE] in the summer of ’41. When the Japanese overran Manila and Bataan and Corregidor, he was captured, tortured, but he survived. But he made a career in the Army Counterintelligence. But he was the only Nisei, that I know who was in that area of Military Intelligence, who was captured. Actually captured. Presumably, that would have been our fate had we been captured. I don't remember any body, I don't know of anybody who was in fact captured. INTERVIEWER: Were you ever scared for your own safety or your own life at times? TSUNEISHI: Well, yeah, but you tend to forget those. When you're under fire, it is kind of scary. But [INAUDIBLE], for example, we were strafed. You don’t expect it. You see this plane diving at you and you think, “Oh, well maybe that's one of ours.” And pretty soon, you see the incendiary-- tracer bullets and the tracer bullets are coming at you, instead of away from you. And pretty soon, you see, hear the bullets hitting the tent right next to where you're standing. It’s only then that you begin to feel afraid. And if you're fearful of problems that might come up, then I think you're in real trouble. The night that we spent Leyte, the Japanese mounted an airborne attack. One of the guys did get very fearful of what might happen. Here we are in Headquarters, Corps Headquarters, right in the rear end of the rear lines, and we get this news of the attack. Captured documents are brought to us. We have to translate. One of the guys in the---it's a big tent. It's closed down, no light showing outside---one of the Coleman lanterns going. One of the guys hears a noise outside. And he says, “Hit the ground! They’re around us!” I thought, “Geez, there’s no possibility that there's anybody around---any enemy around us.” But if you get in that frame of mind, yes, you can spook yourself. Fortunately there was---on Okinawa there were some of my colleagues, comrades were called to go into these caves to bring out the civilians and that takes a lot of courage. You go into a cave or a mausoleum, a mausoleum entrance is [demonstrates shape of a mausoleum’s entrance with fingers]. [Scene begins again.] In the Sweet Potato Islands, I was in Battalion Headquarters, [INAUDIBLE] Sato was up there in the front lines. I never had that kind of frontline experience. I read about this guy Ige in Okinawa who was on an infantry patrol and a booby trap got him. He was wounded in a booby trap, but I personally did not experience that kind of---I was under strafing attack by an airplane, under artillery attack. But, those things you don’t pay much mind to, unless you’re in the 442nd and they're raining shrapnel all around you. But that didn’t---rounds going off every once in a while. But if you have a battery of these fired at you, I guess you would feel very much afraid. Fortunately, I was never under that kind of attack. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 29 of 30 �INTERVIEWER: Well, was there anything else that you left … TSUNEISHI: I can't think of anything, Joy. INTERVIEWER: Well, we wanted to thank you, on behalf of the crew. We want to thank you for coming here today to talk to us. TSUNEISHI: Oh, thank you. Thank you for letting me talk to you non---virtually nonstop for how many hours? You guys have an awful lot of patience, I must say. INTERVIEWER: Our pleasure. So thank you very much. TSUNEISHI: OK. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 30 of 30 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Warren Tsuneishi oral history interview, June 27, 1999 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Warren Tsuneishi oral history interview transcript [full interview], June 28, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tsuneishi, Warren: narrator Iwata, Joy: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcriptions Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Extent The size or duration of the resource. 30 pages, typescript Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-06-28 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0069_T_Tsuneishi https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/d4eb4bf74b166a42876199b651b4db34.pdf da018c33c4876b209c1b471c5925577a PDF Text Text Go For Broke National Education Center Oral History Project Oral History Interview with Yeiichi Kuwayama, October 12, 2003, Arlington, Virginia 394-Kuwayama-Yeiichi-1 INTERVIEWER: [00:00] Today is October 12, 2003. We’re here in Arlington, Virginia, with Yeiichi “Kelly” Kuwayama. On camera is Richard Hawkins, on audio and catalogue is Nancy Hawkins, and interviewing is Steven Wasserman. First I want to begin by thanking you, Kelly, for coming out today and allowing us to interview you. KUWAYAMA: Well, I appreciate the opportunity. INTERVIEWER: I’m going to ask you first to state your legal name and your date of birth and where you were born. KUWAYAMA: My legal name is Yeiichi Kuwayama. The Kelly part is an appendage from the Army days, when I got the nickname Kelly, which everyone really knows me by. Yeiichi is officially my christened name, which was baptized and such and in the records. I was born in New York City on June 1, 1918. INTERVIEWER: And so could you actually tell me a little bit about your parents, like their names and where they were from originally? KUWAYAMA: Yes. My father was Senzo Kuwayama, and he came from a prefecture called Niigata, and he was born in the city of Nagaoka. They, I understand, came from a line of dye merchants, they sold dyes and stuff like that. Except that wasn’t that successful, and my father’s father went into the lumber business and he was wiped out with some kind of natural disaster. He had a number of sons, and the eldest son went to Hokkaido. At that time, Japan was trying [02:00] to develop Hokkaido, the northernmost island. My father was, I think, the third son down, and so when he got to be of age, he went to his older brother’s place in Hokkaido, worked with him for a while, and he was a produce merchant in Hokkaido and he had an exchange there of produce. And he said that there wasn’t that much future there for him, but if he wanted to, he would finance him to go to the United States. And so he took advantage of that and came to the States. And he landed in San Francisco, I believe, I don’t know, first. But anyway, from there he came to New York City, hearing about New York City. And there he went to the mission in New York City and looked for a job. And he had no skills at all, particularly, and so the only job available to him was as a cook. He didn’t know how to cook or anything, but he went over, took advantage of that, and interviewed with a man named Jay Walter Thompson. Jay Walter Thompson was just then going into the advertising business, and he became one of the first men to establish advertising in New York City. And he went to see Mrs. Thompson, and Mrs. Thompson said, “Yama, well, we’ll go through the menu,” and they went through the menu. And they said this is meat, potatoes, and things like that. And said, “As This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 1 of 45 �far as dessert goes, I’ll leave it up to you.” So he hadn’t eaten cream puffs in Japan, and on the way to the Thompsons’ place, he had seen in the bakery cream puffs, [04:00] so he mentioned that as the dessert. So he came back, and then he was preparing the thing for supper that night, and the Irish maid saw him in the kitchen there and said, “Yama, you don’t know how to cook.” And he said yes. And so she said, “I’ll do the cooking.” And so she cooked that first meal. When she came to the dessert, “I don’t know how to make creampuffs.” “That’s all right. I’ll go out and buy it.” So he went and bought it and they served it. And Mrs. Thompson said, “That was a great meal, Yama. You’re a great cook.” So he didn’t say anything. And he came back, thanked the maid who did the actual cooking. He had a Boston cookbook, and he used that in the future to make these meals. And apparently he was successful and Thompson thought he was a great cook. But he didn’t more than that. He did all kinds of things for them, such as paint their place, keeping the kitchen clean and all that. And he also brought in other people for the butler place, and that sort of thing. Then he went back to Japan. He had seen the cartoon of the 1907 panic in New York City, and he saw the cartoon in which stock certificates were floating down the river, and then behind them were the smokestacks. And he said those smokestacks are still there. And so he said, well, even though the market is way down, he would buy stock. And he did that, and he made a killing. So with that money, he went to Japan and he married my mother, [06:00] made arrangements to marry my mother. They were cousins. And so then he came back and found that he had promptly lost all his money. So he couldn’t bring my mother over, and so he was working around, he had started all kinds of enterprises, including a restaurant. And the restaurant could survive, but there wasn’t enough money to maintain a family. But my mother came over anyway. And she came I think in Vancouver or somewhere else, or in the States, and told her, “I’m here, come and get me.” So he went and got her, borrowed money, came back to New York, and then started the family in New York City. But my mother didn’t like him being in the restaurant business, so what he did was, he bought a business, which he had not started, which was in the food business of importing Japanese food and also importing Japanese art goods. And so he bought that business and started that, then my mother was happy. And so that was the line in which he followed and raised his whole family on. And that’s my father’s history in a nutshell. And so these---we were the children of that union. And my older sister unfortunately died about three years after she was born, but all the rest survived and we still survive today. And part--half the family, my younger brother and sister are in California and one sister is in Newtown, Pennsylvania, as I mentioned, in the assisted living facility. And she had run the restaurant, always, through there. What---[08:00] not really run, because the butler who was with---in the Thompson place took over the restaurant after my father said my mother didn’t want to be in the restaurant business. And since he was a bachelor, he could run the restaurant, and even though it wasn’t making much money, it was enough for him, he could eat and survive. And so that restaurant became very successful later, through his management. And later he died, and when he died, my sister took over and she ran it. And that’s the way that is. And he continued on with his import-export business until the war, and when the war happened, of course, the import stopped. People walking into the store stopped, so his art goods business completely disappeared, and the food business was gone because he was feeding all these people who had come from Japan to New York to man the import-export business, the banks, This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 2 of 45 �and all the other things that Japan had at that time, and they were no longer there. They went back through Ellis Island and through repatriation procedures. And so my father’s business more or less disappeared. And the restaurant business disappeared as well, but the restaurant business was still there in the sense that the lease was still there, but the personnel, they couldn’t find jobs, so they could stay without salary, and they’d just eat there and stay. But after the war that revived, and also during the war soldiers came in and they ate there. And then it boomed. Sukiyaki and tempura was [10:00] very successful, and it became a three-floor restaurant. And so that’s the way it was. That’s my father and mother. My mother’s name was Fumiko Kuwayama. She was a cousin, so the last name was still the same. INTERVIEWER: Wow, that was great. I was just curious, with the restaurant that your father later had, you mentioned that they had like sukiyaki and tempura, what other kind of things did they serve? KUWAYAMA: Of course they had sushi. Because sushi at nineteen hundred and---whenever the restaurant started, around 1910 or so, wasn’t a popular thing. Americans were not very sophisticated as far as their diet was concerned. They couldn’t conceive of eating raw fish, which was sushi, and so that sort of thing was not popular. But sukiyaki was, and sukiyaki is a beef dish. And tempura, which is shrimps fried---deep-fried shrimps, was very popular. And the way the Japanese prepared the tempura, it became very popular with Americans. It was light, crispy, and it wasn’t soggy or heavy, like most American deep-fried things are. And I don’t know the secret of that, I think it’s due to the fact that the batter is refrigerated, it’s cold, and they dip it in that batter and then put it immediately into the deep fry and take it right out, so it became very fluffy. It spattered all over the place, but it was good. And so they enjoyed it, and that was it. And it became a very popular dish. So the whole restaurant was really built on sukiyaki and tempura. INTERVIEWER: So would you say [12:00] that most of the clientele was Japanese or Caucasian? KUWAYAMA: No. The thing about my father was, I think, as was the most case in Hawaii, Japanese restaurants catered to the Japanese, so they would eat raw fish and all that. But my father’s place was in New York City, there was a very small Japanese population. And if there were Japanese, they were from the companies, and they were scattered all over to the suburbs around New York City, so it was a scattered population. They were all over in New Jersey, Westchester, out in Nassau County and Queens and various other places like that, Brooklyn as well. And so the population being scattered, why the people who would come to the restaurant were mostly all Caucasians, and he would cater to a completely Caucasian crowd. Although they did have banquets there in case the Japanese wanted to have group dining, and he would then serve sashimi, or raw fish, and that type of cuisine. But the cuisine was primarily directed toward Americans, and that was confined primarily to sukiyaki and tempura. The others things, such as broiled fish or other things, or donburis of various kinds, or stews of various kinds, or things of that nature weren’t, they weren’t adventurous enough to eat them. And there weren’t that many tourists going back and forth to Japan at that time, so you didn’t get a tourist population that would come back from Japan and want to be eating foods which [14:00] they had eat there. So it was confined to those two, sukiyaki and tempura. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 3 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: Great. While we’re still on the topic of food, I know your father had this restaurant. What I’m curious also about is, at home, what kind of food did you eat, and who prepared it? KUWAYAMA: Well, my mother prepared it, the food at home, and my father was a cook at the Thompsons’, which was all western food. Except I never saw my father much in the kitchen. I think he was--when he left the Thompsons, that was it, he wasn’t going to touch the kitchen. So my mother prepared all the food. And the food was primarily American in breakfast, and lunch, of course, we went to school so it’d just be just sandwiches and things like that. But supper, we did have rice, and that could be with anything, and a popular dish was Irish stew, tomatoes, Irish stew. And we had---which is on top of rice---and we had corned beef and cabbage, usually once a week, and on Sunday we had roast beef, and that was pretty much traditional. So it was a mixture of western food, with rice, and Japanese food with, of course, rice. And at home, we would eat all kinds of Japanese food, including such things as squid and, well, I don’t know, sashimi too, of course, or raw fish, and noodles. And of course, summer we would have the cold soba, or cold noodles, which was quite good in the summertime. So that’s---so we ate a halfand-half type thing. But the thing is, [16:00] what amazed me was that the people from Hawaii also ate rice for breakfast. And that surprised me, because when I got in the 442nd, in the Army, it’s the first time I ate rice for breakfast, because in Company E we had a guy named Captain Crowley, and he said, “Feed ’em rice,” And that’s what they did. So we had rice three times a day in training, at least, in the US Army. So I had rice in the US Army three times a day. So that sort of amazed me, that I had more rice in the United States Army than at home. INTERVIEWER: Great. So you were saying how your mother mixed doing both traditional Japanese cuisine and also making western food. Where did she learn to make all this western food? KUWAYAMA: Well, my father worked for Thompson, as I said, so he probably told her. Also, we were---I was born on 58th Street, New York, which is---which I found to be a very good place. But at that time, I don’t know if it was that good, but it was a lot of immigrants. Fifty-ninth Street was also a great many immigrants, a great many Italian immigrants at that time; 86th Street was German. In between were all the Hungarians, Austrians, and Czechoslovakians, and all that, was on the eastern side of New York City. And so---and there was also a very large Irish population as well, if you considered the British Isles as a separate part. So we---my mother would go [18:00] to an Italian grocer to get spaghetti or pasta, and so we had a lot of spaghetti. She would go to a--well, not---when we moved to Queens, she would go to a German delicatessen to get knockwurst or bratwurst and that sort of thing. And corned beef was something that was made in a restaurant. What we---sukiyaki took the best part of the beef, it was the central part, the fillet part of the beef, It was served thin, but the end parts, or around where corned beef was made, but anyway, there would be soaking barrels of the end parts of the meat with, I suppose sodium nitrate was the curative part, and sell the---she had a lot of cured meats, and so we ate a lot of corned beef and cabbage. INTERVIEWER: Wow. So would you consider that to be pretty normal, because in terms of, as a Japanese American, eating all these very diverse foods? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 4 of 45 �KUWAYAMA: My father was in the food grocery business. So even in the Japanese food, and these Japanese companies came from everywhere, Osaka, Tokyo, and the people in them came from various other islands, so I had more Japanese food than the Japanese themselves had, in the sense that I would be eating pickles, that’s called takuan, but there are all kinds of takuan, pickle. It’s smelly, but it’s good. And so [Inaudible] and other kinds of things, and I would eat that type of thing. And I would talk to other Japanese, [20:00] they don’t even know about them. So if they come from northern Japan, or they come from southern Japan, or they come from central Japan, their diets were slightly different and certain dishes were common there, and the way they taste different, too. But since my father had to cater to them all, he would sell all kinds of Japanese food to the various people who wanted their particular taste or goods. So he would sell that. As far as American food was concerned, as I said, all the people around us came from various places. And of course on the eastern southern part from 59th Street south, there was---well, in the certain Murray Hill area, it was Anglo-Saxon, but below that was the Russian Jews. And we would go down to the Russian Jew section. They had barrels of pickles, and the pickles were not cured pickles. It wasn’t the dill pickles which you would buy in the normal American grocery store, they were half-cured. I don’t know if they call them kosher pickles or not, but they were similar to Japanese pickles, they were salted pickles, and we’d buy that and get things from there. And then, of course, they sold pastrami and knishes and stuff like that. But further south from that was the Italian area, and all kinds of Italian cookie. And of course, the Italians liked to be together. As I understand it, even though some of the Italians became very wealthy, they would still live in the particular area where they were born in the east side of New York. And so they---and they were used to going into restaurants, I guess, they’d go to the Italian restaurants and so they would eat there. Then you go further south, [22:00] there was Chinatown. And of course, Chinatown had the noodles, fresh noodles made right on the spot there. My father would buy yakamein, which is the thick noodles, and things like that from them. New York is a place where everybody from everywhere came in, and they all kept their ethnicity. And that’s why I see America from perhaps a different eye from a lot of Americans. A lot of Americans, you go into the Army, it’s a beef and potatoes place. And when you come from New York and you eat all kinds of things, including lox, salt salmon, and things like that, it’s just common. It’s New York. And so it’s---I come from a place where I was accustomed to eating all kinds of ethnic things, and my classmates and my neighborhood people were from everywhere-, and so---and I was---in all the schools I went to up till---yeah, all the schools, I was probably the only one of Japanese ethnicity, and the rest came from everywhere else. So that’s my background. INTERVIEWER: Wow, that’s great. So you were mentioning how in your neighborhood, there was all ethnicities. Could you actually describe what your neighborhood was like, what it looked like and who the people--KUWAYAMA: Well, I was born on East 58th Street. As I said, my father had leased the whole house and rented various spots. But my father also had his [24:00] store on 59th Street, which was between Park Avenue and Lexington Avenue, and it wasn’t an area where there were too many children, so my playground was a matter of three blocks or so, or more. Behind it was the child Osborne, This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 5 of 45 �whose father was the superintendent of that apartment building. Up a block from me was a fellow named Grabert, whose mother was a Frenchwoman who was mostly in the seamstress. And then two blocks away was the Nicholsons, and they were Finnish, and the father was a violin repair person. And another block away was the watchmaker. His father was---took care of clocks, but also repaired watches. And so---and that name was Rick, who was German extraction. And then there was the O’Connors. His father was a doorman at the Plaza Hotel, and they became policemen. And they were all second generation. They weren’t born Americans, their fathers. Their fathers came from all those places. So their sons were second generation, but their---they were my playmates. And then, of course, on the corner was a Russian Jewish family. And the father was the---sold newspapers and magazines on the corner of 59th [26:00] Street. And they came from Russia, and their sons and daughters were there. And the amazing thing about that family was, one son became a dentist, another son ran the supermarket, and the daughter became a teacher. So they were a varied group there. So these were all second-generation people from, mostly from Europe, but there weren’t any Japanese. So my friends were all from various areas. That was my friends in New York City. So from 1 to 12 years old, my playmates were those people, and we played on the roofs of New York. So we went up brownstone buildings, five stories, and we’d go from one building to another on the tar and play on top of the buildings. And we would occasionally go to Central Park, where I could go ice skating at 59th Street lake, and then to---and in the wintertime, we would take the sleds and take the 72nd Street hill and go down the hill there, but generally that was it. There was a little bit of stickball in the streets, but there wasn’t too much of that. So actually, playing around was---well, Park Avenue was then being converted from the central island there, that was a place where you could walk around in, into a place where it was just greenswards made there. And so that’s where we played, in that central area in Park Avenue, [28:00] mud things and digging around there, stuff like that. That was our gang, I guess. END OF AUDIO FILE 1 BEGINNING OF TAPE TWO 394-Kuwayama-Yeiichi-2 INTERVIEWER: [00:00] You know, Kelly, we were just talking about names in the break, and I was just curious, do you actually know what the meaning is of your legal name? KUWAYAMA: Oh, my---Yeiichi means success, ichi means first son, number one, and Kuwayama is---kuwa is mulberry and yama is mountain. So the actual translation would be, Kuwayama would be mulberry mountain, and my first name would be success, first son. Now, I was named after a Baron Eiichi Shibusawa, who was famous in Japan for starting a great many enterprises of various kinds. And so he was coming---he came to United States around 1915 or ’16. I was born in 1918. And that’s how my father named me, really, after Eiichi, after him, Eiichi Shibusawa. That’s how my name started. And mulberry, I don’t know why that came---mulberry would be a silk farmer, something like that. But I don’t know the association there. But it’s Kuwayama. It’s not a common name in Japan, but there are quite a few Kuwayamas. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 6 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: Great. Now, you were mentioning how your---you were named that. Could you actually tell me your siblings’ names and also the birth order? KUWAYAMA: Yeah. My---the first daughter was Yuki Kuwayama, and she died, [02:00] as I told you. And my second eldest, who survives today and is living in Newtown, Pennsylvania, is Aya, A-Y-A. And I’m next, third. And fourth is my sister Tomi, T-O-M-I, Kuwayama, and she lives in California. And her name became Tedesco, and he passed away. And my brother’s name is George Kuwayama, and that’s an anglicized American name. And he was born in February, and so they named him after George Washington, so he became George. INTERVIEWER: Wow. KUWAYAMA: That’s the four children in our family. INTERVIEWER: That’s great. Now---so, with all four of you, I mean, that seems like a pretty big family. What was it like growing up in the household? KUWAYAMA: Well, as I said, my father’s wife didn’t want to be in the restaurant business, so---but my father had a store. And the first store was on 59th Street. We lived on the fifth floor of the brownstone, and we had the whole floor. And we all had---well, they were all two to each bedroom. But the--well, we lived our separate lives, more or less. The gals, I don’t know how they exactly spent their time. And my brother was so much younger, he came six or eight years younger, so I don’t know how he’d spend---but my time was spent in the neighborhood, and that was with these kids, other kids. And I would just go out [04:00] and see Osborne, see O’Connor, see Grabert, or just go up to their apartments and just yell. And we would all go out together, that’s about it. If they were free. Well, it was after school, they would just generally go together. We’d play for a couple hours and go back, and that was it. INTERVIEWER: Now, I know earlier you were talking about how you guys would play on the rooftops. Could you tell me a little bit more about what kind of things you played, and how did you get from rooftop to rooftop? KUWAYAMA: Well, all the brownstones were uniform height, five stories, and between them there was a brick wall, and the brick wall was maybe two feet higher, separating the slab of, I don’t know what kind of rock on top. And we would go to the top of my father’s apartment there, and for some reason they constructed some kind of little building on top in which they kept plants or something. We’d go in there and play there, and then we would go from one rooftop to another just by climbing two feet over to the other rooftop. But more than that, they had fire escapes in the back, so we would go up and down the fire escapes. And then we’d go to the other apartment and go up and down their fire escape. I don’t know how the neighbors felt about us This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 7 of 45 �traveling around their fire escapes, but generally we weren’t yelled at or we weren’t chased away or anything, we just---or they never discovered us, I don’t know, for whatever reason. And we would go up and down there and play there. And we would play the usual games, [06:00] marbles, cards, or other things of that type. We even concocted slingshots and things, with a rubber band with a yoke on top, and things like that. The big adventure was, of course, to go from one fire escape to the other in the back, traveling--we couldn’t go to Park Avenue because the buildings were higher, but next door was one story higher, and we’d get to the one story higher via the fire escapes. And some of the fire escapes were very close to each other, so we’d go from one fire escape to the other, and we finally got around to 58th Street. And there’s a library there, the 58th Street library, and they had a little house there where somebody, they kept it open or something, and we’d go in there, go down the stairs, and we’d go down the back, and unfortunately Mulvaney, whose father was the superintendent of the library, would be down there, we’d go down to the coal pits and play in the coal pits, go up and down the coal pits where they had coal and---for their winter furnace and things. And that was a lot of fun there. Of course, more than that, too, we could go down 5th Avenue---Park Avenue down to Grand Central Station. And being kids around 12 years old, we would go up and down the stairs in Grand Central Station. And in Grand Central Station, at the end, they had these glass walks, these big glass things, and we’d go up there and watch all the [08:00] people running around below where the clock was. And that was part of our playground, was New York City, was Grand Central Station, Park Avenue, 59th Street library, the apartments and the rooftops and the brownstones. And we’d go occasionally to Central Park. In fact, I think my name is in the Central Part precinct for climbing the Central Park trees. That was prohibited. So we would climb the trees there in Central Park, and they took our names. They never jailed us or anything, but anyway---and that was our punishment. We would be scared stiff because they took our names, that would get back to our fathers or something like that. But that was about it. INTERVIEWER: Wow. So while you’re doing all these---I mean, all of this sounds really exciting. What did your parents think about some of this? Did they even know that you guys were doing this kind of stuff? KUWAYAMA: I don’t know. My mother was kept pretty busy, four children, living children. Besides that, I don’t know---as I said, I don’t know what the daughters did, but I supposed they stayed at home, as far as I know. Maybe they went out, too. But there were also, as I said, the Russian Jewish family, their daughter was Dorothy, so they played with her and the whole girls group, Knutsen, other things like that. But my father had people working in the store, and so lunches my mother would prepare. So for the store help, there’d be at maximum at the store the three people in the front store for the art goods and about three people in the back for the food business, so about six people. So that means six [10:00] people were fed, besides my father, seven, and the children. So my mother was feeding about 11 or 12 people for lunch every day. So preparing that is quite a bit. So of course what she would do, too, is, because my father had the grocery store, take stuff from the grocery store and prepare it that way. But even so, it was a job to do. So she was kept pretty---so I was pretty much left on my own resources. And as I said, I don’t think she knew that we were on the fire escapes. I think they would be scared stiff seeing their son on the fire escapes, but that’s the way it was. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 8 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: Now, one of the things that I kind of noticed looking through here is that you didn’t really---did you actually go to any kind of Japanese school or have any of that formal--KUWAYAMA: Well, there was the mission, it was on---really, they don’t like to call it the mission, it’s the church there, and it was Dutch Presbyterian. And that’s where my mother went. And there was a Japanese pastor, the services were considered in Japanese. Now, every Saturday, they had more or less a language school, and the mothers were the teachers. They didn’t have any official teachers as such, and the minister’s wife, I think, was an educator, was a teacher officially by herself, so she ran it fairly well. But Saturday afternoon, we would go to church, and there would be the Japanese school in there. A lot of it was Japanese etiquette, Japanese songs, [12:00] and just generally playing together, and Japanese games and things like that. This would be completely coed, and so we would get to know other Japanese families that came in from everywhere. Now, these were not children of the company, I think. I don’t know where the company children went. My mother---not my mother, my wife was a company daughter. I mean, her father worked for the Mitsui Company, which was also Nakajima Aircraft. And so the--these were children of immigrants from all over, but they also lived all over New York and they came in to church. And I went to Sunday school in the Methodist church, which was only a block away. And so my mother went to the Dutch Presbyterian and I went to the Methodist church, and that’s the way it was. So Saturdays we went to Japanese school, Sundays we went to Sunday school. INTERVIEWER: Now, when you were in Japanese school, what kind of other---did they ever teach you any things like stories about Japanese history or any kind of values? KUWAYAMA: Yes, I suppose they did. I certainly heard about bushido from them, which is the code of the samurai and that sort of thing. But it was never a stressed thing, it was just mentioned as part of the history. Now, the Japanese school, they used the Naganuma text, which was used in Japanese grammar schools. And so we would start with the simple alphabet, which is the katakana and hiragana, and then some mixture of [14:00] kanji, which is Chinese characters. And there---a lot of the text of those were history of Japan, some science, you know, simple physics and simple chemistry and things---that’s part of their educational system in which they mixed everything together, and they taught it that way. They would read it to us and we would read part of it. And then, of course, the songs. Songs were Japanese songs. And Japanese songs, which were used in their kindergartens and their things, and lot of them were repetitive, similar to “Frere Jacques” and things like that, that type of songs, very simple songs. But they were Japanese songs. I don’t know if there was any kind of values taught and such, ethical values. No, I don’t think so. Except the moralistic tales of Aesop’s fables and things like that, you know, that had some kind of moral value to it, you don’t steal, you don’t murder, or you kept a family conscience and things like this, mother and father, you obeyed your father and your mother and all that. But there---it was not taught as such, it was all part of the storytelling, part of the text of their Naganuma text. I suppose it’s the type of thing [16:00] that was taught to all Japanese in their This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 9 of 45 �textbook things, and I think it was just the pure---and yet I went to Sunday school. I don’t know if I learned ethical values from that either, if you consider Sunday school as a place where you get ethical values, you know, and I don’t know, maybe you do. I just wanted to [Inaudible], kidded around, played around, and we sang the hymns, and something similar to that. And learned the story of Genesis and the---and St. Luke’s story of Christ and all that. So I don’t know if you get ethical values from that or not, maybe you do. That was there. INTERVIEWER: Great. How about at home? Did your parents ever stress any kind of values or give you any kind of advice about a good way to lead your life? KUWAYAMA: No. I rarely saw my father, he was busy in the store. And when my---and as I said, we took sandwiches to school. We had supper together at night, but even there, the grownups ate at a separate table and the kids ate at a separate table, so the---I rarely saw my father. And he would come back from work about 9:00, and I would going to bed around 9:00. And so I didn’t see my father. And then my father would meet with his salesmen, who went around to collect [18:00] for his grocery products, and they would meet around 9:00 when they were through with their rounds, and he would listen to all the complaints of all the customers and things like that. And that was practically a nightly thing. And then they would eat supper together. And that was--and my mother would serve them. My mother was kept pretty busy doing that. But the guy who managed my father’s front store, the art goods store, I stayed with him. I don’t know if there’s any ethical values as such, and there was no educational values either as such. I mean, they didn’t recommend any courses, didn’t recommend college or anything like that, it was just there. And I accepted that I was going to go to college, and that was it. I didn’t---they didn’t push it. It was something that people did, and that was that. INTERVIEWER: So would you say that more by without them saying things overtly, just like it seemed like in your Sunday school and Japanese school, they kind of imparted values to you in other ways, kind of nonverbally in the way they acted or the way they led their lives? Because you said you kind of expected that you would go to college, et cetera. I mean, were there any kind of things that they did that kind of gave you those indications? KUWAYAMA: I suppose you recognize property values, that you don’t take from someone else. [20:00] I don’t know if it was taught or not. I suppose we had the Ten Commandments. Of course, at that age, you don’t covet your friend’s wife or anything like that, that sort of thing was not even in the realm of our conscious. But I mean, things like don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t murder, that was there but, well, you knew it was there but you didn’t consciously follow it or anything like that, you just did those things. You didn’t kill anybody, you didn’t steal from people. And you heard the story of Washington and the cherry tree and all that. Whether it imparts honesty or not, I don’t know. Perhaps it does. And so you just follow that, and you were honest. And that was that. Of course, I also went to Princeton, as you know, and they had the honor system there, at my time, anyway. And there was no proctors in the exam hall, and they expect you not to copy from anybody else. And that was that. And if you were to copy from someone else or you saw somebody else, you were supposed to report it. And you signed a pledge at the end that you did not do this. So that sort of thing was there. So moral values were maybe instilled by example, This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 10 of 45 �maybe by anecdote of other people like George Washington, so you just followed it. Whether you’re taught that you were not supposed to lie by George Washington’s tale, I don’t know if that was a direct teaching, but that was the story, and you accepted it and you followed it, and that was it. And that’s the way you got it. I don’t think it was actually [22:00] taught as such. INTERVIEWER: Great. You know, while we’re talking about religion and such, I know it seems fairly not that common, at least---were your parents Christians when they were in Japan originally? KUWAYAMA: No. My father was primarily a Buddhist. And when he got here, my mother joined the Dutch Presbyterian because it was a Japanese thing and the minister was Japanese. And there was no Buddhist church---oh, there was, but she didn’t go to it. And the one in---just a couple of blocks away was the Dutch Presbyterian, so she became that. My father was a Buddhist and he stayed Buddhist. Although, due to my mother, he contributed to the Christian churches. But he didn’t become a Christian. My mother became a Christian. I became a Christian because I went to the Methodist church, and I still am because I go to a Methodist church here. But that’s about it. So we were completely ecumenical, if you want to call it that, or if you want to call it---freedom of religion was in our family. I mean, my father pursued his thing and my mother pursued her thing and the children pursued their thing. INTERVIEWER: So then, in the house, did you have some of the Buddhist-type religious things as well as some of the Christian? KUWAYAMA: No, no, we didn’t. We didn’t have a Shinto shrine in our place. But we celebrated New Year’s, and we had the mochi thing and the cake and things like that, and tangerines and food, things like that. So in a certain sense, [24:00] the exterior things of food and all the trimmings that go with it, we did on New Year’s Day. My mother prepared the fish, the carrots, and daikon, and the mochi, which is traditional, and all that sort of thing. And she would prepare practically a week’s cooking, and she would do that New Year’s. Whether that’s considered Shinto or considered Buddhist, I suppose it is, because it is that traditional thing in Japan. But I was a Christian, my mother was a Christian, but still she would prepare all those things. And then, of course, there’s the custom that the people, you know, friends come New Year’s. So it dies now, but I mean, they come New Year’s and they eat up all the stuff that my mother had prepared, and they come to drink wine with my father. They did that, and that was it. But---and they had all the traditional trimmings, you know. My sisters were meat and potatoes people. I ate---I liked the fish, and I liked Japanese cooking in general, so I ate all the Japanese things. But my sister liked roast beef and potatoes and that was it. [Laughs] So even though we had all the New Year trimmings, which was typically all Japanese, my sisters may not partake of that. They ate it, but they didn’t go for it as much as I did. That’s the way, each to his own. INTERVIEWER: So when you had that kind of dichotomy in the family and that kind [26:00] of openness, what kind of decorations were there around the house? Were there any Japanese? KUWAYAMA: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 11 of 45 �Well, we had the Christmas tree. I don’t know whether that’s heathen or Christian. I understand it started in Germany as a Christmas tree, and probably not due to Christmas or anything like that. And we would put the wreath out. So it was Christmas decorations. We used to celebrate Christmas Day with presents. We’d get up early in the morning and---yeah, at one time I believed in Santa Claus. Of course, that was sort of dispelled later on, but I mean, that was there. And then we had the New Year’s, all the New Year’s trimmings. So up to Christmas it was a Christian thing. New Year’s was a Japanese thing. And that’s the way it was. INTERVIEWER: How about in just daily life? Did you have any Japanese---you know, because I know that some homes of other people in that generation would have, like, a Japanese flag or a picture of the emperor--KUWAYAMA: Oh no, no. We didn’t do any of that. No, we didn’t have a picture of the emperor, nor did we have a Japanese flag. Nor did we have an American flag, for that matter. No, it was---there was no great nationalism on our part, and no great nationalism on my father’s part. My father, when my older sister died, established a cemetery in Queens, and we still have it, it’s a 16-block area. Also, from what I understand, if you have ashes, you can have any number of people there. But I think my father expected to live and die here. And of course he was prevented from becoming an American until this war, until the McCarran Act passed. He became a naturalized [28:00] citizen at that time, so did my mother. So even though he was denied the right to become an American citizen because of being an oriental, he expected to be---to live and die here, he expected to live that way. So I think, even though, he was very much an American in spirit. INTERVIEWER: Great. We’re actually going to stop here because we’re at the end of another tape. END OF AUDIO FILE 2 BEGINNING OF TAPE THREE 394-Kuwayama-Yeiichi-3 INTERVIEWER: [00:00] You know, Kelly, you mentioned something actually earlier, actually it was a little while back, but I actually was curious a little more, when you mentioned how your father would come over after---and obviously gone back to Japan, married your mother, and came back. But then he had lost money so he couldn’t really afford to have her come over, and she ended up coming over herself. How did she get the money and how did she actually do that, and was this like a surprise for him? KUWAYAMA: Yes, to a certain degree. But my mother’s family is also from Niigata, but they lived in Tokyo. And so---and my mother’s sister, there was just the two of them, and they lived in Tokyo. But apparently my mother’s family came from a land-owing family, and so they had rights to a certain amount of rice coming from those---possession of those lands. And so every year, they would get the rice crop and they would sell it and live on the proceeds in Tokyo. Now, the---it wasn’t fancy, it meant that they had to be quite frugal, but they could live in Tokyo on that basis. And so I suppose they had borrowing rights, and they had a sufficient amount of money to This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 12 of 45 �finance the trip over. And so that’s why she came over. And that was it. And so I also have that right, apparently I inherited her rights. But I have given the rights---or she has given to her other sister who lived in Tokyo. So I have no property rights in Japan at all now. But she did. [02:00] INTERVIEWER: Great. Going back a little bit to what we were talking about in terms of your family, before we actually move on to some of your schooling, I was just kind of curious, do you have any favorite memories of things that you did with your family or with either of your parents? KUWAYAMA: Yeah. Every---I think my father---looking back, I didn’t think of it at that time, but my mother, since she was feeding the store, she did quite a bit of cooking. So Sunday was her day off, and roast beef dinner was Sunday’s dinner. Sunday night we would all go to a Chinese restaurant, And so Sunday was a day in which she didn’t do any cooking except for breakfast, which was mostly cereal. So Sunday was her day off, so I think---I think that was great on my father’s part to allocate one day that she didn’t have to do anything. Also, during the summer, we went fishing, and this was at City Island. And we bought an outboard motor, and we would rent a rowboat, attach the outboard motor to the rowboat, and we would all go out fishing out on City Island. We’d go there by subway on Sunday morning or Saturday morning and fish, then come back, and do that. And so I think my father was quite aware of the family and took them out. Also upon occasion, we would [04:00] take---we weren’t wealthy, but take a day trip or something out, and he would take the whole family out. And so these things I took for granted when I was a kid. This is what we did, and that was it. But thinking back of it now and what we---on what I do now, I’m not concerned with the family that much as he apparently was. And I think that was great on his part. And the other thing was, besides---he wasn’t a talkative man, he never said very much either way, or he never did anything disciplinary with us particularly. I remember my report cards, if I wasn’t---got great report cards, I would have my mother sign it, and she’d sign it right away. And if I got very, very good grades, I would take it to my father, and he would sign it. And I overheard him saying to my mother, “You sign anything he brings to you, and I’ll be the disciplinarian on this thing.” So I think he was pretty good about that. And so when I think back over it now, although he didn’t talk, he didn’t say much, he never said very much to me or anybody else in the family, he was very conscious of it. He was a man with not that much education. I think he went to grammar school and maybe partly through high school. My mother went through, completed high school. But neither one of them went to college. So [06:00] they had limited education. But he was able to read and write, and in the Japanese system, you were taught English practically from the very beginning. And so he had a rudimentary education, I guess. INTERVIEWER: When you talked about these Sundays, and you’d go fishing with your family, and you’d take the subway, did you guys pack a picnic lunch? KUWAYAMA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: What was that? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 13 of 45 �KUWAYAMA: It was a picnic lunch. It was varied. We would have sandwiches, could be a bologna sandwich or anything else, but there would be a sandwich. And the ham sandwich. But also, once in a while, we would have onigiri, which is a rice ball and some, maybe a piece of fish or a piece of meat and---or something, vegetable in the center of the rice ball, things like that. Generally it was just sandwiches. It’s the simplest way to do it, just get a loaf of bread and some butter, mayonnaise, put a slab of bacon in there or something else you want. Maybe a carton of milk or soda, and that was it. It was always very simple, but it was adequate. And my mother, you know, she didn’t want to prepare too much, so that was it. That was for the whole family. INTERVIEWER: Now, I know you’ve talked at a lot of length in terms of your father and his business. Can you actually let me know also a little bit of maybe your favorite memory of your mother, or just a little bit about what she was like as a person, her personality, her physical attributes? KUWAYAMA: I think the main thing about my mother, she was also a very silent woman. We were not a very [08:00] talkative family, when you come right down to it. Maybe it was due to limited education, I don’t know. But my father expected us to go to college. He never said anything that we should go or anything, but he expected it. And the---what, repeat your question there. INTERVIEWER: Oh, I was just curious about what your mother was like in terms of her personality, her physical attributes, any favorite memories you have of her. KUWAYAMA: I don’t know if it’s a favorite memory or not, but she died of cancer at the age of 73. And I took her to the doctor---doctor never said she had cancer---and we went to the New York Cornell Medical Center, and they told me she had cancer. And she went to the hospital, went through there, and then had an operation, which they confirmed it. And then we took her back and then she died at home. But the main thing is that she never, during the whole period, complained of any pain. And she died very peacefully, of course, but even so, it’s what they call gaman in Japanese. It means to persevere. And she had that, I think, is the main thing which I admire in my mother. She did all these things, including preparing for all those lunches for the help and for the family. [10:00] And then later on, after the war, and when my father’s business was gone and he went into the Japanese cracker business, and he had---before the war, he intended to go into anyway, so he had all the equipment to make the mochi and to bake the crackers and things like that. So we had it in the basement of our house in Woodside, and it meant getting up about 5:30 in the morning, preparing the rice and steaming it and cooking it, and then cutting and all that. And she would maintain the house, feeding us, and then she would go down and help my father do all this. But what I admired is that she was able to do this without complaining, and that---I think the main thing about my mother was that she did all these things without complaint, without bitching about in any way. I never heard my mother and father fighting in any way. She accepted what she had to do, and she did quite a bit in the household. And that’s the main thing, I think, about my mother. She would go to the church, and she would say very much she accepted whatever duties were imposed by the church and things like that, sewing, preparing drinks, and things like this. And she was quite a sewer. She would---she made all the dresses for my [12:00] sisters, I know that. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 14 of 45 �And she even started making shirts for myself. I went to school with shirts made by my mother. And I think it’s a quite a bit. When I think of my own wife, who sends my shirts to be dry-cleaned and the laundry that way, and there’s no laundry work or ironing by her, she does it all through the cleaners. But she did all that. I don’t know, I think that’s amazing when you come right down to it. And my father was also very quiet man, too. As I said in the report card business, he never said anything. He would frown, but he accepted my mother sign the report cards. And he would do his duty. I remember when I went to the draft before---one year before Pearl Harbor, we went to the draft board, and that morning they had the high school band out there that looked like a forlorn lot, and a batch of us went on the bus and went to the induction center. And I said goodbye to my father, and he just shook my hand and that was it. Never said anything. And that was it there. And my mother didn’t go. Also, upon graduation from college, my father went, my mother didn’t go. And then my mother came to my graduation and grad school things. And that was it. And there was never---there was never very much emotion [14:00] in my family. And I used to be a little bit put out by it. But I remember in Shelby, in the 442nd, all these Hawaiian soldiers would be getting things from their mother and father, food, things like this. And my mother and father never sent anything. And I asked my mother about that, and she said, “Well, you can always buy it.” So never sent anything. Well, you can go down to Shelby and buy a cake or buy anything that you wanted. And so---but, you know, you see all these guys getting packages and all that, and you want to share things, and that’s the thing, I never had anything to share. But that way my family. That was not an emotional family at all. I don’t know why. I think maybe--we come from northern Japan, which is an austere place, I think, and maybe that was it. They’re less emotional. I think maybe that was---and so when I came back from the war carrying my duffle bag home, my mother came out of the house to greet me back, and then I went to sleep, and she fed me food after I came back. But obviously she was glad to see me. But it wasn’t that kind of emotional greetings. And so I think in that sense, I respect both of them, but it’s not an emotional thing. INTERVIEWER: Now, [16:00] I know you’ve been talking a little bit about education. Where did you go for grammar school? KUWAYAMA: A went to PS 59, which is on 57th Street, and we were on 59th Street. It was coeducational. It was an all-girls school, up to the fourth grade was coeducational. After the first four grades, I went to PS 74, which was on 63rd Street in New York City, and that was an all-boys school. And so I went to school---grammar school there. And then we moved to Queens. I went to Junior High School 125, which is coeducational, and then I went to Newtown High School. And Newtown High School was quite an experience, because they had 15 periods a day, or something like that. Started at 7:30 in the morning and went on to practically 5:00 at night. And it was so crowed that they---half the seats were double seats. I mean, people sit right next to each other at one desk. So they---it was very crowded. And they had a number of courses, music courses, aeronautical courses. They have, of course, mechanical kinds as well as general studies and commercial studies and things like this. But this is Newtown High, and they had Pulitzer Prize winners, went to Columbia University and that places. But the student body was something like 9,000. My college was 1,300, a lot smaller than my high school. And so I don’t This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 15 of 45 �know, it’s a---it’s a high school without any teams. They had various clubs, of course, and things like that, but no athletic teams, not much of a social life. But they produced [18:00] people that went to Annapolis, the Navy academy, in my class, West Point, and many of them went to Columbia University and things, though. It produced a great many scholastic people. Also it produced a great many of the mechanics that went to La Guardia Airport and Kennedy Airport. So we had our alumni who were, in general, pretty good----pretty good shape. But as I said, New York is a place of immigrants, and these people came from all over. I remember a bologna sandwich cost five cents. I can’t conceive of anything costing five cents. It was a roll and a piece of bologna between it, and they sold it for five cents at school. So it’s---it was that type of operation. It was crowded, but very focused. There wasn’t much social life, and I sort of think that’s regrettable, but---and I don’t remember hardly any of my classmates. You go to class and if you---you might go to a totally different class, totally different group of people. If you skipped a period, you would go to study hall and study in the study hall if you wanted to. And if you didn’t have a class, you’d just go---went home. It was that type of operation. INTERVIEWER: You mentioned, of course, that there weren’t any sports, but you mentioned there were clubs. [20:00] What clubs were you actually a member of or active in? KUWAYAMA: Oh, there was a French club, there was the geography club, things like that. And that’s about it. I went to---there were clubs there if you wanted to join, but you didn’t have to join, either. And so there wasn’t any, much outside activity at the school. Now, as I said, there was the church activities. And church activity, the woodcraft league, which was---I don’t know, you don’t hear about woodcraft, but we’d go out Saturdays, do hiking, and we’d make all kinds of leather goods, do artistic goods, and do things out of linoleum and things like that. And that was all church operated. And we would do---that’s the social activity every---do either the Saturday languages classes, or do the church woodcraft league and the Sunday school. And Sunday school meant practically all day. You’re at school in the morning, then they have various social groups in the afternoon. So that was it there. INTERVIEWER: So in terms of your---I believe this was all public schools? KUWAYAMA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: In terms of your public school education, you mentioned that you didn’t really, at least in terms of high school, have any memorable other students, but did you have any other memorable students throughout all the years of your public education, or any teachers who you felt were really memorable or very influential? KUWAYAMA: Well, junior high school, I think it was a Miss Duke, who was---I think was enamored of me [22:00] because---I think she was struck by the fact that I was oriental, Asian, and I was the only Asian in the class, and I would write English and speak English. And she came from the South, and so she---I was known as the teacher’s pet. And so I suppose I---during that time, I had stuck This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 16 of 45 �a bicycle pedal through my calf here, and so I was out for a couple of weeks. And she came to my house to visit my mother and myself, and report back to class that I was in good shape. But the---but she was there. Other than that, I don’t know of any---everything was done, in high school particularly, 40 or more kids in a class, it was done on strictly a teacher, 40 students, go through the curriculum. And I remember many classes that would have a test every week, and that was it. So they knew just about what your attainments were, and they gauged their teaching schedule on that basis. And I think the whole system was run on the basis of what the teachers were able to produce in the sense of academic accomplishment, thinking of it later. I don’t think there was any---much social connection, as such. And I don’t think there was too much of the teacher-student relationship that you might find in a suburban place, or a parent-teacher. There was very little parent, because most of these parents were foreign-speaking parents, they spoke [24:00] a different language. Except for Miss Duke, as I said, she came over to my house. INTERVIEWER: So how did that go? Because what was the primary language that was spoken in your home? KUWAYAMA: Among the kids, it was English. Between my mother and father and myself, it was Japanese. So it was both languages. But Japanese, I’m not very proficient, I mean, because I don’t know how to read and write it, but I can speak it. But it’s mostly---as you know, Japanese is a hierarchical language, so therefore, what you address your superiors and your inferiors is a different type of Japanese. So therefore, I don’t---it embarrasses me to speak Japanese, because I don’t know what my relationship with the other person is. And the Japanese, they immediately sense it, or realize what it is, and they’re able to adapt, but I’m not able to do that. I’m afraid that I would be insulting people or denigrating myself, either way, but---so it’s much easier in English, which is a democratic language. And “you” is “you,” and you don’t find, like German, five “you”s, or in French two “you”s and things like that, vous and tous. And so in Japanese, it depends on the ending of the verb. And of course Japanese is---the subject comes first, then predicate, then verb, so you never really know what the sentence is until you get to the verb. So it’s a different type of language structure. In that sense, Chinese is a much easier language, because Chinese follows the English---subject, verb, predicate. Whereas [26:00] the Japanese is subject, predicate, and verb. So I think, mentally I get a little confused in that, and so therefore I don’t adapt that well. But that’s the way it is. But it was---and Japanese was the lingua franca, I guess it is, among my parents and their friends and myself, and among the children it was English. Of course among my playmates, of course, English. INTERVIEWER: Great. Now, you mentioned actually that in school, at least in terms of that one class, you were the only Asian, probably the only Japanese. Was that pretty common for the whole time you were in public school? KUWAYAMA: Oh, absolutely. That was all the way through. INTERVIEWER: So what was that like, being the only Asian? I mean, did you ever feel different, or did anybody ever make you in any way more conscious of being the only Japanese? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 17 of 45 �KUWAYAMA: No, I think it was due to the fact that everybody else was different. I mean, Giordano’s Italian, O’Connor’s Irish, Robert is French. Everybody else was kind of from a different background, so they accepted me as such. The only thing different was that Thanksgiving, we all ate turkey, but beyond that, we ate differently and things like this. So it’s---we accepted it as such. I mean, I think about it later on, I go to a bar mitzvah, I go to an Italian wedding, totally different things. I go to an Anglo-Saxon [28:00] wedding, particularly at a time when Anglo-Saxon weddings were as such that the kids were thinking of putting it in the stable or barn and then have a big banquet, things like that. But they’re certainly not the big family occasions, such as an Italian wedding or something, where the families are large and where the relatives are many. Or something like a bar mitzvah, where the parents talk about marrying their 12-year-old kids off and things like this. Culturally, all of them were different. And I---when I used to---when you hear that American culture or such, when I find myself thinking of all these friends of mine who come from different backgrounds, and they’re all different, I mean, what they eat and what their friends are and what their relative do. And the way they negotiate the economic front is different. It’s--and the---particularly in New York, it’s changing now and becoming more uniform, but in my time, they were different. INTERVIEWER: Great. We’re actually going to stop, because we’re--END OF AUDIO FILE 3 BEGINNING OF TAPE FOUR 394-Kuwayama-Yeiichi-4 KUWAYAMA: [00:00]---Queens when I was 12 years old, we bought a house there. And it’s a continuation of New York, except that people lived in their individual houses. But still, next to me was Irish, Shannon, Reedy. Shannon was a plumber. Next to him was Reedy, mostly city government people. Across the way from them was German, Meyer. And across the way from them, I think, was Czech. And down the road from us was Cassinelli, whose father was superintendent of the sanitation department. And then next to them were---was a milkman. Next to them was the, I think was also German. And so it’s a continuation of New York, except these were secondgeneration families, so their children were third generation, so they were more established than the ones in New York. And my play was different. We played in empty lots. We played football, there was baseball. There was more of the team sports. Also in the center of the lot, Cassinelli was a guy, I don’t know why, but he made houses, so we would go to the junkyard, pick up all these extra lumber, bring it back with us in wagons, which we made, and build a house. And we put a belly stove in there, and the kids, particularly [02:00] the Petersons, I guess they ran a trucking business, seven brothers, actually, and they were good at the slingshot and they used to kill birds. And so they killed the birds, cook them on the belly stove, and then we used to eat birds. I didn’t particularly enjoy them, there wasn’t that much meat on any of them, but they were doing that. And so that was our playing field. So it was the organized sports as well as a little bit of hunting and just talking together around the belly stove in the house which we built together under Cassinelli’s supervision. And so that was my playing field then, and my playmates at that time. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 18 of 45 �And I went to Newtown Junior High School, which was by bus. And then Newtown, which I used to walk more than half a mile to Newtown High School, which was in Elmhurst. And that, as I said, was a crowded high school. And there I got to know people like Preston, who became a doctor. Giordano became an opera singer. And people of that type, Meyers went to Annapolis. And none of them which I’ve kept up with, particularly. But they were people who did things, actually. And what---and due to the fact that there were 9,000, they were certainly big classes. There were guys who were, or women, who were [04:00] pretty good scholars, so they were put in a group, maybe a group of 40 or 30. So you’d get a pretty good group there going, and they all went on to college. As I said, we had a lot of Pulitzer Prize winners. And so that was the high school group. And even though I didn’t keep up with them, I read about them and their accomplishments. And then from there I applied to Princeton. I was going to go to City College, which is free in New York City, but I asked my father if I could apply to an outside college. I was thinking of Dartmouth, actually, because I wanted to do skiing. And my mother said, “Why don’t you go to a college that’s closer?” So I applied to Princeton and got in. So I went to Princeton. That’s how I got to college. INTERVIEWER: So what was it like going to Princeton? You know, going out there, leaving Queens and---how was the whole college experience for you? KUWAYAMA: College experience was a totally different experience. The kids there were---very few of them were immigrant families. These families were all families who came from a long line of American families. There were Biddles and Drexels, people like that, Rockefeller, Wilkie, I met in class and that type, [06:00] way above what I would even think of. But they were all human beings just like you and I are. But their fathers came from backgrounds, and many of the families came from backgrounds of 200 years or more, so it was much Anglo-Saxon. Also, more than half the class came from prep schools, and I came from a high school, a public school. But fortunately in New York City, or New York, they had such things as Regents exam, so scholastically we were right up there. Even though---what I found, though, that prep schools, they live and work, study together, so they’re more all-around. They’re in athletics, the students, on Saturdays and Sundays. And they’re also trained to study Saturdays and Sundays. So I went to Princeton and we have Saturday classes, for example. And and studying is a much more lengthy period. So I found that the prep school guys were, to a certain degree, better prepared. So the freshman year, it was a little bit tough coming from a high school. But I found that the high school men scholastically caught up very fast, and by the second year we were on a par. But socially, we were not, and that’s where I find that Princeton is tough socially on you, but it’s good, because [08:00] you know that there are other people in this world than the people you knew, say, in New York. They’re certainly a bit different from people who came off the boat 50 years ago or 20 years ago or something like that. These are all men who came from families who are 200 years back and who have established roots, and because of their established roots, they can pursue things in a different manner. They can go into theater. Josh went into the theater. Other people like that would go onto Broadway, do producer. I don’t think in my high school days I would conceive of people becoming producers of plays or being an actor or actress. They would think in terms of becoming a lawyer or a doctor as the acme of their professional career. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 19 of 45 �I think also the Wilkie son was a Commonwealth Southern Edison Company’s president’s son. And a great many of these people were sons of bank presidents and things of that nature, so they’re a different social group. And that---you’re not---they don’t tell you that they are, but in the write-up in the Freshman Herald, you know where they come from and what their fathers did and the---well, [10:00] I think it’s good for you to know that these people exist and what kind of people they are, and that they are human flesh and that they are not that much different, and they’re doing the same studies as you are and that---but they come from a different background. INTERVIEWER: So what was it like for you being---now, I don’t know if it’s an incorrect assumption, but I assume that you were the only Japanese American--KUWAYAMA: There was another Japanese American in my class, his name was Su Takami. His father was a doctor in Brooklyn, very successful doctor. And his father went to Lehigh College and became a doctor. He was adopted by a family called Campbells, which is of Scotch, I guess, descent. And he was the only doctor in Brooklyn, Japanese American. Of course his patients were all Caucasians. And a very successful one. He had an estate in Cold Spring Harbor and a brownstone in Brooklyn, seven children. And he went to a prep school, Poly Prep, and he came to Princeton, and he was in the social class where most of the other people---although he came from an immigrant son’s family. I came from an immigrant son’s family, but we didn’t have the money or the social standing. But I found Princeton to be very accepting of your particular grouping. And the---I think it’s good to be able to meet with other people and other groupings [12:00] of people, and to get to know a social life than what you’re particularly accustomed to. And so I think it’s good all around in that sense, and Princeton offers you that opportunity. It’s a residential college. You don’t find the [Inaudible] so you’re able to mix fairly well and to get to know people fairly well. INTERVIEWER: So I know you were talking about, at least, you were kind of from a different financial background due to your family. How did your family and you manage to actually afford to send you to Princeton? KUWAYAMA: Well, my father, as I said, was always interested in the stock market, and he had always been investing. And I suppose he was able to do that. My sister went to Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, she had won a scholarship there. My brother went to Williams College, and he waited on tables there. I didn’t receive any scholarship or anything, although I did do some work for spending money at Princeton. But my father was able to do it. I think ’33 was the Depression years. From ’33 on, the market revived, and it revived until ’37. I went to college in ’36. I suppose his market thing, he was able to afford my going. And another thing, too, my father’s business was selling to all these Japanese company personnel. And as you say in Torrance, there were a great many more than the Japanese American immigrants. [14:00] New York was the same way. And so Japanese American trading---not Japanese American, but Japanese trading companies were bringing all kinds of things, and they were buying all kinds of things. You must remember, Japan was becoming rather prosperous after the Depression. They had revalued the yen, they were doing very well. I think, from my perspective, Japan was able to capitalize on the Asiatic market. They would produce things for the Asian market as well as for This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 20 of 45 �the United States market, and I don’t think the west realized what they were doing. So they were quite industrial, they were quite up there. That’s why they were able to wage a war like they did. And so those people were buying from my father their rice, their soy sauce, their takuan, and all the other things that they may need to live on. So my father’s business did not suffer that much during the Depression years, so he was able to---and besides the stock market, which he had always been interested in and played. INTERVIEWER: Now, what year did you graduate from Princeton? KUWAYAMA: Forty. So you realize how old I am. INTERVIEWER: And what did you actually---what was your major, in terms of studies? KUWAYAMA: I was never quite sure what I wanted to be. One thing, it’s colored by the fact that I didn’t know what I could get into, too. But I supposed my father was a businessman, he had made his ups and downs, although he has in his small business [16:00] various kinds, but he had played the stock market. So the stock market was of interest to me too, as well. And I suppose I wanted to be in business too, so therefore, I more or less aimed in that direction. So economics was a major backup. But at Princeton, they had a place called the School of Public and International Affairs, which was supposed to train people for diplomacy, for journalism, and for general business, and that was a combination of economics, politics, and history. And they would duplicate what was done in the United States government: hearings, witnesses, and things like this. And later on it was called the Woodrow Wilson School; it still exists as the Woodrow Wilson School. And I went into that in my junior and senior year. And so my economics thing was on the---thesis for graduation was on Japan-American cotton trade. I think Japan was the greatest buyer of American cotton, and they used to export a great deal of cotton textiles all over Asia. But I got out of Princeton, couldn’t get a job. So I worked for the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, which I’d worked for the summer before. Most of that was statistical work, trade statistics, which I would get from the US Department of Commerce, and edit that and send it out to the Japanese companies so they’d know their trade status. And so [18:00]---and then they had the draft. And I went in the Army in January of ’41. December 7 was Pearl Harbor. It was practically a year before Pearl Harbor, so I went in the Army then. INTERVIEWER: Wow. Now, when you got your draft notice, what was the reaction in your family? KUWAYAMA: Oh, I think---as I said, my father was committed to becoming---that his children would become--although he could not become an American citizen. But I was born an American citizen. So he was committed to that. And if that was the draft, he accepted it. And I think he just took it as one of the things of being an American. And my mother felt the same way. And you must realize, before 1940, in ’37 and ’36 and before, Japan was expanding, and they had gone into Chiaoho, Manchuria, and places like that. And they had taken over, 1905, around that period, Korea and Taiwan and Sakhalin. And that was---the European expansion was before that, and of course This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 21 of 45 �Great Britain had taken over mostly Africa and India, places like this. And the Germans came in later, and they took over great parts of China. But the Japanese came later, even later than that, and they took over those areas. And so I suppose the Japanese expansion was there, and each expansion was met by [20:00] American hostility. And of course greater and greater hostility became a fact of life for Japan. And of course the various naval agreements, in which Great Britain and the United States had 5:5, and Japan was restricted to 3, and Germany and France were restricted to 1.75 or something like that in the naval ratio of power. And so the---and later, when the embargo on oil became a fact, and Japan had relied on Dutch East Indian oil, and Japan produced hardly any oil itself at all, why the Pearl Harbor happened. But the hostility was there, and so that’s part of life at that time. INTERVIEWER: So how aware were you at the time of the potential of---I mean, did it ever occur to you that maybe Japan and the US would go to war? KUWAYAMA: Oh, it was quite obvious. I mean, American hostility was there. EMBARGOES were there. Japan was pushing in Manchuria a great many of their investments, particularly steel mills in Manchukuo, and coal when Manchukuo was too big, things in Manchuria. And so I was asked before I even went to Princeton what my reaction would be if Japan and the United States went to war. I said, “I pledged allegiance to the United States ever since [22:00] I was a child. And so therefore, I would fight for the United States.” And my father didn’t say anything. And the person who asked me was Japanese, and he accepted it as such. So I think the Japanese expected that most---as far as I know, as far as I was concerned, that I would be a Japanese American. And I expected to be that way too, whether there was a war or not, that I would be on the American side. And there were practical reasons why. I didn’t read and write Japanese, one. And two, my whole culture and everything was American. I still ate cereal and ham and eggs for breakfast. I didn’t eat rice and vegetables for breakfast. And so that was it. INTERVIEWER: So knowing what’s going on in the world and knowing that there’s war looming not only--because there’s already a war going on in Europe and you know the one impending with Japan, when you were in the service, how did you get along with---once you were drafted, where did you go and what were you assigned to? KUWAYAMA: I got into the war January 7, 1941, a year before Pearl Harbor. Practically a year, not quite, 11 months. But the---I was drafted in Long Island. I went to Fort Dix, and I was assigned to the 348th [24:00] Coast Artillery in New York. The draftees were guys really from 20 to 30 years old, they were older guys, and a great many were college graduates: engineers, lawyers, and people like that. And I was sort of amazed at the selection. Half of them were from high school, they were salesmen, they were technicians of various kinds. And that was the group that went with me. But I was selected to go to the 348th Coast Artillery, and I was put in group station and I was up in the tower, and I saw the map of New York Harbor defenses, and cross-firing the Ambrose Ship Channel, all the ships would come up through this channel to New York. And the fire power was on the ship’s channel, so if any invading fleet came in, why, they would---and here I was going to be directing the fire, so I was all right, I just saw the map. And then a general came around, [Inaudible], and he came up to me, he said, “What is your name?” I said, “Private Kuwayama, sir.” And the next day, I was shipped out. They acted very fast. This is a year before This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 22 of 45 �Pearl Harbor, so---and this general shipped me out, so they were already preparing a year before Pearl Harbor. So they already realized that there may be a war. And so the---I went up to Madison Barracks, which was [Inaudible], and I went to Company C, 66th Battalion. It was called ordnance, but [26:00] but mostly automobile parts. So I became a requisition clerk. So I became requisition clerk for automobile parts. And then they had a whole bunch of guys from Buffalo as draftees. These were not from New York, Buffalo. Most of these were Polish people, soldiers. And 50 of them came in to my outfit. And then during the year I was there, why, Greenland---President Roosevelt decided---and during that year, Churchill asked for 50 American destroyers, and 50 American destroyers were sent to England. Now, we had not declared war, we were not on the Allied side, but anyway, Roosevelt was already preparing for possible war. And the---they wanted guys to go to Greenland. Now, the terms of the draft at that time was that we were not to be sent overseas, so they wanted guys to volunteer to go. And so a great many of the Polish guys went, and some of them did not. I did not go, and I stayed with the Company C, 66th Battalion. I think most of us stayed there. And then the Pearl Harbor happened. We went on maneuvers, coming back from maneuvers, when I hear Pearl Harbor happened. And then I decided we were in for the duration. And even though all that day the radio announced Pearl Harbor happened and all that, why, we just went around our particular duties. And the---but then I was shipped out, and I went to [28:00] Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont. And there, Captain Millbrook he’s all National Guard or something like that, his father ran the hardware store in Burlington, I think, or something. And the---then I was put into a station hospital as a medic, and I didn’t know any medical things. Made me---so they put me in the laundry room, and so I was sorting linen. And then I guess my records came in and they made me a surgical tech. And the strange thing about becoming a surgical tech was that it was mostly autoclaving and taking care of surgical instruments and things like that, maybe doing a little scrubbing for the operations and stuff. And the operations as a surgical tech was something that I was not particularly trained for. And they didn’t send me to Walter Reed for training or anything like that, but they asked me to teach surgical tech. And so they would send these guys from Fort Devens in Massachusetts, and these guys would come through and they would ask me to teach them. So I took the manual, read a chapter a night, and then spieled forth with it the next day on surgical tech. I learned that way and they learned that way. and that’s the way we went. And I was teaching. But it was ad hoc, basically. And the Army was really ad hoc all the way through in many things. END OF AUDIO FILE 4 BEGINNING OF TAPE FIVE 394-Kuwayama-Yeiichi-5 INTERVIEWER: [00:00] Okay, you know, Kelly, I figure right before we get into the rest of it, this is a good time to ask, because this was around that time period, was how’d you get your nickname of Kelly? KUWAYAMA: Oh, I---my name’s Yeiichi Kuwayama. The nicknames were related to Yeiichi in the past, various other things. But I got in the Army, this was only a couple of days in the [Inaudible], but I got to Madison Barracks, and this is old Army, guys that had been in the Philippines, service like that. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 23 of 45 �And there was this first sergeant named Sergeant Tenny, and I saw him in the very beginning, and he said, “Your name’s Kuwayama, but that’s too long a name to say. How about answering to a different name?” And I said, “That’s okay with me.” And he said, “Do you have any preference?” I said no. And he said, “How about Kelly?” I said, “That’s fine with me.” “All right, from now on, you’re Kelly. And when I say Kelly, you say Here.” So 5:30 in the morning and roll call came around, “Kelly,” and I said, “Here.” And that was it. And everybody, wherever I went, some of those times were with me, would call me Kelly and it stuck. And that’s how I got the name Kelly. And it’s been very convenient, even in civilian life. I call up various people and they, “Kuwayama? Ku---hu, who?” And I say, “Well, just put Kelly down. They’ll know me.” And that was it. And there, they don’t even ask how it’s spelled. They know how to spell Kelly, so that was easy. Kuwayama, [02:00] I have to go through the whole rigmarole on how to spell it and everything. INTERVIEWER: Great. Now going a little bit back to December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor, I know you were on maneuvers. Can you actually describe where you were at that moment when you first heard, and what your feelings were at the time? KUWAYAMA: Well, we had just come back from maneuvers at Madison Barracks. As you know, 348th composed of three artillery, National Guard unit. We were put into a World War I uniform, wraparound leggings and various other things. By the time of Pearl Harbor---you ask me what my feelings were at the time of Pearl Harbor? I---we just came from back maneuvers, they were unprepared for us, we slept between mattresses, and that morning I got up and the radio said Pearl Harbor had been blown. We didn’t believe it. Didn’t think the Japanese would come over that far. But then it continued. And the president came on, various generals came on, all kinds of people came on. And it finally sunk in on us that this is real. And my reaction was that I expected that there would be war. I didn’t know how it was going to come. I didn’t think it would come this way. I thought we would probably attack Japan rather than the opposite way. And so we talk about it now, but America at that time never struck anybody first. And so---but there was no doubt, [04:00] certainly in my mind, that the United States would win. And I think most of us all felt the same. So we just took it in stride. We didn’t, I suppose, didn’t really actually know what the damage was. We knew Pearl Harbor had been bombed, but---so we went around our daily stuff and that’s what we did. Then of course Hitler was overrunning Europe at that time, but Europe was far away. Even though Hawaii was still our possession, that still was far away. So I don’t know, we---and there wasn’t that much reaction. We accepted it, and we were in the Army, and we would do what we were told to do. And that was about it. INTERVIEWER: And so in the days following, was this around the time that you were reassigned? KUWAYAMA: I was reassigned a few weeks after that. And one of the immediate reaction [Inaudible] join the next day, that was a year before Pearl Harbor. The next day it happened, but this time, even though Pearl Harbor had happened, they didn’t really reassign me right away. It took a few weeks, and then I was assigned to Fort Ethan Allen. Now, the strange thing about Fort Ethan Allen was that there was at that time, in Spain, Franco---there was the Lincoln Brigade of This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 24 of 45 �Americans who were fighting dictatorships. Franco was a dictatorship. And I suppose they were suspect, the United States---we were allied with Russia to a certain degree, but they were suspicious of communists. [06:00] And so the Lincoln Brigade people, who returned to the United States, were also put in Fort Ethan Allen. And so were---so was I. And there were two other Japanese Americans from Fort Devens who came in from there. And there were some people who were from Germany, who were born in Germany, who had joined the US Army, and they were also put there. And this was a training post, the combined Canadian-American paratroopers were in Fort Ethan Allen. And so it was an unusual type post, but I was there, and I was put in the station hospital. INTERVIEWER: Now, I know that you did the training and you were learning at the same time, in terms of the surgical tech work. How long did you do that for? KUWAYAMA: I did that for about a year. INTERVIEWER: Now, at what point did you start hearing about the fact that they were going to make a segregated unit of Nisei? KUWAYAMA: I hadn’t heard about that. I wasn’t up on newspapers much. But a chaplain, Yamata, from the 442nd came up and asked whether I would like to join the 442 nd and if there’d be any objection to it. And I said no, particularly since this was the first time I really had heard about it. I think there was some kind of rumbling in the background that they were forming such a unit, but I didn’t--that didn’t click. But it clicked then. And I said, “Sure, that’s all right with me.” And I suppose he asked the other two, and we were shipped out a couple of weeks afterwards to Shelby, where the 442nd was formed. And you must remember that the 442nd was formed [08:00]---well, Colonel Pettigrew seeking largely volunteers in Hawaii, and they had volunteered to be labor battalions because they were classified 4-C, enemy aliens, although they were 1-A, American citizens. And so even though they were American citizens, classified 4-C, they became---Pettigrew said that he would command the unit. Emmons, Major Emmons---General---Major General Emmons was the commander of the all-Hawaiian group there, was against the evacuation of Japanese or Japanese Americans from Hawaii, even though they were doing that to the Japanese and Japanese Americans in the west coast, and he objected to that. So there was this undercurrent. And of course the 100th Battalion from National Guard units would be sent to Oakland, California, and then to Fort---in Minnesota, I think it was. And they were sent for training, and they were eventually sent overseas, and they established themselves a tremendous record even though they were draftees in the National Guard. And so when the 442nd was formed, they asked for volunteers from Hawaii and 10,000 volunteered. And they only really needed 3,000, they took 3,000. But 10,000---but they expected to fill, you know, that portion from mainland, but the mainland Japanese were from the camps and they did not volunteer that many. I think there was about 1,000 who volunteered from the mainland camps. And you can understand why, their mothers and fathers were incarcerated. [10:00] And so I think they needed more people, they needed more people from the mainland, This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 25 of 45 �and I was mainland. And so that’s why Chaplain Yamata was sent---also, there was another reason why, perhaps, is they wanted to get all the Japanese Americans together, I guess. This is my supposition only. I don’t know if it was true or not, or who would decide that. But Chaplain Yamata was going around and getting people, and we went. But a lot of the cadre of the 442nd were mainland, because they had been in the Army, drafted just like I was. And the people from Hawaii were volunteers, so they were plain, simple privates. And that’s where the friction arose. They were the privates, the people from the mainland, although there were fewer numbers and they came from the camps and they had not volunteered, particularly, they were put over them, so the friction occurred. Of course, there was---of course there was a language difficulty, and the people---inferiority or superiority or whatever you want to call it by language---the people who would speak good English were superior to people who spoke pidgin English, for example, which is not necessarily true, but that’s the feeling that people had. Just like in the United States here, where people who speak a foreign language or have a foreign accent are considered inferior. And that’s the way it was in the 442nd as well. And that’s where the friction occurred. INTERVIEWER: So did you personally experience any friction with any of the--KUWAYAMA: Oh yes, I was---I spoke---I speak English now, and I speak a fairly standard [12:00] English. And there was---they assumed that I was a mainland guy, and so there was that kind of friction. But I was never put in a command position. I was a sergeant, but never put in a really command position. So the---I wasn’t put in the 7th Battalion headquarters, I stayed with the infantry platoon, a medic, and Company E, and there I was. But I saw where a great many of the people of Hawaii were the---were the infantrymen, with the rifle in the front lines and getting shot at, getting killed. And so I took care of them. So I learned to respect them. INTERVIEWER: Now, when you were at Shelby--KUWAYAMA: But there were also mainlanders, too. And later on, there were more mainlanders due to the fact that they would be drafted for replacements. INTERVIEWER: Wow. So when you were at Shelby and you were assigned as a medic, now, how did that work? And did you get any specialized training while you were there? KUWAYAMA: Well, when I first got down there, I went into class. But then I was transferred out right away and I went to the evacuation hospital in Texas, and they were on maneuvers. So I went with them for a while, but there wasn’t any particular training, we just moved around various places. And I think these maneuvers are really to teach generals and colonels and things like that how to get the troops to various places. And so the---and that would go smoothly for each unit. So I was in an evacuation hospital. And then 442nd was assigned to go overseas, and when they were [14:00] assigned to go overseas, they assigned me back to the 442 nd and I went overseas with them. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 26 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: Wow. So how much time did you actually spend in the 442nd before they went overseas? KUWAYAMA: I didn’t spend that much time in training with them. But I spent all of my time with the 442nd when they were overseas, except when I was wounded, then I spent two weeks in the hospital. INTERVIEWER: Wow. So were you around at all when things were actually resolved in terms of the frictions? And can you tell us about how they were resolved, if you were? KUWAYAMA: Oh, I think friction is a gradual process. You learn to respect each other. And when you’re mutually being killed, and the German is in front of you, you’re not going to find out whether the guy next to you is Hawaiian or whether you are a mainlander, or vice versa. You’re both being shot at. INTERVIEWER: Very well put. KUWAYAMA: Yeah. And I don’t think there’s any friction there. When you’re both being shot at at the same time, then it’s a different story. INTERVIEWER: So when they’re---when the 4-4-2 was being shipped overseas and you joined up with them to go overseas, what was that like, and where did you disembark from? KUWAYAMA: Well, we spent 30 days together on a liberty ship. We were five deep. You can touch above you, find the canvas bottom of another guy above you, and all the way up. And so it was five stories of us there, and at the end was our knapsack and duffle bag and things like that. Now, the---but I didn’t---and [16:00] there was a---in the hold there was always a continuing poker game. So that was going on all day, all night, and I was not a poker game player. I spent most of my time up above deck, and I slept above deck. I didn’t sleep so much in the hold. And I would talk to guys, and since I was not a mainlander in the true sense that I’m not from California or from Seattle and I’m not from Hawaii, I would circulate among them all. And for me, there was---as long as they spoke English which was comprehensible to me, and they---and my English was comprehensible to them, why, no particular friction. And so the---and I spoke to Captain Crowley aboard ship, even though he was an officer and you usually say Sir to an officer, I would talk to him like another human being, and there was no great---and I don’t think he was particularly rank-conscious either. He would talk to me, I would talk to him. So that was true of all of us aboard ship. INTERVIEWER: So what kind of things did you talk about with Captain Crowley and--KUWAYAMA: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 27 of 45 �Well, Captain Crowley, to a certain degree, was worried about how he would react in a combat situation. And I suppose we would all react---when you’re coming up against a guy who’s going to shoot you, why, how you would react. I suppose many of us, [18:00] in my case [Inaudible] you didn’t think about that too much. You were scared. You might think, “This is it.” I didn’t think that so much going on board ship, but certainly I was going into the line, and above Rome, where we did go, I felt that way. This is it, I may not last the day. But this is combat, and you do what you have to do. So you just follow along there and that’s about it. I tell you, the first day of combat, we left [Inaudible] departure in the morning while it was still dark, and we pushed forward during the night. We had heard fired shots and went by the bridge where we had heard the fired shots. There were two dead Americans, two dead Germans. And so their patrol missions were surprised, apparently. And so they had met, and one shot the guy, and then the other above him shot the other guy, and both [Inaudible] because the other parts of their units departed. But that’s the first time I saw a dead American. And so I felt, this is war. And the next thing, daylight came when Captain Ensmenger in 2nd Battalion headquarters got artillery shot and he was killed. They were out in the open, and I suppose they learned their lesson, but he was dead. And then they further moved and we got .88 shots. This was depressed artillery. [20:00] And the Germans were very effective with that. It would just go tss-bing, and three shots, they would move away. So we couldn’t retaliate with our artillery. So they would get some of our men, and they did. The next thing I knew that day was artillery---not artillery, rifle shots and mortar. So we were in combat and guys were getting killed and shot. And that’s what happened for the rest of the time going up the boot. And we were mountain troops, we were taking the high ground, and as long as we took the high ground, the other units could move up in the plains below. And that was our combat mission, to take one mountain after another. And you talk about the papers saying “light causalities.” They may be light causalities, but guys were getting killed. And I always felt, when I see in the newspapers today that our casualties were light, I think of those guys who were the casualties. They’re dead as---even if there were 10 dead or 100 dead, it’s still---still, they’re dead. But we pushed up that boot to Pisa and took hill after hill. We were hit, prevented for three days in Hill 140. But most of the time it would be a machine gun nest holding us up, artillery fire, or mortar fire, and we’d take the machine gunners and you would either take it or you would go to the next hill. And it was a continuous thing like that. Up the thing, and 200 men, one company would be taking that hill. And that’s the way it was until we got [22:00] Pisa, then we went to the Arno River and we were holding the line there, replacing some Canadian troops. And then we went to France and pushed up the Rhone River valley. I remember seeing the Germans were fleeing the Spanish coast, going up with their horses, where we just bulldozed right through them and continued right up our line, the American paratroopers were holding them up. And they were just being bombed by our Air Force. And we pushed up and then got to Bruyeres, and this is the hub of---of the railways. And then Biffontaine and that area, and the Vosges Mountain area. And that was the---going in through the back door into Germany, and the Germans were offering stiff resistance. The Texas 241st Battalion had been caught, and it took us a few days, and we took them and rescued---and in doing so, this is not 7th Battalion, the 3rd Battalion, I understand K and L Company made the frontal attack. I understand there were about 12 men left in K Company, 8 men left in L Company. And we had 7 causalities, and I was wounded then too, just before the attack. And half of our men had become This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 28 of 45 �causalities as well. So that was the big fight there. So we were decimated with that. And then we were sent to the Maritime Alps [24:00] and we held some Maginot Line forts there. And strangely, with me, it’s---when we were really in combat and moving, I mean going up to the line, you feel fear and anxiety. Once you’re in the line, there’s too much happening, and you don’t feel---then when you get into a---into holding action, I think anxiety or fear again overtakes you, and you don’t know what’s going to happen the next minute. When you’re really in action, you’re not so concerned about it because you’re moving too fast. But when you’re holding action, you feel that way. And then we were taken out of there, we went into the Po Valley and we were assigned a job of penetrating it. Of course, the 10th Mountain Division made it in Bologna, but we were holding the side flank there, and we pushed through there. And I understand the instruction for the company or battalion that was supposed to make that attack, they climbed up the cliff and their orders were that anybody who fell off the cliff were not to make any sound, and that no one was to rescue the other guy, and to push up. And they pushed up, got to the top in a night attack. They went through the night. They got the Germans and attacked them. Very successful attack. And in a few days, the Germans surrendered, and the Bologna push was also successful. So we had penetrated into the Po Valley through the Apennine Mountains, and the war ended. And us high-point men came back. INTERVIEWER: Going back a little bit, [26:00] I guess the first question I actually have for you is kind of a general question. The word medic, when you hear that, somebody calls it, what goes through your mind? What is a medic? What does a medic do? KUWAYAMA: Well a medic is a cry of---that he’s been hit. And so---and then it goes down the whole line. And as a medic, when you’re on a platoon, you go out and try and help in some way or other. So when I hear the medic, it’s a reaction. And your reaction is to go---oh, you unfurl your flag, wave it, and hope the Germans won’t shoot you. And so you go out. And it’s a matter of trust. You act--with the word medic, you act automatically. That’s your job. So you run out with it, and you’ve trusted them before in the Italian boot and they honored it. When that Red Cross flag is there, they have held off from shooting you. They don’t even look at their lines. You go down to help and you---mostly it’s a tourniquet, sulfur, and bandage, and that’s about it, all you can do. And pull them to safety or something like that where you can, just a short distance. Then you have the litter squad come up and pick them up and take them away. And by that time, we’re moving forward. So that’s the usual thing of a medic. It’s a very temporary sort of thing that we’re doing. As far as I know, I didn’t know of any time when we were at the---well, I never carried a [28:00] 10 percent solution or saline solution or anything like that. END OF AUDIO FILE 5 BEGINNING OF TAPE SIX 394-Kuwayama-Yeiichi-6 INTERVIEWER: [00:00] So Kelly, we were just talking about trust, and what I was going to ask you about is, you had mentioned how there was a certain degree of trust on both sides that they aren’t going This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 29 of 45 �shoot at you because you’re a medic and you’re going out there. Now I know, just from talking to some other medics and hearing how some of them would take off the red cross from their uniform and stuff because Germans would use it as a target, so some snipers would kind of defy the Geneva Convention and fire upon medics. I was curious about, in your experience, if you ever dealt with anything like that. KUWAYAMA: Well, I had to trust the Geneva Convention, otherwise I couldn’t function as a medic. Another thing, too, I was a line medic, which means I wasn’t back in the battalion headquarters, I was with the rifle infantry platoon. And I was with, I recall, 40 men attached to that platoon. And one of my functions was to help them when they were wounded. Now the matter of trust is that I didn’t wear a helmet with the red cross or anything like that, because that would reveal where my unit was. I didn’t---it’s not a matter of we’re being shot at or anything like that, it was a matter of identity. But I did wear the red cross band, and I think I carried the flag with the red cross. So when I was out there, the flag was certainly much more visible than something on my helmet; this was being waved around. And so I would hold that when I was planning to be out when I was aiding [02:00] the men there. So I trusted the Germans. And as you know, many of my friends were Germans, particularly in New York City. Eighty-sixth Street was all full of Germans. I used to go to the the Lowenbrau place where---not Lowenbrau, at Heidelberg or wherever it was, and then I would---my mother and father would buy German bratwurst or blutwurst or their wursts, and they were the best frankfurters you can ever get, because that was their thing of eating. And so I trusted them. And I---they’re just like we are, except they were our enemy and they were shooting us. And when I was hit, I was in their territory. So when they---in Italy and going up the French route and things like that, we were still not in Germany. I think when it came to point becomes shove, why they were shooting. And I heard that medics were being shot at, but what can you do? You have to trust to a certain degree. And that’s when I was hit. And to this day, I don’t have any enmity toward them. I would---of course, I would save the American first, but I would also bandage up a German. That wouldn’t matter to me particularly. And [04:00] I do remember hearing---not hearing, but that a German soldier was wounded and sitting in front of one of the men’s foxhole and yelling, “Mama, mama.” And he died right there. But they’re humans like everybody else. And I heard that during Christmas, “Silent night, holy night,” in the First World War were being sung on both sides of the trenches. So, it’s a---it’s--what else can you do? If you’re going to do your duty, if you’re going to help the American soldier out on the front line, you got to help them. INTERVIEWER: You talked about when you were wounded. I mean, and if this seems a little too personal, you don’t have to answer this, but I was just wondering, I mean, when you’re a medic and you’re the person who has to care for the wounded, when you’re wounded yourself, I mean, who’s there to care for you? What kind of thoughts go through your head at that moment? KUWAYAMA: Well, I was wounded, and the first thing I thought about was to get the hell out of there. I didn’t think of who’s going to take care of me. I had taken care of the guy, his tourniquet, and he’s in--he would be taken care of by this. And this is at the time of the Lost Battalion and we were coming down the flanks, coming down the hill. G Company was holding in there and the This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 30 of 45 �Germans---we were going to force the Germans into the G Company there. I knew G Company was [06:00] down there, and so pushing them down, and they were---Germans had escaped on the sides. And so when I was wounded, that was it, they were going. And so I knew the G Company was there, so I went to the G Company. Crawled over to them, they took me, picked me up right away, took me a Jeep to send me back to the 2 nd Battalion headquarters. They took me to the evacuation hospital, gave me Pentothal, and took an X-ray and operated, and that was it. But the---no, I don’t think who’s going to take care of who, you know. I didn’t worry about it. And I would think that you do what you can to help yourself, you can’t depend on a medic because they aren’t there. But the guys behind you know that you’ve been wounded, and so they would take care of you too as well. And even though they might---you’re not doing that heroic things, it’s mostly tourniquet and stop the bleeding, and if possible bones are broken too, put a sling on the thing and to put sticks as---to mobilize a leg or something like that. But that’s about all you can do. And morphine probably, ease the pain. INTERVIEWER: Now when you were wounded, how were you wounded and--KUWAYAMA: It went through the helmet, hit---glanced off the side of my head. Shrapnel wound, as far as I understand. But I understand from the guy who won a Medal of Honor, whose foxhole was right there, he said it was a bullet and it went around my helmet and dropped out, he saw it drop out. [08:00] But I thought it was shrapnel. But Sakato, who won the Medal of Honor, said that he was right there, he said he saw the bullet go through. INTERVIEWER: Could you tell us a little bit about Sakato? KUWAYAMA: Oh, Sakato was a Medal of Honor winner, and he later acquitted himself by immobilizing machine gun nests and things like that. And he did a heroic job, that’s why he got his Medal of Honor. I don’t know the exact citation. Oh, I did know when it was read, but I know so many that--19 of them got it, you know. He’s from Denver, incidentally. INTERVIEWER: One of the things I know you had talked about is, in terms of what you were able to do for the soldiers, you said like a little bit of morphine. What kind of materials did you carry on you for actually helping them? What was the standard kind of gear that you carried with you as a medic to treat other people? KUWAYAMA: Well we had these packs, these bandage packs, carried on a sling. And these were the compress bandages, triangle things for tourniquet, and things of that nature, sulfur tablets, tourniquet things, straps. And then my flag, and that’s about it. As I said, I didn’t carry any saline solution or things of that nature, which would be things for shock treatment. INTERVIEWER: Can you explain for people who aren’t [10:00] really familiar with some of the items you described, what they look like and what kind of uses they had. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 31 of 45 �KUWAYAMA: Well, there were packets of gauze, and attached to them was---are straps, four straps, which you would put the gauze on and tie it around anywhere, and that’s the basic thing. Then the tourniquet strap is a regular canvas strap with a cinching thing so you can tighten it up. And the sulfur is powdered sulfur of various means. And morphine are ampules of morphine. At the end there, they said not to give them morphine because there was too much given. The morphine is there and then at the aid station, you give them morphine again and that sort of thing, and so the, I don’t know, the instructions were not to give morphine, and the litter squad would take care of that. Although then, I suppose if they were in great pain, you’d have to do that. INTERVIEWER: How’d you feel about that order? KUWAYAMA: Well, I think it was a logical order. I mean, if you overdose, it’s not good either, and that could happen. INTERVIEWER: Now, with these materials, because it doesn’t sound like you had a very sophisticated or even that many---how did you treat different kinds of wounds? KUWAYAMA: It’s the only way you could get it, it’s to stop the bleeding. You’re not going to be able to operate there, and you’re not a [12:00] doctor. And you don’t carry hemostats to stop, you know, veins or arteries or anything like that. INTERVIEWER: I guess what I mean by my question is more along the lines of, how were you trained to deal with different types of wounds and trying to stop the bleeding with the materials that you had? And did you ever have to improvise quite a bit? KUWAYAMA: Well, all of it’s improvising because you’re stopping bleeding of various kinds of wounds. But remember, we’re in a combat situation in a fairly crowded area, and there are 40 men in your platoon. Behind them is a combat company command post, which is fairly close by. And then you got the battalion aid station, which is behind that. And then regimental headquarters and that sort of thing. So the amount of time for the---being picked up is very short. So you’re not treating for any serious thing. I don’t think you even the 2nd Battalion headquarters does that much. It’s only when you get to the evacuation hospital, where you have a whole battery of kits of hemostats and [14:00] scissors and all that, as well as retractors and things like that, as well as saline solutions or blood. I don’t think any aid man had that kind of equipment, particularly in the front line. I mean, by the time you get to the litter squad, perhaps you could get it, but not until then. If you’re going to give them service at the time it happened. Maybe some places there were, I don’t know. INTERVIEWER: Oh, okay. Thank you, thank you for explaining that. I think it definitely helps people have a better idea. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 32 of 45 �KUWAYAMA: And then you have different---I suppose in the Pacific, where you might be isolated, small units, while here you’re really frontal attack all around, all the way through. So it’s a different type of thing. And you have a whole communications network. You have roads, things like that. INTERVIEWER: Now, I know you were wounded during the Lost Battalion. Were there any other times you were wounded? KUWAYAMA: No, that’s the only place I really was. INTERVIEWER: I know that you received a Silver Star. Can you explain how you received that and what for? KUWAYAMA: I suppose when I went out to help the guy and got wounded. I had been doing this all along, going out, you know, all going up the Italian boot. [16:00] But the fact that I was wounded, I suppose, got them started in writing up something for me, and they did and I got the Silver Star. Also I think it was---the Lost Battalion was such that there were that many casualties, and so they could, you know, for that many casualties, so many medals could be given. I don’t know, at what ratio they do this, but---and how they do it, but it has to be a witnessed thing, and mine was witnessed. And it has to be---besides being witnessed, it has to be for valor. It fit all the circumstances, so that was it. Fit the parameters. INTERVIEWER: So then you received the Silver Star during the Lost Battalion. Now, when you were talking about the fact that there were so many causalities, as we know from a lot of documentation, the first thought that came into my mind was, Wow, keeping in mind all these guys getting wounded around you, and you’re the, I believe the only medic for--KUWAYAMA: For 40 men, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, then how do you even try to come close to prioritizing or knowing to cover all these guys who are being wounded? KUWAYAMA: First come, first serve. First one you get to, you serve them. Then the next one, you go to the next guy and the next guy. And that’s it. Because they have to keep moving. They have to maintain their fire power. And your duty is to help the [18:00] wounded. INTERVIEWER: And so, knowing that you are with these men---I mean, what was your interaction with a lot of these men, especially when you weren’t in combat? I mean, did you even know who these men were that you were treating? KUWAYAMA: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 33 of 45 �A great many times, you didn’t. And toward the end there, a lot of the men were replacements. The original guys were all gone, either wounded or casualties, so these are replacements. The worse cases are brothers. You shake their hands the night they come in, next morning you’re in battle and you pick them up wounded or dead. And that’s tough. Of course, when you shake their hands at night and they’re brothers, you realize they’re scared. But you realize too that they’re scared but they’re not going to let their brother down. And that’s the toughest part to do, is their feeling that they’re not going to let their brother down. So they do foolish things. And what can you say? I mean, the feeling in the 442nd was such that they were there to do a job, and the personal relationship was brothers. I mean, others were, there wasn’t that vital connection there. But they didn’t know what they were getting into. They didn’t know what they were going to be called upon to do. [20:00] And a feeling they wanted to measure up to the reputation of the 442nd. It’s like when we went into combat, the 100th were before us, and we weren’t going to let the 100th down. And we know that at Salerno, Rapido, at Cassino they had lost half their men, and then they were replaced by our 1st Battalion and they made the breakthrough at Anzio beachhead to Rome. And they established a great record. And I think the 442nd were younger brothers of those men, in many instances from Hawaii. And then our replacement men from the mainland were also good men. Some of them had volunteered from there, and they weren’t also going to let them down. The 442nd had established a reputation when I was there. But you don’t know what it’s going to mean until you’re there, and what your reaction’s going to be until you face it. I think of all of them measured up. Measured up plus. And what more can you expect? But it was tough, because I was in the platoon with the lieutenant---the sergeant in charge of the platoon, and these guys would come in at night as replacements and then were shot up the next morning. And as I said, you meet them, you get the names, and you really forget them the next day, and that’s it. Then the next night, you meet another group of men. And day after day, the same sort of [22:00] thing. And that’s tough, particularly when you’re in combat. And we were in continuous combat. I mean, we ate K-rations [Inaudible] get a hot meal from a kitchen was---and you’d get cold, you wanted something, you know. You hear about all this care package and stuff, but you never see them. Not for a front line guy. INTERVIEWER: So you were saying with the succession of different guys coming through, and it sounds very hard to build personal attachments, were there any people, though, that you did build personal attachments with that were really memorable that you’d like to talk about? KUWAYAMA: Well, I suppose Gordon Takasaki was---whom I knew, then he was offered a commission, field commission, practically the last days of battle. No one wants to die, be the last man to die. You’re dead regardless. You’re the last of the first men. And I knew that he was going to be proud to become an officer. He was surveying the field and a sniper got him, sniper shot him dead and then went through his assistant. But his assistant survived, but the same bullet. I think--I mean, in another circumstance, he would be behind a tree or something like that, but the mere fact that he was going to get a commission sort of buoyed him up. And he was out in the open looking [24:00] over the field, and that’s how he got shot. But that’s a human foible. You’re offered a promotion and you’re elated by it. But he was killed. So you feel that sort of thing. He’d be around today, all he had to do is go behind a tree and look around that way. But no, he was out there looking around, and a sniper got him. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 34 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: How about any guys who were really memorable in terms of like funny or your pals, you know, any incidents or anecdotes about some of the things---because we always hear different stories about like some of the things guys did just to try to lighten the mood or to make living conditions better. KUWAYAMA: No, I don’t know of any particular---what I admired, the Jerrys---we were always advancing in Italy, and the Jerrys knew where the water could be. Water was valuable, and I used to always admire guys that came around collecting our canteens. And they would collect our canteens from the hilltop where we were, go down to the valley, fill it up with water, and take it up knowing that those water holes were zeroed in, and bring them up. And I think guys who offered to do that---I mean, we could survive a few hours more maybe without [Inaudible] nightfall, [26:00] but he wanted water and he offered to do it. and he knew the dangers. We knew the danger he was in, but he did it anyway. I think---that I admired. Also, the BAR men, that’s the Browning automatic rifle, you know, the Jerrys know that there’s firepower there in that rifle. And when you’re in an attack situation, they try to neutralize the man with the greatest firepower, so the BAR man is the man they try to get. So he’s practically a dead man, the way it goes, when in an attack situation. So these guys are killed, somebody else has to take over the BAR position. And the guys who volunteer to become BAR men---and I remember there was a guy named Ben [Inaudible], he was the 4th platoon. 4th platoon was relatively safer than riflemen, they’re usually machine-gunners and motormen, and he offered to become his cleaning assistant and BAR, knowing that the two preceding BAR men had been killed. And a shell got him outside his foxhole when he was cleaning. I remember Ben, he was a very nice guy, very---if you’re looking for a humorous guy, a guy who you’d like to meet and know. And that was it. He’s the kind that, knowing that the position was a tough position, took it. Tanamachi from Texas, the guy that took it first day of battle, he was killed. So [28:00] men like that. I don’t know of any particularly humorous situation as such. Of course, you always find guys who are able to relieve a farmer of his duck or his chicken or something like that, and there were things like that. But generally, I don’t know of any particular incidents. I mean, I’m not a humorous guy anyway. END OF AUDIO FILE 6 BEGINNING OF TAPE SEVEN 394-Kuwayama-Yeiichi-7 INTERVIEWER: [00:00] Before we go out of the war, I wanted to ask you a little bit about, first, I know you listed under another award that you received, the Croce al Valore Militare. KUWAYAMA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: The Italian. Can you tell me a little bit about that? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 35 of 45 �KUWAYAMA: That came out of the blue. And [Laughs] I don’t know, the regiment must have---well, I’m in the archives. They’ve written me up for other things, and the various witnesses have written me up for various things. And so---and someone---the Italian government gave these medals, and they were supposed to be distributed out, and I suppose somebody remembered that I had been written up by various things like that, said, “Why don’t you give it to Kelly?” I guess. That’s my feeling how it occurred. I can’t think of any other way. And so they decided to give it to me. Of course, this is not for any particular thing, it’s for general bravery, I guess, valor meaning bravery. And that was it. And that Purple Heart is for the wound. INTERVIEWER: Now, one of the other questions I was going to have about was, if you had witnessed any particular acts of valor by some of your other comrades in E Company that you would like to talk about. KUWAYAMA: Well, as I said, Gordon Takasaki was being offered a commission. And of course, Danny was made officer in arms. [02:00] He came from 1st Platoon. He was there, and then he came to ours, and then he was wounded silencing a machine gun nest too. And came over the hill, and I took care of him then. But I suppose Danny would be another man. I think a fellow named Tsune Takemoto, he was from Hawaii, he was a long-time sergeant in Easy Company, he got his Distinguished Service Cross. He left us sometime after the Biffontaine, I think. But he had established a record for valor for a long time, all through the Italian campaign. He was a very aggressive lieutenant---not lieutenant, he never got his---I don’t think he was a college man. But he commanded the respect of all the men, and I remember his ability to get these men to obey his orders. Now, the other platoons were commanded by officers, and [Inaudible] the 3 rd Platoon because he wasn’t an officer, got some of the, I don’t know---but we were given a lot of attack situations. And Tsune was a good leader, and so I would say that [04:00] Tsune would be another man, even though he was not an officer. And he got his Distinguished Service Cross. Sakato, who got the Medal of Honor, also from our platoon, he was a regular soldier. The others I don’t know particularly. I think the 2nd Platoon, 1st Platoon, produced a great many who were good men, but I would not be witness to them. INTERVIEWER: In terms of what you did witness, could you actually tell me what you remember about the action when Senator Inouye was---the valor that he exemplified, that he earned the Medal of Honor for? KUWAYAMA: Well, he---the citation is there, and I think you have to go by the citation. He silenced these machine guns. And he was able to do that, so---even got wounded. So I think that’s about it. I think the citation describes it. INTERVIEWER: So you don’t have any other memories about it that you would like to share. KUWAYAMA: No, the only thing I would say is, it was at the tail end of the war, and as I said, you don’t want to be the last man to die. And so the mere fact that he kept on, and he was the officer in charge, so This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 36 of 45 �keeping the morale of the group up. I mean, the group morale in the last five days of the war is going down---you’re gung-ho up to that time, then you realize that the Germans are collapsing, the war’s going to be over, [06:00] you’re going to be home---home free in five days, well, you don’t want to be the last man to die. So to energize the group and things like that is a tough mission to do. INTERVIEWER: And do you have any other personal recollections about---were you there when Sakato actually got his Medal of Honor, the action that--KUWAYAMA: No, I don’t think I was there at that particular time. I may have been, but I don’t recall. INTERVIEWER: Oh, okay. Actually, if you can, can you tell me a little bit about your brother and his service and-KUWAYAMA: Well, my brother is about seven years younger than I am. He got into the Army and he joined the 82nd Airborne. He was put in communication, I remember his carrying pigeons and the parachute and things like that. But he was always in communications. And the---toward the end of the war, he was making parachute drops to recruit other people into the 82 nd Airborne, but he never got overseas. So the 82nd Airborne, I think, went over after the war or something, and the 101st were in the war. And the---I don’t know where they---but I think he was in the parade in Washington, DC, victory parade. And that was it, even though he never got into the war itself. And that’s true of the 442nd. A great many of the men were repatriated back, the older men, so [08:00] a lot of the men who paraded after the war were recruits who were put into the---to replace the older people who had been in, but they got all the trimmings of the parade and all that. Not that I would want to do that. And probably they did a much better job. I mean, once you’re in combat, you don’t give a damn how you look or anything like that. And so when you get recruits, they still have to be shaved and they still have to have---wear clean uniforms and things like that. So you can look smart and parade, and that’s what they did. INTERVIEWER: So where were you when the---you’ve got news that the war ended, and what were you doing at the time? What was your reaction? KUWAYAMA: I was, as I said, a high-point man. That was the year before Pearl Harbor, so it was four and a half years of service. I was in combat as the medal winner and all that, and also wounded. So even before the Japanese war ended, the German war had ended, they had surrendered. So I was sent back. And then Hiroshima happened, Nagasaki happened. I had not---I’d just about been discharged, I think. And I came home, and then I decided to go to Times Square as a civilian, no more uniform. And as a civilian, I went to Times Square, and then I was looking up at the thing, marquee around the Times building, and “Japan Surrenders.” Momentous. [10:00] Terrific. No more war. A very dramatic moment. I said, “My God, the war is over.” And that was it. So I was very happy. But it was a dramatic moment. Because, you know, you’re four and a half years, particularly the year in combat, seen all these guys that I have known gone, and all This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 37 of 45 �these recruits coming in, as I said, the night before then being shot up the next day. You get sort of fed up with it. And that’s about it. INTERVIEWER: So now, after the war, what kind of---what did you do right after, actually? KUWAYAMA: Well, I tried to get a job, and couldn’t get a job. I went to the employment agencies, and then I went to some place like the banks. I wanted to always be in finance. And then I went to the--wrote to the stock exchange companies. No job. Then the GI Bill was there, so I took the GI Bill and went to Harvard Business School. Accepted there, spent two years there. All of them were vets, practically. I remember the Navy, this one guy shot himself there, I remember that. But the--got through the Harvard Business School, got my MBA degree, and then started looking for a job again. This time, I wrote to all the stock exchange, New York stock, 1,000 companies. Sent my resumes, and I sent my resumes to get a job in a [12:00] treasury office, a comptroller’s office. Couldn’t get a job. They---all of them wrote me letters saying there were no openings at the present time. Only a few, less than 2 percent, asked for an interview. And so I met just a handful, about four or five people, for interviews, and that was it. And no job. Now the main thing I was thinking of was Merrill Lynch, since that’s a brokerage house and I wanted to get into those kind of companies. And Merrill Lynch was offering a training course, nine months training course. The only way I can think of it is that they didn’t know what to do with me. Even though I was a veteran, I had my MBA degree and everything else like that. What would they do with me five years hence? They can make me a section chief, maybe, but no more than that, when I’m directing other groups of men. And to have a Japanese American head of the group, or later on to be division chief, I didn’t expect to be more than that at that most. But I expected to be promoted to probably that level when I was about 40, 45 years old, and that didn’t come about. So my father---at that time, it was ’47, ’48, ’49, the Japanese were coming over, and they were going to try to establish themselves. Nomura Securities came over, [14:00] that’s the Japanese securities house, and I met Sagawa, who came over. He was the managing director then, and he said, “We’re going to establish an office here within the year. You want to work for us?” I said that was okay. But I said I wanted to be able to be promoted to become manager. And he said, “No, you can’t do that unless you go to Japan and work there and be sent from Japan.” Now, I knew that Citibank and Chase Manhattan and all those banks never had a German become the head of the German branch, or an Italian become the head of the Italian branch. They, too, kept their managership by home office personnel. So it struck me that that was not unreasonable for him to say that. So I said, “What if I did go to Japan? What would the terms be?” And he said, “We can’t offer you anything except equal treatment. You would be treated like any other college graduate in Japan, and you would spend some time with them.” I said, “How long?” He said, “One year.” And I said, “What would my salary be?” “Same as theirs.” So I’d come from a foxhole background, so I said, “No, it’s okay with me.” So I went. And it was a very interesting experience. And the main thing they were after was that I should get to know them, get to know the people above, get to know the people below, and my main job was to take out foreign visitors. [16:00] A great many Americans were coming over to reestablish themselves at Merrill Lynch’s over there, and the various British and Dutch banks---the British banks, of course, they have a very good awareness of the foreign picture. And so I met a great This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 38 of 45 �many of them. And that was my job, to take care of them and to write English letters and take care of their English correspondence. And I did that for the year. And then came---they had sent a Japanese guy to open up the office, and I went to work with him. And it was about a six-man office, and I worked with them for a while, and it expanded to about 20. And then there was an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal for opening up a foreign---office of foreign direct investments. And that was to prevent gold from leaving the country. American companies were going abroad, and they were treating Europe like the United States. They would establish a factory or head office in [Inaudible] or Luxembourg, and they would treat the other---Germany, France---like another state, and they would establish themselves all over Europe. And that’s what Americans were doing. And the main purpose of the office of foreign direct investment was to prevent American gold from leaving the country, to control the exchange rates, and to get some of the profits back to the United States. And so they were advertising for that, so I came down here [18:00] to Washington, DC. They interviewed me at 9:00 in the evening, and they asked me what I did with Nomura Securities. I told them in about 15 minutes. And they said, “When can you come down?” Just like that. I was hired. And that was a totally different experience from what I had in college and from what I had---and the key to that, I think, is the riots here. They were having---firing blacks and everything like that in the US government. And also my experience already in Wall Street. And so they were making a policy, hire half the people from Wall Street and half the people from the government. So we had a lot of guys from Chase, from Citibank, and also from other banking houses, Blyth and Company, First Boston, [Inaudible], other companies were hired. A lot of them just stayed for a year with the US government, but I decided to stay with them and---well, that was an experience too. And so---but they discontinued that when the need for it was gone, exchange rates were permitted to float, and with the burst of a greater deal of American activity right after the war, too. And the Europeans considered it a takeover by Europe---by Americans of Europe, but actually it was not that, but American companies were going over. And, well, the upshot was that they did away with it. And I---[20:00] and the SEC was a possibility. So I joined the SEC. I could have with stayed commerce, it would have been in the trade area, but I decided to try SEC and I found that to be all lawyers. But I was an economist, I was there and that was it. And I retired from that. INTERVIEWER: How long did you work with the SEC? KUWAYAMA: Oh, about eight years or more. Nine years. INTERVIEWER: Great. Now during this time period, obviously it was probably earlier, how did you meet your wife, and can you tell us her name and her background? KUWAYAMA: My wife---during the time I was with Nomura, they tried to arrange various kind of marriages for me. This is the custom in Japan, although the majority of marriages now are what they call renai marriages, love marriages. But it’s a custom in Japan to arrange marriages. And what they do is, usually your employer arranges these marriages. They get the history of possible woman This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 39 of 45 �candidates. They also give your history to the woman’s family and to the woman themselves. And you exchange these, really what amounts to resumes of each other. Then if you want to meet, they arrange a meeting. And then if you want to date, you can date. Usually the custom is that you can’t date for more than a year. Now, if you should for more than a year, you got to declare yourself, either you’re for it or you’re against it, and you have to make it quite plain. But during that year, you can---you’re supposed to date. And any time during that year, can discontinue it. [22:00] Either way. Now, it’s done very diplomatically. You don’t have to tell her that you’re interested in her anymore, you just tell the guy who’s arranging it, and then he arranges so she’s diplomatically told, or she can tell him and he tells you, and so it’s broken off. But that kind of thing was---I went through two of them and it discontinued, so that was it. I met my wife here in New York through a mutual friend of mine. And she is the daughter of--Akebana is her name---of a guy who had worked before the war in New York. Also, he had gone to Cornell and he was an aeronautical engineer, and he had worked for Nakajima Aircraft Company, and that was---they made Japanese bombers. And she was---she was their daughter, and she spoke English very well. And he returned to Japan, of course. And he worked in Japan with them, but during the war, he insisted that they speak English, so she retained her English knowledge quite well, so she’s quite bilingual. And then he later joined Allied Signal Company, and he worked for the Allied Signal Company after the war. But then she was in New York, and I met her and spoke English. And I found in my father’s bookkeeping records that their family had been buying from us, although they apparently didn’t buy that much Japanese food, mostly rice and shoyu. But anyway, that was our relationship. [24:00] And we got married. But unfortunately, we don’t have any children, and so that’s where we are. That’s one of my great disappointments, that we don’t have---particularly when you get old, when you’ve hoped that you’ve left something behind, but that opportunity is not there. But that’s---but that’s my wife. And she has a sister who married a guy named Dougherty. They divorced and she lives in Westchester. They have a daughter, Christine Dougherty, and she works for a newspaper in Bar Harbor, Maine, she’s a reporter there. And of course my sister married a guy, Hibbitt, who was the head of the Far East department at Harvard, and they divorced. She married a guy named Hass who was the head of the University of California adult studies program. They divorced, and married a guy named Tedesco, an architect. And that’s where---but they have two daughters by Hibbitt, they both have daughters. My brother was curator at the Los Angeles County Museum, and he had three children. None of them are married. So unfortunately, at the present time we have no male Kuwayama descendants who have children. So Kuwayama family disappeared with this generation, maybe. And that seems to me a sad thing. Except I have some cryogenic genetic material, but there’s no one who’s going to take that up. [Laughs] That’s where I am. INTERVIEWER: Wow. So in terms of in your family, with your nieces and [26:00]---do you have any nephews as well? KUWAYAMA: No. I have two nieces through my sisters, who had two daughters. And they, in turn, have two daughters. So I have a blond, blue-eyed daughter in one case, and I have a redhead daughter in another case. So there’s two daughters there. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 40 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: I was going to say, have you ever talked to them about your wartime experiences? KUWAYAMA: As I said, I had given, related my thing on the other job. Yours is much more extensive. But anyway, I related that and I sent copies to them. INTERVIEWER: Now, we’ll see if we can fit this in on the end of this one, if not, we’ll carry into the other. But usually at the end of the interview, we like to ask about what you feel is the legacy of the deeds of the Nisei during World War II, like the 442nd, the 100th, and kind of what you would like people to remember about them and leave behind. KUWAYAMA: I think the legacy is really civil rights. And I think looking back on this, it represents America itself. America itself was produced through two things. One, the arrival of the Puritans in the northeast, and they came because of religious things, some economic, but they came from a background of artisans: plumbers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and people like that. They came from a background [28:00] where frugality was the main thing. And the United States has probably built its industrial wealth on that Puritan background of working hard, of being frugal, and things. There was not any racial thing there. They were purely, mostly all English or French. Now, the other part of the United States background is the southern, and that’s by land grants, by plantations. And they formed the aristocracy in the United States makeup. They’re aristocratic, they built their wealth on land, on cotton, on tobacco, and plantations. But it meant the subjugation of slaves, and these were mostly Africans. And so you found that dichotomy, which lasted until the Civil War and beyond, and that still remains in our conscience and in our thinking processes. I don’t think the blacks have obtained social equality, and that’s not going to happen right away either. And so it’s---it’s an amalgamation process, which is still being done in spite of the Civil War. But it’s coming. But what is being faced now---and these---both elements of these were Anglo-Saxon. One through the land grant, which is aristocrats of England, and then the [30:00] northeast Puritans, who are the working middle---not middle, lower-middle class of England. So you find these two class structures. But beyond that, we have---and what’s maintained our economy, and the reason why we are doing so well today is due to the immigration process. We ourselves---INTERVIEWER: Actually, if we can hold--END OF AUDIO FILE 7 BEGINNING OF TAPE EIGHT 394-Kuwayama-Yeiichi-8 INTERVIEWER: [00:00] Now, you were just talking about the dichotomy between the landed gentry, and then you have the Puritan elements that were more middle class. And then you were talking about the third factor being immigration. Can you actually explain a little bit more about that? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 41 of 45 �KUWAYAMA: Well, immigrant population, as I said, when I lived in New York City, we found all these immigrant groups, such as the Irish, the Russians, the Jews, the Italians, the Germans, the Scandinavians, and all that, and that’s intermingled with those two big Anglo-Saxon strains of the northeast and of the south. And they have made a melting pot. Now, beyond that, the reproduction rate of the basic population of the United States is 1.5. It takes 2.1 to reproduce ourselves, and we are far from that. In Japan, it’s also 1.5, but they have no immigration. So what’s going to happen is that demography continues. By the time the year 3000, there’ll be only 500 Japanese in the whole world. That’s [Inaudible]. But in the United States, due to immigration, that 1.5 has been maintained at 2.5 or so, so we are increasing in population due to immigration. But the nature of our population is going to change if that continues. Now, a lot of things can change that, but the Hispanic group is becoming larger and larger. And if I look at the Schwarzenegger thing, 40 percent were Hispanics, and this is a Republican group. [02:00] Then you find that if the nature of our population becomes Hispanics, it’s going to become very Latinized. The thinking, the culture, and all that maintains quite a bit if that happens. Whether that will happen or not, I don’t know. And the Asians are also increasing in number, but they are a very small percentage of the whole thing. Though America itself is going to change, down to the---down to the Japanese American population. The Japanese American population, like my family, has already---there aren’t any. Kuwayamas are going to disappear. And what I’ll find is a blonde, blue-eyed, Aya Kush is her name. And Sally Page is the other person’s name. There’s no Kuwayama there. There may be Kuwayama blood in both of them, but there’s no Kuwayama there. In your family, it’s Steven Itano Wasserman. If you marry a Caucasian, and probably you have, your family---there’s not going to be any Itanos left in that bloodstream. So the whole population stream of Japanese Americans are going to disappear. And my feeling of the monuments of this history, it’s nice to have as a record. It’s nice to have as a reference point. But the importance of that is going to decrease as such. And I think that’s of historic importance. And I have suffered due to the employment situation and various other things, but it’s a very [04:00] small percentage---there’s 250,000,000 Americans. There’ll be 300,000,000 Americans in maybe another couple of generations. And still, 300,000,000 Americans is still a small pot in the tremendous world population. There are a billion Chinese, a billion Indians, and a billion Indonesians. Population-wise, they are the increasing---and so I don’t know what’s going to happen there. I don’t know what the demographics are. I don’t know if this Pax America, which we are promulgating now as an American superpower and all that, is a viable alternative or not. But the legacy is, without infiltration by other immigrant groups, and particularly, in this case, Japanese, for the Japanese Americans, I think the Japanese American population is bound to disappear as Japanese Americans. I mean, it may be a quarter Japanese, maybe less, but that’s about where it’s going to be. And that’s an increasing phenomenon here. And it’ll be part of the American melting pot. And America is a diverse nation, and I think it’s a great country because it’s so diverse. As I said, I go to these bar mitzvahs, I go to these Italian weddings, I go to an Anglo-Saxon wedding, and they’re all different. So when I hear “American culture,” and I go to these social things, where’s the American culture? [06:00] And you find the Greeks, the Italians, I mean, Pataki, Giuliano, are Italian names. Grasso is an Italian name. New York Stock Exchange. And Kerkorian is a Greek name. And then, who were the generals in the last world war? Eisenhower, This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 42 of 45 �the general of the Army. Who was the naval commander of the Pacific? Kruger, a German name. And maybe that’s good. And who’s the chief of staff just recently in the United States? It was Shinseki, a Japanese American. I mean, it’s wonderful to have a Japanese American as the head of the whole United States Army, but it’s not going to hold. It’s going to disappear. And we may soon have a Hispanic’s name. And we may soon have Catholic presidents, too. We’ve already had one with Kennedy. And so that changes things quite a bit. So we have to face that diversity. And where the Japanese American fits in, I don’t know. We’re---my niece fits in. Will she stay with the Anglo-Saxon [Inaudible]? Will she marry a Jewish person? Or will she marry an Italian person? Or will she marry---and she’ll become a Greek person, she’ll become part of that Greek wedding, or she’ll become part of the Italian wedding. And she’ll become what that particular [Inaudible] group. That won’t be Japanese. That’s long gone. That’s the way it’ll be. And I don’t know where your children will be, [08:00] whether they’ll be Japanese or whether they’ll be Jewish. INTERVIEWER: Well, for me personally, my girlfriend is actually Nisei, and so we’ve been joking about how we’ll have---start the Japanese-Jewish reign, you know? KUWAYAMA: [Laughs] Well then, it may become Japanese [Inaudible]. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, well, exactly, in my case. But I guess one thing I’m kind of curious is, because you’ve talked about the historical importance, at least, of like the 442 in terms of civil rights. Could you explain a little bit more to me what you meant by that? KUWAYAMA: Historical importance is this, that during this last war, which we are in, we are in a war against terrorism. That’s what Bush says, anyway. There’s no nation involved in that. It’s a war against--and it’s a nebulous concept. What is terrorism? What comprises terrorism? And if we say it’s a religion, it’s Islam, or whether it’s a country, Iraq, or what. I don’t know. Whether it extends back to Indonesia, which is an Islamic nation, or not, I don’t know. But I think the Japanese American experience has been such that we are no longer going, hopefully, no longer target a certain racial group as our thing. And hopefully we will not target Arabs, or not target Islam, or not target Jews. That’s that. That may be the legacy, that we will be much more cosmopolitan. [10:00] And if we are to pursue a Pax America, we are going to find that as our casualties mount, that we are already trying to outsource our fighting power. In other words, we find in Colombia, for example, three hostages, which are American. But who did they work for? Not the United States government or US Army, they worked for a private company. And are we going to send the US Army to save those three men who worked for a private company, who were hired to do the drug trade in Colombia? I don’t know whether we should send---I don’t--In my case, I went in the Army when we earned $21 a month, and later on it became $70 a month, and we were asked to sacrifice our lives on that pay. Today, we’re giving much larger salaries for much larger units of things to protect our thing---I don’t know how much these---what we’re doing for these foreign troops, Turkish troops, or Polish troops, or whatever, how much we’re contributing to them or not. But we’re asking them to do things, take risks, and whether This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 43 of 45 �we’re going to form a Pax America on the basis of mercenaries or not, I don’t know. And whether it is wise to do so. Are we going to still---I don’t know how much the Army is paying privates today, maybe $200 or $300 a month. But that’s the way it is. And to sacrifice that, or whether we should pay [12:00] all these guys who are getting $50,000 or $100,000 a year to go to Iraq as mercenaries to be the cooks, to supply the hospitals, to do protective things for our Army and Navy or not, I don’t know. And whether it should be---I mean, we say that we’re sending 145,000 men in Iraq, but how many in our auxiliary forces are we expending in that purpose? I think that’s the legacy. The legacy is that we are, admittedly, a diverse nation, and I think the general population has come to the point where we’ll accept a diverse nation rather than a single race. And I think if that can be accomplished, it’d be a good thing. INTERVIEWER: So, in closing, is there any advice or any---that you would like to leave for future generations? Anything that you’ve learned in life, in combat, or values that have been handed down to you in any form? Since I know a lot were unspoken, but I still have a very strong feeling that you did have a lot of values that you did gain throughout life, that you would like to leave to any future generations. KUWAYAMA: Well, you know, as I said, I went to school where I was the only Asian. I joined the 442 nd and found myself surrounded by Japanese Americans [14:00] completely. First time in doing that. First time I was seeing---I’m eating rice for breakfast, for example. What was the question now? INTERVIEWER: Any advice that you would like to leave for future generations? KUWAYAMA: I think human nature, although we all are alike, are good and bad people, and it’s a matter of population pressure. In China, they restricted a family to one child per family. Whether they were able to enforce that, I don’t know, the forced abortions and things like that. Population pressures are going to be great, but the main thing, I think, for the United States is that we have to accept diversity, and we have to accept a willingness to get along and a recognition that we’re all humans and that the emotions are very similar and that we have to provide for the ambitions. [16:00] But that there’s a still a world around us who have not received the benefits that the United States has received. And whether we can continue on that basis, I’m not so sure. And whether we can accept that as a continuum of our humanity, I’m no so sure. And whether we want to or not, I’m not so sure. I go to church, and I see the comment about a woman, and she was working, and she said, “I have to work to maintain my living.” And I said, “There are people who live in dirt floor shacks who are maintaining a living.” Where do you have to go? Do you have to have three cars? Where is our standard? And what should we do to maintain it? I think we have to do a lot of soul-searching on that basis. And whether we are willing to accept it or not, and whether, in so doing, is that the wise thing to do. I was always impressed by that colony, there was a box of two [18:00] mice, I think, a male and a female, and they were given all the food and water they needed. And it increased to something like 500 or 700, and suddenly it stopped. And then it decreased, and in the end all of them died, and so there was nothing left. Even the two who started it were gone. This is a planet This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 44 of 45 �with limited resources. Whether we’re going along the same way or not, I’m not sure. But there is that example, and I think you read about it. Or whether they should continue this striving or not, I’m not sure. And whether---and my thing, too, is that I would like to leave something behind. As Cary Grant said when he had his---he died without any children, and suddenly he had a child, and he said, “This is for eternity.” And was very happy, and then he died. I don’t know what happened to his child or not---what happened to his wife then. But anyway, that’s what happened. Whether our own egos have to have something, or whether we are willing to go without that ego and be aware of the whole world’s population, or whether we should be. Or whether we should just contain ourselves within ourselves and just go along on that basis. But we can’t control the whole world’s resources, as we are doing [20:00] now. I don’t know, it’s a little bit beyond me. But the main thing is diversity. And Pax America, whether we want to continue it or not, and whether the costs will merit it. And if we do, can we impose it? And is democracy such a wonderful thing? It’s a very costly thing, and whether it can be maintained is something else. And whether all other nations want it. I mean, we put it up as an example. I’ve preached on at length, due to your questions [Laughs] I could go on further, after I think more and more of it, but at the present time, that’s what. INTERVIEWER: Well, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts, though. I mean, I think it is very important in terms of people being able to embrace diversity. KUWAYAMA: I think the treatment of the Islam people will be a test. And whether we can get along with most people hating America, because the Islam people, of course, do. But the fact that Germany and France are against us. And Russia, of course. And I don’t know how China and India is. But if you go to those countries today, they hate America. That’s what we are. And up to now, America was respected, was loved, but [22:00] I don’t know if that’s any longer true. And wherever Americans went, you know, we were respected. But now I don’t know. INTERVIEWER: Thank you very much for allowing us to interview you. KUWAYAMA: I appreciate it. END OF AUDIO FILE 8 This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 45 of 45 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Yeiichi Kuwayama oral history interview, October 12, 2003 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Yeiichi Kuwayama oral history interview transcript [full interview], October 12, 2003 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kuwayama, Yeiichi: narrator Wasserman, Steven: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcriptions Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Extent The size or duration of the resource. 45 pages, typescript Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-10-12 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2003OH0394_T_Kuwayama https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/983d3c430c9136088c7d28ab1d20af6d.pdf 35cf1ad9cce5579b8b37b9abe1cf35d6 PDF Text Text Go For Broke National Education Center Oral History Project Oral History Interview with Fred Murakami, June 27, 1999, Arlington, Virginia 070-Murakami-Fred-1 INTERVIEWER: [00:00] Okay. Today is June 27th, 1999. We're here in Arlington, Virginia, interviewing Fred Murakami. On camera is Kenji Luster. On audio and cataloguing is Ian Kawata, and interviewing is Joy Iwata. Could you please state your full name for us? MURAKAMI: Fred Kazou Murakami. INTERVIEWER: And when were you born? MURAKAMI: On February 21st, 1924. INTERVIEWER: And where were you born? MURAKAMI: Berkeley, California. INTERVIEWER: Is that where you grew up? MURAKAMI: Yes, I lived there until we were evacuated in 1942. INTERVIEWER: What did your father do for a living? MURAKAMI: My father was a domestic, I guess you would call him a domestic. He worked in various wealthy families, cooking, gardening, housework, and that was his---early days, that's what he was doing. INTERVIEWER: And your mother? MURAKAMI: Mother was a housewife. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 1 of 29 �INTERVIEWER: Did you have any siblings? MURAKAMI: Yes, an older sister, May Sugihara, a younger brother, George, and a younger sister, Jean Lum. INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me a little bit about what life was like growing up in Berkeley as a child? MURAKAMI: Generally, I would categorize my family as a typical Japanese American family, which meant that the father was the head of the family, and he directed every, [02:00] almost every aspect of our lives. And we were going to school, so much of the child was similar to others. And I don't---there was very little communication. One of the---as I look back, one of the very---what I consider a shortcoming was that Dad and my mother spoke very little or communicated to us very little about what had happened to them. So how they got to, you know, how they immigrated to the United States, and it's been a sort of a---unfortunately, both my parents are deceased, so it's very difficult to reconstruct how they came over here, and some of the stories that I would have been interested in finding out. But, again, I think, similar to other Japanese American Nisei families, there was very little, as I am repeating again, communication. The only time I ever heard my dad speak to us when we he was scolding us. So there was very little back and forth communication. So in that environment, unlike families of today and even in my family, where I try to communicate with the two sons that I have, I try to, I would consider that as a---not knowing what happened---a negative as far as my life is [04:00] concerned. Now, it may be also because I left home very early. Once I, well, went out to school from the camp, I never lived at home again, and that was at the age of 16 or 15, 16 years old. So that may also be part of it, that I never learned very much about the past of my parents. INTERVIEWER: So what did---did you have school activities that you were able to do or . . . MURAKAMI: Well, I also should mention, at the age of five or six, my mother took the four of us to Japan because of the ailing---her mother. And my dad stayed behind, and we stayed in Japan for about a year, a little over a year. And during that time, I did attend a Japanese school for that time, the first grade or so. And some of the---I can still recollect some of the experiences that I underwent, because living in Wakayama, in the country, these country folks never saw Niseis, and we were sort of a novelty. And one of the---I can still vividly remember the times that we went to, that I went to a barbershop, and where---as you can probably imagine, most of the Japanese kids, especially schoolchildren, had the haircut that was---well, they very rarely---they didn’t have any long hair. And so I This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 2 of 29 �could see in front of the window of a barbershop [06:00] all the kids gathering to see what they would do with my hair. And, of course, at that time, I had a lot of hair. But anyway, that was the---I don't know why I always remember that experience. And I also realize during that early days that I---you know, we in the United States were a little ahead of the Japanese school kids in terms of math. And I was good at math, but I couldn't read Japanese and do some of the other kinds of things that kids in Japan would do. But, as I said, our stay was very limited. And the strange thing was, when I got---when we got to Japan, we didn’t speak a word of Japanese. And by the time the year and a half lapsed, we were unable to speak English. So we had completely---I guess that can teach you that in the early days, it's easy to learn, easy to forget. And when I came, when we came back, I had to go back into the first grade, where I should've been in second or third grade, because I wasn’t able to speak English. So that was the early days that stand out. Some of the other events have sort of passed me by. I don't recall very much what happened. INTERVIEWER: What was it like, then, interacting with the Japanese children? Did they treat you a little different because . . . MURAKAMI: Yeah. Oh, yeah, very definitely. In fact, when we first got there, I think they sort of kind of want to beat us up. [Laughs] But as time went on and when we became part of their, so to speak, their group, it was much easier. [08:00] And it's strange, as I indicate, how the language changed. And also, when we heard that we were going to Japan, we didn't want to go, and we cried and wanted to stay home, so to speak. But once we were there and it was time for us to go back, we didn't want to go back to the United States. We wanted to stay there. And I can still remember after we got back to the United States that every so often we would pack our suitcases and tell our parents that, "We want to go back to Japan.” Of course, after six months or a year, we then became--back into the American environment. So that was an experience that I well remember. Some of the other details I've forgotten, but---and it was not very comfortable living, I can still remember that, out in the country of Wakayama where, as I indicate, they very rarely saw foreigners. The toilet facilities, the washing, it was very antique. And that was another experience that we had to undergo, and that wasn't very easy. So from a city life to a very countrified life was not an easy thing to do. But, again, as I indicate, once we were there for a while, we became part of it. INTERVIEWER: Great. So did your parents---when you were first growing up, they spoke English to you? Or did you speak Japanese at home? MURAKAMI: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 3 of 29 �Mostly, my mother spoke Japanese. My father was a type of individual that wanted to learn, so he went to [10:00] English classes. And so, to the extent that he could, we spoke English to him. But I guess it would be multi-language. We spoke Japanese to Mom and to Dad it was, like, any---also, my dad was able to write quite well, too. And one of the things that I always remember, which I was thankful for, was my dad was very religious. Unlike some of the immigrants that came over who were Buddhists, my dad was converted very early to Christianity, and he was a leader in the church. And so that influence was given to us, so that very early we were brought up in a very devout Methodist family. So that influenced the way that our life was as far as the future was concerned. And that was another reason why, very early in my camp life at Topaz, I went back east, because the church, the Free Methodist Church, allowed to provide scholarships or tuition assistance to those individuals that they felt would, you know, qualify for Christian training. And so the school that I attended was what they called, at that time, a seminary, preparing individuals for the ministry. How---and in my case, though, I wasn't interested in that. But that again, [12:00] the time that I spent there influenced my life because the seminary were very, very conservative. That was another experience that I underwent that was really an eye-opening experience. But I'm sort of getting ahead. That's more into my high school and the early days of my college. But, again, going back to our family life, I think that it could be said that Dad was the dominating factor. We didn't do anything unless we asked him. INTERVIEWER: Did you go to Japanese language school? MURAKAMI: Yes. Again, because it was a church-run Japanese school, my dad was quite influential. Actually, people in Berkeley were not well-versed in Japanese---kids of our age. It was unlike those that lived in San Francisco, as an example. San Francisco, generally children there were quite well versed in Japanese. Berkeley, for whatever reason, they were not. And because we were---at least I was forced to go, my learning capacity was very limited. But we had to go every day. INTERVIEWER: How did you feel about being a Japanese American growing up? Did you face any discrimination? MURAKAMI: Well, you know, again, very early, I was influenced in a way that---I guess there's a part of my dad's upbringing, my [14:00] dad's, my mom's upbringing of the children. And they weren't so much---as I say, communication was limited, so they never said that, you know, "You're going to"---you know, as I hear from others about haji and those words that we hear so often nowadays. But again, to an extent it was taught, but the idea of discrimination---and I'm sure that it---you know, from the stories that I read, it was quite rampant on the West Coast. But I personally didn't take all that to heart. And again, This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 4 of 29 �maybe it's because---maybe naïveness, I decided very early that those kinds of things I wouldn't have enter into my life. I did that probably unconsciously, but that has always been my watchword, so to speak. And when I went into---when I started to work and everything, I never felt that, or very rarely did I feel that I was being discriminated upon. And it was very difficult for me to understand all that when I hear about it. And I think, generally, at that time, kids of my age never felt that. That's---I think we lived our life just like you, you know, the people or kids of today. And I don't--INTERVIEWER: Did you--MURAKAMI: ---think that the---we were just going to school, so, you know, discrimination, prejudice was---I don't think---because I was also very active in the student administration. I was student body president, things like that which I [16:00] pursued that would indicate to me that there wasn't any biases. So as I indicated earlier, that all through my life, bias, prejudice, has not always entered into my life. INTERVIEWER: Can you explain what haji means? MURAKAMI: Haji is a shame. You should never bring, you know, embarrassment to the family. And again, I'm sure that that was, you know, told to us by our parents just like, I think, most Japanese families were very conscious of things like---and that's why---like bringing, shall we say, people would talk bad against us. We were always told to avoid things that would do that. But I guess that's one of the famous or most sought after, sought kind of thing, word, that the Japanese family at that time was brought up in. INTERVIEWER: You mentioned that you were student body president. MURAKAMI: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Was that for your high school? MURAKAMI: Yeah. I was always active in the student administration, class president, class treasurer, class, all kinds of things. I don't know, I've always leaned toward that. And I generally--you know, I'm the other---opposite of a person that's a loner. I'm very, you know, gregarious. I like people and I had no problems, you know, be it black, white, or---you know, that never entered into my realm of thinking. [18:00] So that again indicated to me that, you know, kids generally are not, you know, don't have discrimina[tion] prejudices very early. They kind of do---if they do have it, they sort of develop it as time goes on. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 5 of 29 �INTERVIEWER: What do you think the racial mix of your friends were then? MURAKAMI: Well, they were---well, we had blacks. At that time Hispanics, Mexicans, were not as abundant as we have them now. But the blacks were certainly, and in Berkeley High School, we did have our share of the black. But again, to an extent, the blacks were down at the, you know, where the Japanese people were living. So we all attended the--because there was still some in the, up on the hill, there was kind of, at that time certainly, the mostly whites. So there was some, I guess you would call it, lines where or areas where people, different types of people, would be living. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember how you heard about the bombing at Pearl Harbor? MURAKAMI: Well, it was Sunday, if I recall. And we had just come back from church, and that's where we heard about the bombing. And again, really, being kids, it didn't really have an impact, or it didn't say very much. Huh, we're going back to war? Of course, our parents were concerned, you know, as to how it would impact [20:00] us. But personally, as far as I was concerned, I didn't have any---it didn't affect me that much. But again, as time went on, because of Executive Order 9066, I guess it is, and the rest of it, when then it came that we would have to relocate, that certainly did have some kind of an influence on us, on me. INTERVIEWER: Can you expand a little bit about that and how you felt when you heard that you were going to be sent to the internment camps? MURAKAMI: Well, at first I didn't---you know, it was hard to believe that something like that would happen. It was unthinkable that we would have to, you know, get up, take everything and get out. And that, the initial shock, and then, as time went on and when we had to get all the---you know, get, pack up and go, that certainly did have some kind of an influence on---and I think that those kinds of experiences, it didn't impact at that time, but later in life I think those---that experience certainly was something that did influence the way that we began to think. And I'm sure it influenced our decision, the bigger things in life. But, again, being a kid, you know, it was---when we went to camp, it was an opportunity to have a good time, you know. We'd line up in the mess hall. I thought that was, you know, an experience. Eat with other people, and that was a lot of fun. [22:00] But I'm sure that, you know, for our parents, it was no doubt a very humiliating experience. And I'm sorry that---like, my parents are deceased---that they were not able to enjoy some of the fruits, so to speak, of, you know, how life is now a little bit better than what it was for them in terms of employment, in terms of where they're able to live, This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 6 of 29 �and how they're able to enjoy life, so to speak. Because for most of them, their lives were tough. Tough. It wasn't easy for them. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. I'd like to expand on that in a little bit. But could you tell me a little bit about your journey to camp and what that was like and where you started off? MURAKAMI: I think, well, the Executive Order 9066 did get us moving. And, if I recall, somewhere around in April or May of 1942, we all had to gather. I can still recall very vividly carrying suitcases and going to a central location in Berkeley, and from there we were put on buses. We heard that we were going to Tanforan, but that was---you know, Tanforan was far away as far as I was concerned, we were, the children were concerned. And then when we got to camp, I could still remember that we got off, and they assembled us and gave us marching orders, so to speak, where we were supposed to go, [24:00] and what we were supposed to do. Certainly the experience of living in a very limited space was something that was very difficult to handle. And also, having the community toilets and community shower, that was another experience that was initially sort of hard to take. Of course, while in high school, we used to have, you know, the places where we’d take a shower and public bathing. But I'm sure to the parents who never went through that experience, it was difficult to handle. And I think that certainly the women folks had to suffer the most, because privacy was something that was gone forever or for that period of time, anyway. And the ability to live with others was indeed something that needed to be learned, and to some that was very difficult to contend with. As I indicated, the public bathhouse, showers, the toilets, eating in the same mess hall with all, hundreds of people, those are ex[periences]--- [25:25] END OF AUDIO FILE 1 BEGINNING OF TAPE TWO 070-Murakami-Fred-2 INTERVIEWER: [00:00] All right. Yeah, could you expand a little bit about your assembly center experience going to the internment camps? MURAKAMI: Yeah. Well, let me start by saying that there were a number of what they call assembly centers, and that those places were temporary. Generally, most of the permanent camps were still being built. So that was a temporary holding area. And those that went--generally it was by geographical location. Those that went to Tanforan mostly came from the East Bay area---San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond, and the like. As far as Tanforan was concerned, it's formerly a racetrack. And as we were assigned This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 7 of 29 �there, one of the jokes that was always told was that those that lived in the stables, horse stables, were very easily identified because of their smell. Because in Tanforan there were horse stables and also barracks that were built. And the people that were living in the barracks were the ones that were more, quote, “fortunate,” because they didn't have the smell, among other things. And it was unfortunate, but that was sort of--and people laughed about it. But one of the things that was surprising there though is that very early there were individuals who were considered the leaders, and they began to have some activity. Like, I can still remember they had what they call amateur hours. People with talent would go up, and every week or so we would have some kind of an act, a [02:00] show going on. So very early they began to organize. Well, one of the things that it was very difficult to start up was the schools. And if I remember, maybe during the last week or last month or so of our stay there, schools became operational. But again, as you can well imagine, they were very limited in scope. There was no lab---yes. INTERVIEWER: Pause real quick. I'm going to fix your jacket. MURAKAMI: Oh, yeah. CREW MEMBER: I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I saw your jacket--MURAKAMI: Yeah. But, again, as I said, like any organization or group, there are leaders appear. And they began to realize that, hey, this is something that's going to continue. And even though this was a temporary assembly center, a temporary holding place, that they needed to get some activity. So as time went on, they began to do some things for us. And one of the first, certainly the first things that they did was to try to set up a school. And I can vaguely remember that it was---there's individuals that had volunteered to teach. Mostly those that had graduated college or were in college were teaching. So, again, one of the things that they certainly learned was that they needed to keep the children, kids, interested, keep them from just going to the recreation centers and playing. So again, it wasn't too long, I think, that they started to move people out, in August of 1942, [04:00] when they---and most of the people in Tanforan were relocated to Topaz. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Can I ask a little bit more about how the experience was for a Nisei in an internment camp versus an Issei? MURAKAMI: Oh, well, again, I would say that---again, there certainly were a division. The parents, our Isseis, our parents, were very I would say discouraged with the thought of leaving. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 8 of 29 �Because unlike most, many of the children of today, these are the---our parents, the Isseis really had to struggle. They had to do---when they worked, it was not any skilled work, and mostly, most all of them were working as laborers. Certainly there were others that were in the farming business, and they were beginning to create some, shall we say, beginning to become main players, so to speak, in the farming industry. But generally, those that lived in the cities, they had to---they were limited in terms of what they can do. It wasn't any white collar workers. Most of them were, as I indicated, laborers. So it was a tough struggle. They earned every penny of what they earned. And so, unlike what today is---[06:00] they were the ones that really, after working for years and maybe beginning to accumulate a few dollars, then they were told they no longer were able to continue with their employment. And, of course, many of them were not English speaking, so, again, that also was a barrier that they had to overcome. And very little communication came from the federal government as to what their future holds. I don't know, maybe even a future, as far as the future was concerned, the government didn't know either. They didn’t know if they're going to win the war or not, but the Isseis especially, they were---initially, I'm sure, many of them though that they were all going to be shipped back to Japan. And so with those kinds of things that are hanging over them, going to the---it was a very difficult time for them. As far as Niseis were concerned, now, I would think that it also was a problem, but is less, not as much, because I'm sure that some thoughts were being given to the idea of, possibility of joining the military, for the Niseis. And that may, you know, to an extent, open up other kinds of opportunities. But, again, it was a period of time when very little was known as far as what, you know, the future was to be like. So going to camp was not always a very encouraging---well, it was a depressing period of time. But as time [08:00] went on, and, again, unfortunately for me, or fortunately, I wasn't in camp long enough to see what happened to them. But I'm sure that the Isseis---because I could---they were also very willing to do things and make the camp more of a community, to the extent possible. So, you know, things, schools became---again, even though it was limited, and especially in terms of things like this, like schools still had athletic events. Maybe they didn't have the laboratory equipment and things, but it became something that was almost what I call a thriving community. Again, people were paid a nominal sum for working, but I think that the Isseis were able to say, hey, this is what we need. You know, we're going to be here for a while, let's make it, you know, the best possible, you know, let's see what we can do. And then, as the war shifted to America's favor, it became quite a bit easier for those that were willing to leave camp to get out. So that, again, I'm not able to say too much about that, because I wasn't there very long. INTERVIEWER: How long were you at Topaz? MURAKAMI: Well, Topaz, I was there for about three months. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 9 of 29 �INTERVIEWER: And where did you go after that? MURAKAMI: I went to Rochester, New York, to a school that I indicated, a seminary, [10:00] where it--the reason I was able to go, first of all, was because my dad was very active in the Free Methodist, the church that we went to. And that was part of a group of churches, and they also operated institutions, so to speak, especially in the Midwest and in the East. So as soon as I went to Tanforan, I guess the church was able to indicate that they were going to get about half a dozen of the students that were going to high school to go back to the school back East. And that was one of the ones that I applied for it, and they accepted me, so my time in Topaz was very limited. INTERVIEWER: How did your family feel, then, about you leaving? MURAKAMI: Well, I'm sure that they didn't really want me to go, but knowing that they were going to be in camp, and here's an opportunity to continue schooling, they certainly let me go. And as I indicated, I think we were the very first group to leave from Topaz. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what it was like being in Rochester while the war was still going on? MURAKAMI: Well, actually, it wasn't really in the town of Rochester. The school was located about 15 miles from Rochester, New York, and it was in more of a country setting, a very small---I would consider it a village, like. And [12:00] to say the least, I'm sure that the village people were very surprised when they heard that we were there. And, to an extent, I think, as I heard later, they weren't necessarily for Japanese---because I was not the only one. I went with another person, a fellow, friend of mine from Berkeley. So there were two of us that went out together. And when we got to the institution, the school, there were three others---two brothers and another, I guess there were another two girls. So we became half---again, there were six of us, initially, in a school that was very small. So it was a big story as far as the community was concerned. And as I said, initially there was some opposition to it, because all they knew back there---they never---most of them never saw a Japanese American. All they saw was these pictures in the local newspaper of the enemy, so to speak, caricatures of Tojo. And so we were put into that category. So very early in our stay there, we were not able to move around freely in the community. But again, the school had---that was a community unto itself. And one of the pluses that we had was that the students welcomed us with open arms. In fact, they really made us feel as part of their, part of them. And so there was very [04:00] little discrimination or prejudice within the school. Again, the school, I think there were only This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 10 of 29 �about 350 kids, so. But then as we became part of it---and I think athletics played a part in it, that we all, all of the Nisei kids, so to speak, were athletically inclined. So that sort of brought us together. And all of us, all of the Niseis, worked at the school. I was a dishwasher, worked in the kitchen, so to speak, even waited on tables. The other fellows, girls, they worked, some of them---most of the fellows worked on the farm. They had their own gardening. In fact, I think one of the reasons why the other two fellows were selected was they had experience in farming. Garden farming. And one of the things, the projects that they undertook, was to build or to put together a garden with, you know, tomatoes and---so that they can feed the kids. So working and playing and studying certainly helped us to, so to speak, integrate. The community, as time went on, began to accept us. However, I can still recall one of my experiences that I had. When we---it was very difficult for the community to accept any kind of fraternization. In other words, fellows couldn't necessarily, you know, date Caucasian [16:00] girls. I, personally, along with the fellow that I went out with, we would, you know, walk around with some girls, and there was a time or so that we were reported to the dean of women, and we were told we shouldn't do that. But again, as time went on, they began to see that as a routine, and they didn't think too much of it later. But those were experiences. Again, when you think about it, here are six Japanese Americans, and at that time, the school was lily white. So all students were all white. There was not a black student or any student of color there. So we were the first ones to enter school there, and plus the war with Japan certainly made it very---it's understandable, to an extent, that the community would not necessarily all support us at the beginning. And another thing that made it kind of difficult was that the institution was very conservative. Movies were prohibited, certainly drinking, you couldn't be seen as the bar. Women folks couldn't wear jewelry, And it was very difficult, because we were coming from an environment that had no restrictions, and when we were told that we couldn't do all these kinds of things---there's another example. When we played basketball, men folks couldn't wear shorts. They would have to wear sweatpants. They couldn't expose any of their [18:00] flesh part of the body. And their teachings were very, very conservative. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Before we move on to you joining the Army, is there anything else you might like to talk about, your prewar experience or pre-Army experience? MURAKAMI: Well, let me---this is not---this is some of the thoughts that I had about evacuation, internment, you know. When I, some 50 years later, I guess---why did the internment camp come to being? Why did the, whatever you want to call it, internment camp, This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 11 of 29 �relocation centers, concentration camp, why did it come to pass? And I think, and I did some research on that, and I think there's a number of factors that played a role. First of all, it's very evident that there were, from the very early in American history, that there was a bias or prejudice about the Asians, Orientals, as you call it. First, there was--they would allow them to come in---first it was the Chinese. And the Chinese would--they let them in without any quotas, but eventually they had to put up a quota or restrict them entirely. Then the Japanese also fell into the same situation, because---one of the reasons why was they would take, work these menial jobs, so to speak, and do a good job, [20:00] and then they would take away jobs from the Caucasian. So eventually these things, these kinds of situations, would result in laws being passed that would exclude them. So when the war struck, that gave reasons for all those that are on the West Coast, particularly, to say, hey, you know, we got to---these Japanese Americans, when Japanese were a danger to our society, to the war effort. So certainly there's a past as far, excluding them, so that was reason number one. Reason number two was because, when you think about the Japanese Americans, Japanese, they were few in number. There were only 120,000 or so that were primarily on the West Coast, and in terms of the overall structure of things, that was very few. And they had very few leaders, especial[ly]---well, they didn't have any leaders as far as state government or even the federal. So they had very little to say when it came up to Congress or anything about the Japanese American---there was no, shall we say, advocacy group. So that was another reason, because they were few in number. The third point was that the Japanese Americans, one of the characteristics of them was that they were always very respectful of authority. So when told that you needed to do something from people of authority, they did it very obediently and meekly. So that's why, another reason why they had very [22:00] little opposition to the evacuation, because of their---the way that we were all brought up. And so all these factors played a part in making it almost easy to say, okay, you guys are going to be evacuated or, you know, sent into camp. So I think that, unfortunately, there were---the time was that we had no voice in government. At that time, there was a glass---talk about a glass ceiling. College graduates were, you know, laborers. And I'm sure that some of the earlier interview, people that were interviewed who were a little bit older than I am would tell you about some of the embarrassments that they had to undergo, even though they had better qualification than those that were being---and that was for any kind of white collar job. So I'm sure that that---at least those were some of the reasons Ihat the evacuation and internment came to pass. So, that's . . . INTERVIEWER: Okay. Yeah. MURAKAMI: Okay. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 12 of 29 �INTERVIEWER: Did you enlist in the Army or were you drafted? MURAKAMI: Okay. Well, I was just about to graduate from---put in my two year[s]---I put in a year or so of high school, and about year or two years, well, again, not quite two years. So I was about ready to move, [24:00] go graduate from the seminary when I received my draft notice. And I was induct[ed]---I was told to report to Fort Dix, New Jersey, and that's where I was inducted. And during the process, even earlier than that, I had heard about the MIS [Military Intelligence Service] Language School, and I took some tests and I'm---no doubt, I just barely passed my Japanese, because from the time that I, you know, evacuation and the time that I went to school out in New York, there was very little contact with anybody that were Japanese. So speaking Japanese was almost unheard of. But I did pass it, and they did ask me to report to Fort Snelling in I guess it was about September of 1945. No, it's 1944. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Where did you serve your basic training at? MURAKAMI: I served for six months, went to Fort McClellan, Alabama, after which we went---for basic training, then went to Fort Snelling and was there for, went under language training for about six months. INTERVIEWER: Your---I'm sorry, your MIS training was six months? Or just your basic? MURAKAMI: Yeah, right. The basic training was only---it was abbreviated training of about three months. INTERVIEWER: Can you describe a little bit about the MIS Language School training that you got? MURAKAMI: Well, as I indicated earlier, [26:00] language school was broken up into various classes, and it was dependent on your ability to speak English and speak Japanese. And at that time, if I remember correctly, I was in a class that was primarily strong in English, weak in Japanese, in a class of about 20 other students. But they were---I think that what happened there was that much of the training was getting, it was more training towards occupation duties than military, because the war was beginning to look like it was going to end. And we were being prepared more for occupation duties rather than combat duty, so. [27:07] END OF AUDIO FILE 2 This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 13 of 29 �BEGINNING OF TAPE THREE 070-Murakami-Fred-3 INTERVIEWER: [00:00] How did you feel about being drafted? MURAKAMI: Well, the way I felt, why I wanted to go in, because many of the fellows in the school that I was going to were also going, being drafted or volunteering. So it kind of felt like, well, I ought to do something. I ought to be able to move, do the same thing. And I don't know if that was patriotism or just the fact that I didn't want to be left out kind of a feeling. And so when the draft notice came, even though my parents were in camp, I didn't get the same kind of a feeling that some of the other guys---I guess you'd call them draft resisters---felt. I was with the groups that were---you know, I heard stories about what kind of an experience they were going through, so being drafted didn't bother me a bit. In fact, I was ready to join. And that's why, to an extent, when I hear about the draft resisters---and, you know, there's a big movement now to reconcile with the draft resisters and also apologize, I sort of look back and say, well---now I can feel that there should be reconciliation with them. But at that time, back in those days, I heard about some elements in camps, you know, putting up a lot of, you know, demonstrating. I thought, gee, they're a bunch of---I didn't necessarily go along with them. So, yeah, I was ready to get a break from going to school [02:00] and joining the military. And one of the experiences that I still recall was, as I indicated, I was in a very conservative environment, and then go into the military, where anything went, so to speak, that was a big change for me. CREW MEMBER: Do we need to put your microphone on? INTERVIEWER: Okay. I'm sorry. CREW MEMBER: Okay. INTERVIEWER: How did your family feel about you being in camp, I mean, being in the Army? MURAKAMI: Well, again, being away from them for several years, by that time, I didn't hear too many, you know, too much from them. Rather, they didn't maybe necessarily like the idea, but there was very little said, because I went from the school to the military. And so, I don't---there was very little communication. INTERVIEWER: Were they still in the camp? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 14 of 29 �MURAKAMI: Yeah, they were still in camp, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Going back to the MIS Language School, do you think that you got enough training? MURAKAMI: Oh, let me also interject here as far as the language school. One of the, shall we say, prob[lem]---well, not problem, was there were a large group of Hawaiians, and that was another experience. It always seemed to me that they had a chip on their shoulders. They were coming from Hawaii, and I guess they considered us stateside guys aloof, kind of better than them. And so there was some friction [04:00], shall we say, in the barracks. But, again, you begin to work---when you go to school together and play with them together, that sort of became, you know, part of the game. And I think eventually we were able to get along. But that was another assimilation, I guess. And I think that I read later on that, certainly, that was an adjustment that needed to take place. But, again, I think that when you went---one of the things that I've learned in MIS--Well, let me go back to my Japanese. I had some training, so I can speak a little bit and read a little bit, but, as I said, much of what was taught there was, you know, kind of going to simulate wartime conditions and, you know, how to interrogate prisoners, you know, what to do with a translation of documents, those kinds of things. And so I---and much of---well, all of what I went through was the occupation, and that was entirely different. Yeah, there's a difference in language almost, with the military versus just your common day-to-day occurrences. So, again, they couldn't move from one to the other very quickly, and so when I went to Japan and had to go to places like the Radio Tokyo and to the [06:00] scientific view, it certainly didn't prepare me for that, and it wasn't very---fortunately, there were others that could do that, other interpreters, translators. So, as far as I was concerned, the training there was not very proficient. INTERVIEWER: So what was your first assignment after completing the language school? MURAKAMI: Oh, we were one of the---as the war ended, we were one of the first groups to be sent overseas, and they assigned us to the Philippines, where they were gathering. The war had ended, so that was the holding area, so to speak, for all these combat soldiers, interpreters, and translators that were scattered all over the Pacific. And so that was where they were. The Niseis were either going to be transferred to the United States for discharge or be assigned to places in Japan for the occupation duties. So as far as I was concerned, we were going, we knew that we were going to eventually be in Japan. So the occupation was our first assignment. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 15 of 29 �How did you feel or how did the Japanese people feel towards you, that you met? MURAKAMI: Well, I think that certainly in the early days they couldn't understand why we, as Japanese, would be in American uniforms. And it was sort of, like, [08:00] you know, how can you do that? It was a disgrace. But, again, being American citizens, we were able to, to the extent that we could, talk with the people and tell them our side of the story. But I think generally they didn't take it very well. So we became a kind of a curiosity. I can still remember as we walked from our billet where we were sleeping, I guess, to where we were working, we would---people would gather around us and ask a lot of questions. Yeah, it was an experience that was---but, again, it was something that, after a time, it became known why we were there. INTERVIEWER: Did you have any conflicted feelings about being there, since I'm assuming you had some relatives there? MURAKAMI: Oh, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Did you--MURAKAMI: Well, again, you know, during the childhood, as I indicated, we were there in Japan for a year. Of course, we were living in the country, and so we didn’t know---we weren't in a place like Tokyo. But again, one of the problems or one of the situations was that much of the buildings---it was the devastation. It was amazing. It was just, you know, kids and people begging for food, and certainly that was something that was hard to take, because on the one hand, we’d say, hey, we're Americans. But on the other hand, you know, we're Japanese, too. So we were very---at least I was very---most of us were very sympathetic. [10:00] And we tried to do things to help them out. And, of course, the Japanese were under the impression that we, you know, had a lot of things that we could give them, money and things, because we were the victors on one hand, but we were always considered as a country that was full of wealth. And so they were---it was a pitiful sight, really. And to see the end of the war and the devastation in Japan versus 25 years later, that which they have done, it was an amazing thing for me. INTERVIEWER: Were the Japanese people at that time already looking towards rebuilding the area after the devastation? Or what was the climate like? MURAKAMI: Well, the climate was very, I'm sure very disappointed. [Inaudible] Well, the climate was depressing, I'm sure. And I don't know if they ever, at that time, thought that it was ever going to be back, you know, to what it was before. But, as time went on, I'm sure that This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 16 of 29 �they realized that they had to---it was something that was done and they had to rebuild. And the United States certainly played a major role in their rebuilding, poured a lot of money in there. So, again, Japan, I think, on the one hand, they're not the type---I think some of the spirit that prevailed in the Isseis also was certainly ingrained in the Japanese, that they needed to build again and do the best they can. [12:00] And I think the results have been certainly indicative of that. INTERVIEWER: What were your duties during the occupation? MURAKAMI: Well, as I indicated earlier, my first assignment was in Radio Tokyo as an interpreter translator. I was a Technician 4th Grade, which was equivalent to being a sergeant and which would indicate that there was some ability to translate, to interpret. But when thrown in there, into Radio Tokyo, it was a very difficult task. The translation would---as far as assignments were concerned, they would give you a newspaper, and you would have to translate a newspaper, and that wasn't easy to do. Interpreting was for officers with generally some experience in education and in the arts, and they would be bringing in people of the same caliber, so to say, ilk so to speak, and converse, and you would have to be the interpreter. Again, not easy to do. So as far as the duties were concerned, not easy, for me anyway. I often wonder why they sent me there. But anyway, it was an experience that lasted for about six months, and then I was assigned to [14:00] the economic, scientific section of General Headquarters, and, again, into the interpreter pool where there were many others assigned to it. One of the first assignments that I received there was to become the division head's interpreter. And he assigned me to his residence, because his family was going to be coming over from Australia. And that duty, that assignment entailed providing, being the in-betweener between the wife and the family with the domestics, the cooks, gardeners. The difficulty there was not---that was quite a bit easier for me because I can speak sort of the conversation Japanese. But trying to understand the Australians was not an easy job for me. And even though they did assign me a room there in one of the, in their residence, so I was there full time, that hampered me, because I heard all the guys were night owls and having a good time out on the Ginza [District], so to speak, and so I finally asked the boss if I could go back to my own place where I could have my, you know, evenings free. Even though the experience was interesting and I had a room of my own, I still wanted to be with the fellows, so I was able to, after about six months of that kind of living, I was able to get back with the [16:00] group. But, again, as I indicated, my duties at the office, when I went, was assigned back to the office, was again very difficult. I was able to manage because there were others that could do the more difficult translation and interpreting. I did stay in Japan an extra year. I was discharged in Japan, and I worked there for one year as a civil service employee, and that was more working as an administrative clerk. But after a year, I decided to go back to Utah where my folks were and continue my education there. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 17 of 29 �INTERVIEWER: Who was it that you were hanging out with to go out to the Ginza District? Was it other MIS? MURAKAMI: Well, you know, again, it was some of the fellows that I had met over in Fort Snelling, and we all eventually landed up in Japan together. So, in fact, one of the buddies that I used to hang out with, so to speak, is now living in Seattle. And I do, I spent some time with him and his wife, and he and his wife have spent some time with me, and especially during the MIS reunions that we have held almost once every two years. During the last two years, we haven't been together, but generally we've been coming together on reunions every two years, and that's when we would get together. INTERVIEWER: Let's see. Did you ever feel any mistrust by [18:00] any of the officers that you worked with? MURAKAMI: Well, I heard, you know, some stories about the people. Again, I guess these kinds of things would occur more when you're out in the field, so to speak. But in my experiences, I don't think that I ever had any mistrust. The time that I spent in Japan was more---the ones above me were generally Niseis, and I think that, you know, we got along okay, because we came from the same sort of background, so to speak. And there's the superior versus subordinate relationship, and that exists anywhere, almost, in life. So I never---fortunately, I never had that kind of an experience, mistrust of my superiors, so to speak. INTERVIEWER: Did you have to interact often with the Japanese? I guess I want to---maybe if you could describe a little bit about what it was like interacting with them and how you might have felt. Did you feel like a foreigner or did you feel that you were Japanese? MURAKAMI: Well, again, I think that I never---again---well, maybe there was certainly a difference. Yeah, okay, yes, we were foreigners. I think one of the traits that Japanese have is that they always mistrusted foreigners, so to speak. But [20:00] one of things. I can still remember that one of the workers in the office, a Japanese national, we got to be friends, and he would invite us to their home and we would meet---we met their family. And periodically we would go over to his place and we would have dinner with them. And, you know, at the same time, we would exchange, we would provide them with some, you know, things that they were unable to get, you know, from the---oh, we would get groceries or something from the PX or cigarettes or whatever. So it was sort of something that we, I guess, generated, and it was a good feeling there. And, again, with the Japanese nationals in the office, I'm sure that---I don't know how they really felt toward us. But, again, they took us eventually as friends. And seeing, you know, they looked like us and I think in some instances their thought process was the same. So we This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 18 of 29 �got along, as far as I was concerned. I never had too much, you know, bad feelings about them. My experience as far as the Japanese was concerned was positive. And that's why, again, I always felt that I'd like to go back to Japan. And one of the things that I did was after graduation from college, I eventually went to Japan and spent a couple of years there. So it was a positive experience. [22:00] But I could talk about that experience a little later. But that's another part, after the military. But I think that even though at times there were some conflicts between the occupation forces, the Americans, the Japanese Americans, with the Japanese local citizenry, it still was, I think generally, it was a positive experience for all. INTERVIEWER: When you were translating either newspaper articles or the radio broadcasts, did they ever broadcast any like propaganda or was it, you know? MURAKAMI: Well, I think primarily that was the reason for translation, you know, so that we would--you know, all the translations, like, in the early days when we were there in the occupation, the idea, the concept was that we wanted to see what they were writing and what they were saying on TV, just so that we could counter that, or to not permit that. And during the early days of the occupation, to an extent, there was censorship. And that was our intent, you know, from the higher ups, to see that what came out in the newspapers was, you know, positive kinds of words coming out. And it was also, you know, policies were being emanated from General [Douglas] MacArthur, that they were being carried out. That was the intent of our translation. Interpreting, bringing in [24:00] Japanese nationals to check with them, to see what they're doing, was also another check on the policy. Not to---again, you hate to use the word censoring, but I'm sure that was the intent during the early days of the occupation. INTERVIEWER: How do you think that the Japanese people felt about the United States at that point? Kind of, was it the typ[ical]---I don't know what to call it, but where you say, you know, let's forget the past, we need to move onto the future and rebuild. Do you think that's how they felt about the U.S.? Or did they look at the U.S. as being, you know, a bad thing? MURAKAMI: Well, I think, again, like any---you know, like you can expect certainly an element in any society that would be against the---you know, certainly in the occupation. There was no doubt they didn't like the idea of American troops being stationed in Japan, in their---and taking over---in fact, when General MacArthur was there, his headquarters, he was the guy, okay? The Emperor had, you know, was a secondary person. But as far as what was coming, he was laying out all the policy and was in the process of democratizing Japan. And I'm sure that there was opposition to that, but because he ruled with an iron fist---and generally the Japanese people, like our parents, were very obedient. They, This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 19 of 29 �when it came to an authoritarian-type [26:00] figure, you know, Japanese generally were subordinated. And be it a teacher or a policeman or anyone in authority, they listened and obeyed. So I think that many of the Japanese were fed up with, you know, the fighting, the war. They lost---you know, most Japanese people, Japanese family, lost somebody very close to them during the war. And I'm sure that they wanted something different in their life than what was going on during the, you know, almost from the early days. So I think they were favorably inclined, especially, as you can well imagine, money was being, you know, funneled into Japan so that it would build it up. And so I think there was a sympathetic feeling toward the United States. And, again, we hear isolated cases of, you know, conflicts. But generally I think that the American servicemen did a good job, you know, in getting the United States and Japan to come closer together. And I'm talking about in the, you know, just common, the day-to-day activity. You know, there were a large number of Niseis, Japanese Americans, that married Japanese. So that also brought them together. So I think that, even though we hate to go back to those days, you know, but to think about how it was then, I think it was the stepping stone, [28:00] the building block, so to speak, to a closer tie between the Japanese and the Americans. [28:07] END OF AUDIO FILE 3 BEGINNING OF TAPE FOUR 070-Murakami-Fred-4 INTERVIEWER: [00:00] Okay. Can you tell me when you were discharged from the Army? MURAKAMI: Nineteen forty-eight, '47. I stayed in Japan for one year, and I came back in 1948. But like I say, I came back, I went back to Salt Lake City, where my family was located. They had gone from Topaz, Utah, and instead of going back to the West Coast, they stayed in Salt Lake. They moved to Salt Lake. And so I went to the University of Utah. INTERVIEWER: What do you think your best experience during the war was? Or, actually, not during the war, but during the occupation and during your stay in Japan? MURAKAMI: Well, I don't know. It's hard to say what the best---it was the time---the early days of occupation was, to me, a very good time to be in Japan. Even though all around us there was devastation, I think that we enjoyed---especially as an enlisted person, it didn't take very much money, so to speak, to have a good time. You know, the transportation was free, we were able to go to hotels that, you know, didn't cost us anything. And so it was, you know, it was generally a time that we can get acquainted This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 20 of 29 �very easily, and life was pleasant. And that's why many of the combat veterans talk about all the campaigns that they went through and, you know, the tough times that they had. I went through the Ginza campaign, which was a life of Riley, [02:00] night life. And, again, during those early days, the yen was 360 yen to one dollar, so, yeah, everything was very reasonable. When I say everything, the good place or good, so it was a good time for young people like myself to be there. And so I don't know if there was any good experience, but I had a good time, which lead me back to Japan later in my life. INTERVIEWER: I don't know if this is a good question to ask now, then, but did you have a worst experience during this time? MURAKAMI: Well, I don't know if a worst experience, but I think generally I would categorize my experience, my time there, I'm sure that there were some things that were not working out. The girl at the cabaret didn't show up and disappointed me, but there was no, no, there was nothing or very limited. It was a time for fun. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Is there anything you want to add, before we move on to your post-military life, about your service? MURAKAMI: Well, did we talk about when, or going back in time, earlier, when I went to Japan as a child? Yeah. Did I---I don't know if I told---I know I told you about it, but I don't know if it was on the film. INTERVIEWER: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. MURAKAMI: So it was, okay. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, yeah, we got that. MURAKAMI: Okay, now. But I think that's about my life in the military. It was generally, you know, [04:00] a good experience for me. INTERVIEWER: So you mentioned that when the war ended you went to be with your family in Utah, and then you went to the University of Utah. MURAKAMI: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 21 of 29 �Yes. INTERVIEWER: What was the climate like for you there in Utah? MURAKAMI: Well, I think in Utah, there were, before the war, there was a community there of Japanese Americans, okay. And there's also, there were churches, and, if I remember correctly, JACL [Japanese American Citizens League] started there, I think, in Salt Lake. I think the headquarters or something was there. But there was also---so there was I would not necessarily say a total acceptance, but because of the Mormon Church influence, which was very, you know, they were very supportive of us, I think, and made life pretty pleasant, even though it was not, you know, anything like California. But at the same time, that's why I believe that my folks moved there and stayed there, and both my mother and my dad passed away there. So they liked it. It was a very nice, clean community, and I think acceptance was almost part of the game as far as the Mormon Church was concerned. I think they played a strong influence there, and they continue to. So I had no problems, again. [06:00] I mean, I must---during my childhood, I must have been very naïve or something. I just took what they gave and lived quite a pleasant life. So again, I went to school for, I think, the University of Utah for three years. And then I worked---my first employment was as an intern at a government agency, and it was a depot called Tooele, T-O-O-E-L-E, Ordnance Depot. And that's where I first started to work. But also, I---my dad, during the last, in 1954 or so, opened up a restaurant in Salt Lake City, and I did help there for a year or two, two years. So I worked at the government agency and also helped at the restaurant. So I graduated in 1951 or, '51. For a couple of years, I worked at the government agency and to help Dad out. And in 1955, I decided to go back to Japan as a civil service employee, and, well, again, it was a good time to be there. Japan had recovered. Buildings, you know, you didn't see too many of the bombed out buildings anymore. And it was a good time to go there. But I went as a civilian, so that was, again, a different, [08:00] in a different role. INTERVIEWER: Is that where you met your wife or--MURAKAMI: Oh, my wife was also---wanted---she was working for the government here at the Pentagon. And she wanted to go to Europe as a government employee, but at that time they didn't have any jobs for her. But they did have a job over in Japan, so she got to Japan. She was able to get the job and went over as a Department of Army civilian. And she also arrived in 1955, a couple of months earlier than I did. And when I reported in to---and she happened to be working in the personnel office at that time. And when I got there, she was working there and I met her. [Laughs] That's where we struck up a relationship. But initially she wouldn't give me the time of day. But eventually, after five years, I think, we got married. She had come back and I had stayed overseas. I went toThis transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 22 of 29 �--I was in Japan for about three years, and then I spent a year in Korea. Then I came back and finally we got married in Las Vegas in one of those chapels, you know. [Laughs] Then, I went---we went together to Okinawa, and we spent four years, three or four, three years, and that's where my oldest son was born, in Okinawa. So I don't know. There's a lot of time [10:00] in between there that I jumped over. But I went to Korea. I spent about a year there, a little less than a year. And then when my wife finally said that she would get married, I went back, and we got married in Las Vegas and we went to--[tape interrupted for break] CREW MEMBER: Okay. We’re back up. MURAKAMI: Okay, well, if you listen to my wife's story, it wasn't as simple as getting married, as far as she was concerned. She was the type of individual that is very, also very gregarious, if you ever meet her. She's very friendly. [Laughs] I saw her in a personnel office, and I though, gee, this is one for me. And so---but it took me five years. It was a struggle. And she said that---[Laughs] one of the things she said was that---I can still remember this--that she likes to go out dancing and having a good time. And so, at that time, back in the old days there, I was a very poor dancer, according to my wife. So she told me that she ain't going to date me unless I learn how to dance. So I could still remember going to, signing up for a dance class in Japan. And when I went there, the instructor said--looked at me, she said, "You'll never make it. You better come back here about 100 times, then maybe you'll become a dan[cer]." So my wife always remembers that. But I did eventually learn how to dance. [Laughs] But anyway, it was five years from the time that I met her to the time we got married. And, as I say, we got married in Las Vegas because I was on the---I was in [12:00] Korea, going to Okinawa, and she was a Buddhist, I was a Methodist, so we couldn't get together. So we did get to one of those chapels there. And some 30 years later, we went back to the---looked for the chapel, but it was no longer there. But it was one of those that cost about five dollars, I think, to get married. You pay the---the justice of peace gets witnesses that are already hanging around there. So that was our, you know, entry into marriage. So actually what happened was that we went to Okinawa and lived there for four years. And by that time, we had government quarters, so life was really, you know, very pleasant again. And, as I said, the oldest son got married there, I mean, was born there. And then, so we came back to the Pentagon. I came back to the Pentagon, and that really started my civil service career. And I think that you can read a bunch of that in the profile that I've---that was published some time ago. So, you know, that's a different life, when you came back. From Okinawa, which was a very small island, we came back here, and a new life began, so to speak. So I don't know exactly how you want to go from here. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 23 of 29 �INTERVIEWER: Yeah, let's see. How did you end up back in [14:00] or in the D.C. area? MURAKAMI: Well, let me say that, actually, being overseas for four years, I think we came to the realization that, you know, this was a lot of fun, a lot of---you know, it was a good life, but it was time for us to move to a different society, so to speak. And then, our oldest son, Dean, was getting to the age of, you know, time to go to school. And even though life was very pleasant and very comfortable, we decided to pull up stakes and move back. Well, at the beginning, I had a choice of going to either Hawaii or to come back to Washington, D.C. My wife had stayed or lived in Hawaii for a couple of months earlier, and she said, "Well, Hawaii to an extent is just an island like Okinawa. I think what we need to do is get away from this island kind of living." And she had worked back here in the Pentagon. So I think the, you know, best move will be to come back to the Washington, D.C., area. That's how we got back here. And I was assigned to the Department of Army in the personnel department. So that's when I began my, so to speak, personnel, human resources career. And like many people that come back here to Washington, D.C., the plans were to stay here for about four or five years and then go back home, so to speak, [16:00] on the West Coast. But certainly we're still here some 32 or 33 years later. So Washington, D.C., has become our home, or Virginia. INTERVIEWER: Do you have any other children besides Dean? MURAKAMI: Well, we have Sean. Sean is the---and Sean was born here in Alexandria. Yeah, so. And he was born in 1967, and I guess that makes him 32. Yeah, right. Well. INTERVIEWER: Do you have---go ahead. MURAKAMI: So when I came here---now, much of my life here has been career oriented. I happened to be at the right place at the right time. First, I reported to the Pentagon in August of 1965. And shortly thereafter, and I reported to the Pentagon, I had a call from an individual that I had met overseas. He was on a tour of the west, of Okinawa, Japan, I guess the Pacific area, and when he came to Okinawa, he would---I was assigned as his escort officer. And from that relationship, he told me that any time that I come to the Pentagon, you know, be sure to look him up. And I did that and we had lunch. And conveniently, or very [18:00] fortuitously, he had heard from his friend over in NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] that they had a vacancy for a position that was a higher level and asked me if I would be interested in going to NASA. And This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 24 of 29 �even though I was only there at the Pentagon for a couple of months, I went over there for an interview, and after much ado, I was appointed to a position in NASA. And I can still remember when I had to go to my---ask my boss if I could leave. And he said, "Yeah, well, you know, I saw you typing up that application form, and you were doing things that were just like anybody else that comes in the Pentagon. The first thing that they do is they're readying their resume," because that was only a stepping stone. And then he said, "And I saw you doing that a couple of---last week or so." And then he said, "Well, go ahead." And so it was a very interesting---and I thought that would be an interesting move. So in 1965 I joined NASA, and I worked there for three years as a cost accountant, systems analyst type job. And during the time that I was with NASA, I spent much of my time in traveling around the various NASA installations in the United States, primarily to look at contractors that were assigned to, that were working for NASA, and their setting up their reporting systems. [20:00] So after three years at NASA, I was then, again, fortunate to have someone that had moved over to the National Science Foundation that I had met during my early days. And he asked me over for lunch, and fortunately at that time, again, a job became vacant there. So that's where I went in 1968. And that's where I think that I moved into some very high positions. I was initially in charge of the management analysis outfit. And when they combined the human resources and management analysis, then I was appointed as a director of that organization. And much of my time there---I spent the rest of my civil service career there, and that's where I achieved one of the highest office positions, you know, as far as the government, U.S. Government, was concerned. I was appointed---when the senior executive service was put together, I was put on a task force to work on that, along with other individuals from various agencies. And then, when that was established, I was appointed to the highest level, by the highest SES [Senior Executive Service] level, which was level six. And I was the first Asian American to achieve that rank, in 1979. And certainly, well, you know, that was a great honor as far as [22:00] I was concerned. And that's---you know, that's my---and from there, there were many interesting things. During my time at the National Science Foundation, I was able to continue my graduate studies at George Washington---at American University, initially, and at George Washington University. And during my time in office at the National Science Foundation, I had the opportunity to attend classes, courses, at Princeton University and down at what they call the Federal Executive Institute at the University of Virginia. So I've had, as far as I was concerned, many opportunities, and I'm, you know, very appreciative of the fact. So because of those situations, and when it came to discrimination or prejudice in employment with the government, I think that the government was far ahead of the private sector as far as equal employment opportunities and things like that, that would push for minorities to move ahead. And I was able to take advantage of that, those opportunities. I resigned or I retired from the federal government in 1982. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 25 of 29 �And the reason, well, that I retired at that time was because I had an opportunity to join the Fairfax County Public School System [24:00] as a special assistant to the superintendent for human resources. As a special assistant, I felt that I wouldn't have any supervisory responsibility. And so I thought this was an opportune time to move out, move into it, so I worked with the school system for, I guess, close to eight years, and I retired fully in 1992. And now I can talk a little later about some of the things I've done since that time. But, again, the school system---one of the 10th largest school system in the United States and considered one of the better school systems in the United States. Initially, I was---[Laughs] I took the job because of the non-supervisory nature of a special assistant, but after two or three years, the superintendent wanted me to take over an administrative outfit, division, within the personnel group, human resources, so I had to do that for about three or four years, back into the supervisory responsibilities. Now, one of the things that I wanted to mention, as soon as I retired I thought that I wanted to do something---I wanted to volunteer, to give back some of the things, you know, my, [26:00] some of my, whatever you want to call, expertise, and I volunteered to become a mentor, tutor for underprivileged kids. And I did that for three years. I taught on a volunteer basis for Hispanic kids and black kids out here in a place called Falls Church, where there's a community of mostly immigrants. And that certainly was an experience that I had to take. I thought at one point in time that, on one hand, it was an exciting experience, but then it was also very depressing because I saw kids there, kids that were eight, nine years old, that couldn't even read, and I wondered how they're going to make it in life. And that seems to---and I eventually retired from the volunteer job, and the reason for that, it was becoming a little bit more than I could handle, as far as retirement was concerned. I thought it was time for me to enjoy some of the life of a retiree. But, again, it certainly showed the other side of life here in---even though we're considered, in Fairfax, a very affluent community, there's this, there's a pocket of a community that is really [28:00] in need of help. [28:02] END OF AUDIO FILE 4 BEGINNING OF TAPE FIVE 070-Murakami-Fred-5 MURAKAMI: [00:00] Okay. INTERVIEWER: Do you have any grandchildren? MURAKAMI: Yeah. My oldest son, Dean, is married to a girl that he met while going to college, a Caucasian girl named Pat. They have three children, so I'm a parent of---we're parents of three grandchildren. They are Matthew, that's nine year old; Ryan, that is eight; and This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 26 of 29 �Isabelle, that's two. And they reside here in Herndon, Virginia, which is not too far from the Dulles Airport. Okay. INTERVIEWER: Have you spoken to your children or your grandchildren about maybe the experiences that you had in the internment camps or through the occupation and your service? MURAKAMI: Again, I haven't really talked to my grandchildren about that. In fact, I very---I was labeled a parental neglect because of my lack of pushing our children to learn more about the Japanese American community, culture. My oldest son, Dean, I think is---we have said very little to him. And Sean, we're doing that more during the last couple of years. And I think that's because he's becoming more acquainted with the Asian community through his companionship or relationship with various groups and with various individuals, females, particularly. [Laughs] But let me also kind of explain a little bit about where I am in terms of the Japanese American community. My [02:00] contact---as I indicated, we've been living here in Virginia since 1965, and during the first 17, 20 years, our contact with the Japanese American community was very limited. In fact, I'd consider most of my friends, so to speak, were all Caucasians, yeah. In 1987, I was approached by the then president of the JACL [Japanese American Citizens League] to join the board, here, the local board of I guess the Washington, D.C., chapter. And for whatever reason, I said okay. And that was the first time that I really became involved with the Japanese American community. However, because of my work schedule, my tenure on the board was limited to a year, and after which I resigned. Again, I think part of the reasons for not gathering too much interest was, at that time, I felt that the JACL, the local chapter, wasn't---was still very---not very outward in their feelings. And outward meaning that their contact was limited to just the Jap[anese], you know, getting together with the local members. And somehow, my thought process wasn't in that vein. In other words, [04:00] I saw the same characteristics that prevailed back in the old days, so to speak, existing with this group. And that didn't really interest--and, again, it may be because I was looking at life differently and it was not---and it was just me and not them, so to speak. I think the activities of the JACL didn't give me too much excitement. And so, I really didn't, even though I was on the board, I didn't do very much. And the excuse, when I resigned, was that my work was too---it kept me too busy. The first contact and really with the Japanese American community was when they decided, a group of veterans decided to form a veterans group, and that was in 1992. For whatever reason, maybe because I was by then fully retired, I took an interest in some of the objectives that were being talked about when they were forming the Japanese American Veterans Association. They invited me to a meeting that was with about a dozen veterans, and for whatever reason, that gave me some interest because I had been---probably I had more time. And then they asked me to be the [06:00] This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 27 of 29 �secretary, and that certainly got me involved with many of the details. And I held that secretary job for almost, close to five, six years. And so, being the secretary, that really meant that I was going to be involved in all the nitty-gritty, putting together various veterans programs, reunions, and things like that. And then I began to see some common interests, which was certainly, as you indicated, camp life, the military life. The JAVA is not, was not limited to MIS [Military Intelligence Service] veterans, even though it is predominantly MIS. We still had people, veterans from the 100th, 442nd, and other units. So that certainly made it more interesting. But, again, there was some, you know, feeling of togetherness, and that really got me going. So I served as secretary for five years, and then I was the president of JAVA from 1996 to 1998. Just last year, I served my two years, and I continue to be active. I'm on the board there as the immediate past president. And for whatever reason, the veterans activity, even though much of it is social activities, it interested me much more than the JACL. But I'm glad to say that the JACL is getting younger [08:00] people. In fact, the co-presidents are younger, two younger women, and that seems to be the right track as far as that organization is concerned. Last year, during the nationwide Hawaii veterans convention in---well, I should put it differently. They held an AJA [Americans of Japanese Ancestry] veterans convention in Honolulu last year. And at that time, they came---they gathered about close to 5,000 veterans and military people in a very successful convention. And the reason for the success was because the sons and daughters of the veterans groups in Hawaii were the ones that put it together. And that's one of the items that need to be stressed as far---all these veterans groups that are in existence now. The old, the veterans are mostly World War II and they're passing---you know, they're at the age that we need to turn it over to the younger ones. But unfortunately, the younger ones are not taking it up. Well, again, there's not as many. There's not very many young people that go into the military nowadays, and so there are fewer veterans. One of the big issues that are facing these veterans group is what's going to happen to them. You know, if nothing---if they don't get younger people in there, that's going to die away. But I mentioned the convention in Hawaii last year. During that time, they formed what they [10:00] called the National Council of AJA Veterans. And the purpose of that was to be sort of the focal point for all veterans groups so that more or less they'll be a single voice on any issue that may come up, say, here in Washington, D.C., in the Congress, or, you know, other kinds of national kinds of issues that may come up. And one of the premises of forming this was this would be the organization, and I was appointed as a chairman of the group. And we have representatives---the deputy chairperson is Francis Sogi, that is well known in Hawaii and also all around---he's a lawyer. And we have representatives from each of the six areas---primarily Hawaii, Southern Cal[ifornia], Northern Cal, Pacific Northwest, and then we have a representative from the central area and also from the East. But the idea here is to be kind of looking after major issues that we can become a force and become a single voice. And that's the intent of the organization. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 28 of 29 �And I’m also very active in the Japanese American National Memorial Foundation. And they're erecting a monument here, and I'm the regional co-chair for the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. And [12:00] at this point, I think that we're nearing our goal of 8.6 million. I think we're close to about seven and a half now, and we got two or three months to make it. So that takes much of my time now. So that's where I---so I think I'm--at one point, I stayed away, I was isolated. Now I'm enmeshed with all the details of the Jap[anese]---you know, trying to raise funds, working at the National Japanese American Veterans group. So I think I'm in the middle of many of the Japanese American activities. So that's my life. INTERVIEWER: Is there anything else you might like to add before we close for today? MURAKAMI: Well, I don't know. I think that actually I've enjoyed working and socializing with the Japanese American community, people. I think that there are certainly, like any group, idiosyncrasies that you have to contend with. I noticed especially Niseis, they have a tendency not to say very much. I think, you know, back in the old days, we were considered to be the silent group. We said very little. And I think that certainly comes from our upbringing, because at the family dinner table, as an example, we were never--we weren't---we couldn't speak. It was always just the father. And just in everyday life, we weren't---we were sort of told not to speak out. And so there's---that's why [14:00] you find that Niseis generally are not very articulate. It's the third and fourth generations, group, that are the ones that are leading the way. You know, I heard General [Eric] Shinseki just last week, third generation or so fourth, very good, very articulate. You know, he speaks well, [Inaudible]. I know that we also had a JAVA meeting last Saturday, and the speaker was---I think he said it---it was something like—he’s a happa, and very good speaker. And that's what we---I guess, in this society of ours, you have to be able to get on your two feet and speak forth. And I think that's why we are so proud of our younger generations. So I think that's it. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Well, on behalf of the crew today, we just want to thank you for coming out. We think it's very important and are grateful that you've told us your story and to preserve your legacy. So, thank you. MURAKAMI: Well, thank you. [15:21] END OF AUDIO FILE 5 This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 29 of 29 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fred Murakami oral history interview, June 27, 1999 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fred Murakami oral history interview transcript [full interview], June 27, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Murakami, Fred: narrator Iwata, Joy: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcriptions Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Extent The size or duration of the resource. 29 pages, typescript Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-06-27 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0070_T_Murakami https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/c28fc736d4b332123eac89ed5b23a45f.pdf 6fd020b1baf0797f65d74e2c03da559d PDF Text Text Go For Broke National Education Center Oral History Project Oral History Interview with Grant Ichikawa, July 19, 2009, Arlington, Virginia INTERVIEWER: . . . July 19, 2009. We are in Arlington, Virginia with Mr. Grant Ichikawa. Paul ?Sung? is on sound, Lisa Sueki is catalogue, Steven Itano Wasserman is running camera, and Richard "the hakujin" Hawkins is interviewing Mr. Ichikawa. First of all, thank you so much for coming. ICHIKAWA: Well, I am sorry I forgot the time. INTERVIEWER: No, don’t---shhh, nobody needs to know that. If you would please, just for the record, state your name and what you---what your MOS [military occupation specialties] or job was in occupied Japan. ICHIKAWA: My name is Grant Ichikawa, and my job during the war was as a military intelligence section, and I was an interrogator. INTERVIEWER: Okay. How did you hear that Japan had surrendered? ICHIKAWA: Well, we heard an announcement. I was with ATIS, Allied Translator and Interpreter Service, in Manila, and we just heard the announcement that Japan surrendered, so we were celebrating. INTERVIEWER: Now, you had an interesting experiment---experience where you were actually involved in a surrender ceremony or a surrender of a Japanese unit. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, not the ceremony, but the surrender. One of our jobs was to---I was assigned temporarily to the 38th Division, and we went out picking up stragglers and any soldiers who were surrendering. INTERVIEWER: Tell me a little bit about that moment when that unit, about 200 Japanese soldiers and a commander . . . ICHIKAWA: Oh, okay. My---whenever we picked up soldiers---they were usually in small groups--they’re just very, very hungry, sick, no discipline anymore, and we just went [02:00] out This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 1 of 45 �and picked 'em up without any trouble. And this one group, we heard that about 200, 250 are surrendering, so we went out there, just the truck drivers. We used 10 trucks, around 10 trucks, and had the---a captain was in charge of all of the group, and I was a second lieutenant, brand-new second lieutenant at that time, and I was the interpreter. And we went out looking for---we went out to the contact point, and there are no soldiers, nobody around. So we parked. And there’s a large, open field, a couple of football field length--in fact, it was quite long---and way out in the distance, there’s a forest over there. And then I spotted a white flag in the forest, and so I told everybody to stay put, and being the interpreter, I start walking out by myself. I left my arms behind. And then I saw the other side. They start walking out to the middle of the field, and---two men---I think there were two men, and---with a white flag. So we met in the middle, and he was the lieutenant colonel, head of the unit over there. And so his attitude was, you know, tell me about surrendering. He wasn’t ready to surrender, because Japanese soldier, surrender is not in their vocabulary; they never surrender. And this one is a lieutenant colonel, and he’s---he wanted to be convinced. [04:00] And I was just wondering---I finally convinced him. I talked to him about 15 minutes and told him the emperor surrendered and every Japanese units all over Asia are supposed to surrender and work for a better Japan and things like that. And it took me about 15 minutes. So he finally presented his sword to me, and that’s a gesture of surrendering. So hindsight---I mean, if I wasn’t there as a linguist, if just the Caucasian Americans of the Army just went over there, I just wondered what would have happened, I mean, if there was nobody to talk to the guy. But anyway, fortunately I was there, and I was able to surrender him. Then one of---the strangest thing happened. We---you know, we disarmed them, and then our first effort was to give them food. We’d give them K-rations. Usually they--the minute the soldiers get it, they start eating it because they’re hungry. This group, nobody ate, and so I asked one of them, I mean, “How come you’re not eating? Aren’t you hungry?” He said, “Well, we’re waiting for the commander to begin.” And that to me realized that it was a very highly disciplined group, and they would have died fighting for the commander. If he ordered them to fight, they would have died. They would have gone all---you know, obeyed him, and surrender was not in their vocabulary, so I think it was fortunate that I was there. INTERVIEWER: Now, when did you first step foot on Japanese soil for occupation? ICHIKAWA: Occupation? Around---I think around the end [06:00] of September. INTERVIEWER: Where did you set foot? ICHIKAWA: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 2 of 45 �In---we went into---we went by ship. No, it was in Octo[ber]---early October, I think. We went into Yokohama, and we were trucked to Tokyo. INTERVIEWER: Did you first stop at Zama? ICHIKAWA: No, no. INTERVIEWER: Straight from Yokohama to Toyko. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, from the . . . INTERVIEWER: One of the things that the Army wants to know is what did it look like. They want to get a picture, an idea, of time and place, of Japan . . . ICHIKAWA: Everything was---on our trip from Yokohama to Tokyo, I mean, it was flat. I mean, there’s no buildings standing. It was all burnt down. And in Tokyo, there were pockets that were burned down, but a good section of Tokyo was still intact. INTERVIEWER: When you see---I understand what you mean by “flat” because I’ve seen pictures and I’ve listened to you guys talk. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Someone who hasn’t seen those pictures---what does “flat” mean? ICHIKAWA: It was bombed out, burned out, large sections of town. The Japanese houses were pretty flimsy, made out of wood, and your fire bombs did a tremendous job of burning the houses down. INTERVIEWER: Smell. Did it smell? ICHIKAWA: I don’t remember what kind of smell, no. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 3 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: Now, just an idea of the infrastructure: streets, sewer system, electricity. What did you see? What did you notice? ICHIKAWA: Well, when we first got there, we---people ahead of us had commandeered one of the buildings. [08:00] It wasn’t---it was only our temporary quarters, so we---it was just vacant rooms. And we---they had brought in cots, so all of us piled in whatever room we can find. And they’re all linguists. We were all---it was all ATIS people, so . . . So, I mean, we were officers---a lot of us were officers, so there was that segregation between officers and enlisted men. And we settled down, and they---I think we had a kitchen over there, too. I'm not . . . INTERVIEWER: And this was in Yokohama or Tokyo? ICHIKAWA: No, Tokyo, in our new building. INTERVIEWER: Electricity? ICHIKAWA: Yeah, we had electricity. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Running water? ICHIKAWA: We had running water as I can remember. INTERVIEWER: Benjo? ICHIKAWA: Yeah, benjo. Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Wow. ICHIKAWA: So everything was working. INTERVIEWER: Now, you have just entered the country. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 4 of 45 �ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: The defeated Japan. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, right. INTERVIEWER: You are now part of occupation forces. ICHIKAWA: Right. INTERVIEWER: Help me understand occupation in an overview. What is occupation? What’s it’s purpose? What are you guys doing there? ICHIKAWA: Well, we were going---we went in there as linguists and we're waiting for orders on how they---how do they want to use us. Right away, there are a lot of things that had to be done. I myself was assigned to the---right away, to the atomic bomb U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Unit, and I reported over there. [10:00] And they---then my---I think around the end of October, we went---we had a team of 10 people, all scientists, mathematicians, physicists, headed by a Navy captain, who was an Army colonel, and a 10---about a 10-man team, and I was their interpreter. And we went on a ship, a destroyer escort, from Yokohama. We---the captain was able to get a destroyer escort. We went to Hiroshima, and we lived on the destroyer escort because there was no place to live in Hiroshima. And we---they unloaded the jeeps, so we drove all around Hiroshima, and they were taking measurements. We spent---we probably spent three, four days in Hiroshima. INTERVIEWER: Now, when you’re on that destroyer and you’re heading into Hiroshima, how interested were you to see it? What did you know about Hiroshima before you arrived? ICHIKAWA: Well, they told us, you know, it was a bombed-out---it was bombed, atomic bomb. And I assume they must have checked the radiation sensitivity of the soil since, you know, just a few months ago it was bombed. Nobody seems to care. The team just went right anywhere in Hiroshima. If they saw any parts of the building standing, they went over there to measure it and all that. And they wanted me to go find some [12:00] blueprints of the buildings. There were no people around. I mean, I didn’t have a job to do over This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 5 of 45 �there ‘cause no buildings standing, no people around. My first impression of that was, wow. I mean, just one bomb destroying a whole city? No matter how far you look, the whole city’s gone, and it was a frightening sight to see. It was just a couple of skeletons of a building standing, but everything else, flat. INTERVIEWER: Smell? ICHIKAWA: My smell---I was a smoker those days, and if you ask me about [laughs] smelling, I just can’t remember. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Did you smoke a lot of cigarettes when you were there? ICHIKAWA: Oh, yeah, I smoked a lot of cigarettes, yeah. INTERVIEWER: What about the river? Was it---was there any---was it flowing? Was there debris? ICHIKAWA: I don’t recall us going to see a river over there. I don’t even recall seeing a river there. All I recall at this late date is---is the skeleton of a building and the way I felt, I mean, I felt, what a thing to do. I mean, I felt all the people under---you know, that was in there all just evaporated, you know, all of a sudden. It was a frightening thing to see. And as a result, I sort of took an interest in why did America have to use atomic bomb, you know, and the population would have been mostly civilians. And it bothered me for a long, long time [14:00] until I did some research and I came to the conclusion that without the atomic bomb, the war would not have ended---may not have ended at that time, and Japan today would have been very, very different. So it took the atomic bomb to end it when it did, and as a result, the Russians were kept out of Japan. They would have occupied parts of Japan if they had delayed surrendering. So I---after I did some research, I had a much better feeling about using the bomb on Japan. But it was very hard to swallow when---at first. INTERVIEWER: Hard to swallow because you as a human being are recognizing the level of destruction? ICHIKAWA: Well, also Japanese ancestry, too, and a lot of the people in the States came from Hiroshima. And in fact, Hiroshima is---Yamaguchi, around that area, there are more people from there than any other prefecture, I think. And---because I know so many people who say they’re from Hiroshima, so all their friends have---assumed they all died, you know. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 6 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: Did you personally have family in or around that area? ICHIKAWA: No, I did not, no. My family was not around Hiroshima. INTERVIEWER: Where are you from? Where is your family . . . ? ICHIKAWA: My family was from Yamanashi-ken, near the foot of the Mount Fuji, so it was closer to Tokyo. Yeah. And then from there, I went to Nagasaki, and there, they missed the target, which was where the valleys converge, and so they hit only [16:00] the one valley; the other parts of the city were saved by the hills. And so we were able to find a house. I guess we sort of commandeered a house. And so we lived in a house in Nagasaki and did our research. And there I was able to find some blueprints. There were a lot of buildings naturally intact, because it was in a valley and escaped the bomb. INTERVIEWER: When you are traveling around in your jeep looking for blueprints, where do you begin? ICHIKAWA: Oh, you have to ask around. You know, if---you go to an office and, you know, ask who owns that and where can I find blueprints? They were very talkative, so they were able to---I was able to find some. INTERVIEWER: That’s the---what I want to ask about now is the dynamic. When you’re a Nihonjin face in occupied Army uniform, U.S. uniform . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: . . . and you just bombed the hell out of their city, and now you’re asking for stuff. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: How did they respond to you? How did you approach them, first, and then how did they respond to you? ICHIKAWA: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 7 of 45 �Well, they were all cooperative, very highly cooperative. Yeah. Everybody I met in Nagasaki---I didn’t meet too many people in Hiroshima because the city’s gone, but in Nagasaki, I met a number of people. I went to the office, and they bent backward trying to help us. INTERVIEWER: Now, how would you---how would you actually approach them? How would you introduce yourself? How would you . . . ICHIKAWA: They know who we are. INTERVIEWER: How did they know who you are? [18:00] ICHIKAWA: Because I have a uniform. They knew we were occupation. And in Japan, we expected--we didn’t know what to expect because of Japan’s no-surrender policy all during the war. And the minute we hit Japan---the people were tired of the war, I think, for one, and the emperor surrendered, and so surrendering was not a shame anymore, and so they--we’d tell 'em we’re here to rebuild Japan as a democratic Japan, and they agreed. They want to do everything that they can. Every once in a while, you’ll meet ultranationalists. Now, they did not like us, and I met a few of 'em, but, you know . . . INTERVIEWER: How could you tell they didn’t like you? ICHIKAWA: Well, they---that---they said so [laughs]. INTERVIEWER: How would they---now, my understanding is that in Japanese culture, if I greet you with respect, then you’re required to greet me with respect. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: So if they tell you they don’t like you, there’s disrespect going on there. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, it is. Well . . . INTERVIEWER: How does that happen? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 8 of 45 �ICHIKAWA: Well, I mean, they don’t tell you directly, but you can feel that they don’t like you, they don’t want to have any dealings with you. But---so that’s the group we sort of watched, because it was---that’s the group that was sort of still dangerous. And I think the--MacArthur did a wonderful job of occupying Japan, and [20:00] they should have taken lessons from General MacArthur in occupying Iraq. INTERVIEWER: That’s sort of where---not the Iraq part---but what I want to focus on, because I remember in your previous interview, you were very impressed and praised MacArthur’s planning. ICHIKAWA: Yes. INTERVIEWER: What did he plan? What impressed you? ICHIKAWA: Every detail of the occupation went into planning before it happened. For example, a very good case in point is my wife’s situation. Before the war ended, she lived in Hawaii, and they picked up 13 or 14 Japanese women linguists and trained them into censorship work. And for MacArthur to even think about having---censoring mail once they get into Japan---this is even before Japan surrendered---is just---I think it’s utterly fantastic. And for them to have these women ready so that when Japan surrendered, they’re the first women to hit Japan. They arrived around October, I think. INTERVIEWER: That was one area. That . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah, that was one area. INTERVIEWER: . . . the forward thinking, not having something happen and then say, “Oh, well, let’s just move forward.” ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: It’s forward thinking. ICHIKAWA: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 9 of 45 �It’s thinking---all of that planning that went into it. So that must have---if they’d do that on censorship, they must have done it on every aspect of the occupation. INTERVIEWER: Why would MacArthur choose to use Nisei or Kibei [22:00] linguists as a resource? ICHIKAWA: Well, because he’s had that experience all during the war. He really appreciated the work of the linguists. And I think MacArthur’s the one---nobody can prove it, but it’s been quoted as saying he felt that the Nisei shortened the war by quite a bit. And so he apprecia[ted]---he knew. But he also said that no commander during the war knew so much about the enemy that he did because the Nisei, the Niseis. INTERVIEWER: So by employing the Nisei/Kibeis, what was MacArthur thinking he could achieve? What would the Nisei and Kibei give him? ICHIKAWA: Oh, the contact with the Japanese people in the government. Without the language exchange, there wouldn’t be any---the contact would be very, very sketchy. INTERVIEWER: Well, there’s contact and there’s contact, because whether I speak the language or not, you know, contact can be made different ways. So what was the type of contact? ICHIKAWA: Well, you don’t---you---without the language, you don’t get much of a contact. You may have a personal relationship, but you can’t communicate with each other. You need that communication. And I’m sure MacArthur felt that there was a need to communicate with not only the government in place but with the people. And showing---in MacAr[thur]--[24:00] during World War II, the entire war, there were about 3,000 linguists who participated. During the occupation, there was another 3,000 participated; so altogether, close to 6,000 Niseis participated in the occupation. In Iraq, you think about linguists--maybe it’s in the hundreds, you know. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, absolutely. So we have a model that MacArthur planned out, and he employs Nisei/Kibei for communication between occupied forces and the existing Japanese government as it is upon surrender, and the people. Now, what kind of communication was MacArthur trying to achieve? Was he sending a message of what by representing the occupied forces? ICHIKAWA: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 10 of 45 �Well, he gives---he's trying to move Japan into the democratic---direction of the democratic country. To build Japan---he---MacArthur really wanted to rebuild Japan as a democratic nation, and [clears throat]---excuse me. INTERVIEWER: Why don’t you drink some water? ICHIKAWA: Yeah. And the---I think the best example of this is---well, he gives the instructions. He uses Niseis to, you know, every unit will use Niseis to monitor what they’re doing and to tell them what to do. INTERVIEWER: Monitor what the people in the government . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah, that’s right. INTERVIEWER: . . . are doing in Japan. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, that’s right. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Take your water. ICHIKAWA: A very good example of this: MacArthur personally---[26:00] he protected the emperor. He wanted the emperor to stay in place. MacArthur, I think, was under tremendous pressure to treat the emperor as a war criminal and---but MacArthur wisely protected the emperor, and I think the emperor knew this. And on one occasion, the emperor was being deluged with requests to give an interview to the press. And this is my understanding---I wasn’t there, but this is my understanding. And MacArthur wanted to tell the emperor, you know, to, you know, do what you think is right. And so he sent a Nisei, a---he was a captain, Kan Tagami, was MacArthur’s interpreter, personal interpreter. So, Kan Tagami went to see the emperor and told him, you know, whatever instruction MacArthur had for the emperor. And the emperor saw him one-on-one. The emperor dismissed everybody, and it was just Kan Tagami and the emperor. And when Kan Tagami delivered the message to the emperor, he wanted to leave, but the emperor told him stay, and they had conversations a little bit. And at that time, the emperor told Kan that he thanked the Niseis for being the channel to the Japanese, and the emperor was really appreciative of the role the Niseis played. So [28:00] that was a good example of how MacArthur’s using the linguists. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 11 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but explain to me what Niseis as a channel meant. What do you think the emperor meant by that? What was he saying about the Nisei? ICHIKAWA: Well, he was saying that he thanked them for, I think, all the interpreting work the Niseis had been doing. In other words, as a channel between the U.S. occupation forces and the Japanese government, especially the government. The Niseis were there as interpreters, translators, and whatnot. No, he was very, very appreciative of the role of the Niseis. INTERVIEWER: Which leads me into something that I’ve been trying to understand, and I’m gonna ask you to try to help me understand this one. Niseis and Kibeis understood Japanese ways, and particularly Nisei understood American ways. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Then you have somebody like me, the hakujin, who comes in, okay. I don’t understand Japanese ways too much, and the Japanese citizens do not understand hakujin ways. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Since you understand both, how do you make both sides understand and respect each other? How does that happen? ICHIKAWA: Well, if you’re the interpreter, if the American officers, for example, [30:00] gives an instruction to the Japanese, the interpreter in a, say, a condescending way, for example, okay, the interpreter would soften that and give it to the Japanese. The Japanese in turn will say something, and maybe in a way that may hurt the feeling of the interpreter, that would be softened, too. They can---they play a very vital role in doing that. It’s---a court interpreter is very different. I mean, you---it’s a precise interpreting, so that one you don’t fiddle with---with what the other party says, but during the informal conversation between the two, that’s what'll happen. INTERVIEWER: Now, when you soften that message . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 12 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: . . . what---you---because you were a translator, so I’m . . . ICHIKAWA: No, I’m not a translator. INTERVIEWER: Oh, I’m sorry. Interpreter. ICHIKAWA: I’m an interrogator. INTERVIEWER: Oh, interrogator, okay. ICHIKAWA: Interpreter is---my language is not that good. Interpreter needs very, very good language of the Japanese. I can’t interpret, but I can interrogate using my own words. You understand? INTERVIEWER: I understand. You observed interpreters doing this? ICHIKAWA: Yes, yes, of course. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: What were they---what were these interpreters hoping to achieve by softening the message? ICHIKAWA: Well, establish rapport with the other side, with the Japanese, so that [32:00] it won’t insult him. Some of the occupation forces, I’m sure the captains and whatnot and the majors and whatnot, they looked down on the Japanese, and they gave you instructions downward. But the---I’m sure a lot of the interpreters have taken the harsh things and softened it. And so . . . It’s amazing. I---here was---in the period immediately after the end of the war, early occupation, I never carried a firearm going anywhere in Japan. I just felt safe, even though I was in uniform, because the Japanese all accepted us. They wanted to work together with us, and we were never afraid of being mobbed or being shot at. I mean, they had no guns. I mean, one of the best things MacArthur did was ban all the guns, including swords. So they had no weapons to---well, they could have hidden it, but they didn’t. They’re very honest, and wouldn’t---they say, “You cannot have any guns,” they’d turn 'em all in. Swords, they’d turn 'em all in. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 13 of 45 �Now, have you---did you witness any hakujin or Australian or British---a European descent person, or maybe even another Nisei---who wasn’t as [34:00] comfortable with walking around without a weapon, not as comfortable walking amongst the Japanese citizenry? ICHIKAWA: I think they---I haven’t observed anything, but I don’t think anybody walked around with a weapon. I really don’t. I . . . INTERVIEWER: Even the hakujins? ICHIKAWA: Even the hakujins. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Now, that absolutely fascinates me, that the Nisei, in communicating, softened for the better good. That’s my interpretation of it . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: . . . based on what you just said. So my next obvious question is, well, who trained them to do that? Who gave the order that, "Look, we want to get along, so make it work?" ICHIKAWA: I don’t ever remember receiving training like that. I mean, it’s---it comes naturally. INTERVIEWER: Why would it come naturally? ICHIKAWA: Because Niseis are smart [laughs]. INTERVIEWER: How’d they get so smart? ICHIKAWA: Well, you know. They are a pretty smart bunch. INTERVIEWER: You think growing up in Japanese household would have helped? ICHIKAWA: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 14 of 45 �Well, they understand the Japanese. I think it’s common sense, you know. It’s really common sense. I mean, you don’t need training for that, and as long as you feel that there’s a mission to accomplish, you don’t antagonize people on the other side, and so it’s just common sense. I mean, if you get occupier that’s very [36:00] harsh and stupid, you know, and ordering things around as if he’s ordering a slave around, I mean, there are people like that, and that’s why you have discrimination. And so, you know, the Japanese---the Niseis all understand what discrimination is, and so when they discriminate against people of a losing country, it sort of grates you. I mean, you sort of get a little upset. INTERVIEWER: Did you ever have to confront somebody who you saw mistreating a Japanese citizen? An occupying force? ICHIKAWA: No, I have not had that kind of experience, no. INTERVIEWER: And we started off talking a lot about the language and to communicate, and that’s a, I would say, a foundation upon which you begin to build toward your goals as an occupation force. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Another level of that for me would be cultural mores, things that are specific to the way Japanese do things or live. An example would be you walk into some[body’s]---before you walk into somebody’s house, you take your shoes off. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: That’s just, you know, you knew that growing up. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: That's common sense, you know. Just that’s what you do. There’s other cultural issues as well, small things like that. ICHIKAWA: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 15 of 45 �Taking your shoes off may seem the proper thing to do, but many of them---they don’t remember that, many of the occupying forces. So they---you have to ask them to "Take your shoes off." INTERVIEWER: Well, that’s what I was getting at . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: . . . is, see, for me being a hakujin, if I was there, I---once I recognized the Japanese live a certain way and I don’t know it all, I’d feel like I was in a minefield, because I wouldn’t want to do anything wrong. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: So how do I learn that? How did you teach hakujins? ICHIKAWA: Well, I’ve [38:00] been with them. We were---like, sometimes we went to parties and whatnot with hakujins, and like in a traditional Japanese place, restaurant or hotel or something like that, and you’d be amazed how many will start walking in with their shoes. You have to tell 'em, “You’ve got to take off your shoes.” It doesn’t occur to them to do that, so you just have to tell 'em. INTERVIEWER: So you would instruct or teach as it was appropriate to the situation? ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: It wasn’t like you would take your hakujin friends or comrades and sit down and say, “Okay, now, look, before we go here . . .” ICHIKAWA: Yeah, you don’t brief them. No, no. INTERVIEWER: No briefing? ICHIKAWA: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 16 of 45 �No. [Laughter.] INTERVIEWER: Just take it as you go [laughs]. ICHIKAWA: Well, maybe you should. I don’t know. It’s so long ago. I may have briefed them; I have no idea. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, it’s just a fascinating part of . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: The goal as you set out early on is to not aggravate, not create the tension--ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---so how does that all work? Let’s see, just a couple of quick questions about---going back to the Atomic Bomb Survey Unit. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah, okay. INTERVIEWER: You had . . . ICHIKAWA: Oh, let me . . . INTERVIEWER: Yeah. ICHIKAWA: There’s one other part that I think is very important is when we graduated Military Intelligence School, we were all given corporal, T5, [40:00] which is corporal. Now, hakujin, the Caucasian Americans who went to the same school, when they graduate, they’re all commissioned as second lieutenants, okay? Now, that’s outright discrimination, but we didn’t object, because in my case, for example, I was a volunteer from the Army from an internment camp, and we were---we were considered---not---we were---our draft status was changed to 4-C, meaning enemy alien. We couldn’t join the This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 17 of 45 �Army even if we wanted to, but in our case---this was very early, November 1942, they allowed us to get in the Army, and we were very happy because we can prove that we are loyal Americans, okay? And so when we graduated, we were given T5s instead of a commission---we’re still happy that we graduated. We’re in the Army. So none of us objected. In 1945, I think, they suddenly realized that all the Niseis in the Army, they were loyal Americans, okay, and so at one---it must have been in the mill quite some time, because it was just about the time Japan surrendered---a little---a few days before or a few days afterward, I can’t remember---but around there, over 50 of us were given field commission as second lieutenants. That’s because---we were given that at that time because in the long-range [42:00] plan, the U.S. Army was going to invade Japan, and they wanted to elevate the status of interpreters to be officers. And so a lot of us hit Japan---over 50 of us---hit Japan as second lieutenants. So I think that has a great impact on the way Japanese looked at us. They see hakujin officers, and they saw Nisei officers. Okay? So they were on par with all the white American officers, only we’re lower ranking, but, you know, still we were officers. So I think that made a tremendous impact on the Japanese, I think. When I dealt with this lieutenant colonel to surrender, he saw an officer that’s dealing with him, so . . . Not a sergeant or not a corporal, but an officer, so I think that he has more respect for something like that. So, there again, that was one of the planning of---MacArthur’s planning. He elevated the status of all the interpreters who fought all during the war to second lieutenants. There was about over 50 of us. That’s a big lot. INTERVIEWER: That’s a great move, I agree with you. On a personal note, in the back of my mind---and I’m not---but you graduated as a T5. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: You should have graduated as an officer. That didn’t bug you? ICHIKAWA: That didn’t bother us. No, it didn’t bother us. INTERVIEWER: For real? ICHIKAWA: No, it didn’t bother us. INTERVIEWER: Wow. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 18 of 45 �ICHIKAWA: ‘Cause we had our---[44:00] we still had to prove that we are loyal Americans. We from--especially from the internment camp, I think we were just very, very glad that we were in the Army. And that discriminatory part, I think, didn’t bother most of us. INTERVIEWER: Okay, so I want to go back a little bit to the Atomic Bomb Survey Unit. ICHIKAWA: Okay, okay. INTERVIEWER: You talked about being assigned to that team. They had physicists and . . . ICHIKAWA: Mathematicians and whatever; you have all kinds of scientists on that team. INTERVIEWER: And you used an example that they had actually measured a wall. ICHIKAWA: Well, they---for example, you---a very good example is they had a steel pole, and that was bent, okay, and they would take measurement and use their slide rule and say, “Oh, that took so many foot-pounds” or something like that “pressure to bend that pipe, and this is how much pressure that was over here.” They see the wall tumbling---tumbled, and . . . They’re measuring the pressures, you know, how much pressure it was. INTERVIEWER: Did they measure radiation? ICHIKAWA: No, I---I’ve never seen them measure radiation. I don’t know why. They should have had something, but our team just didn’t measure radiation. They didn’t have---I don’t think they even had equipment to measure radiation. INTERVIEWER: They didn’t need to take dirt samples or anything? ICHIKAWA: No. INTERVIEWER: So it was [46:00] simply looking at the . . . This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 19 of 45 �ICHIKAWA: At the force, yeah. INTERVIEWER: . . . infrastructure, and then--ICHIKAWA: Yeah, on the force. How much force there was---that was their main mission: how much force it took to topple a certain building. That’s why they wanted blueprints, see what, you know, what was made---what made that building. So . . . INTERVIEWER: Now, and I know you said at Hiroshima, you didn’t really see anybody, and Nagasaki, you were able to make contact with many Japanese citizens. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: How many citizens did you meet or see with visible wounds or injuries from the atomic bomb? ICHIKAWA: Nothing. I’m glad I didn’t see anything, because it was a horrible sight to see. They were all---the people who were wounded were all in a hospital there. The only people I saw in Nagasaki was---in Nagasaki, there were still some bodies under a tent; they had covered it up with a tent. And I saw people in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki going around with chopsticks picking up bones. That’s a sight to see. And they’re picking up bones of their family members, I think. INTERVIEWER: With hashi? ICHIKAWA: With chopsticks. INTERVIEWER: Wow. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Wow. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 20 of 45 �ICHIKAWA: They were using chopsticks. I remember seeing that vividly. I can still remember them. INTERVIEWER: And you’re, what, 20 years old, 21 years old at the time? ICHIKAWA: About 22, yeah---no, no, more than that. Twenty-five, maybe. INTERVIEWER: Oh, you’re 25. Okay. ICHIKAWA: Maybe more than that. I don’t know [laughs]. INTERVIEWER: You’re still a young guy. You’re still a young guy. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Wow. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. It was a---that sight is [48:00] something you never forget, no, to see them picking up human bones. I guess they figure this is the place of my house, and just going around picking up bones. INTERVIEWER: And one of the things that I had a lot of difficulty with wrestling---I asked the same question you did, and I do not have the same personal experience you have with the atomic bomb, but I do ask the same question: You know, was it necessary? Why pick that target and why not another? What---you know. And then you have this personal, very personal, experience of seeing them pick up bones with chopsticks, hashi, and . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: It stays with you. But I’m imagining you were sworn to secrecy. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, we were all under . . . Yeah. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 21 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: You can’t talk about any of this; just got to live with it. ICHIKAWA: Just got to live with it, I guess, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, sworn to secrecy. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, we were---yeah, we were all sworn to secrecy, sure. But . . . INTERVIEWER: Okay, so you complete that job with the Atomic Bomb Survey Unit. Is there anything else about that particular job that is of note that we should know or you wanted to talk about? ICHIKAWA: Yeah, I---for the longest time, I felt that, why did America have to use atomic bomb? And that bothered me for a long time. And---'cause I have those vivid memories of visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then I always wanted to do research, and not too long ago, this is quite recent, I came across a book [50:00] called "Japan’s Longest Day." It was written in Japanese by a team of experts, and so it’s pretty vivid description of what’s happening and the longest day. And then I realized that on the last day they were teetering between---there’s an Army group, they controlled half of the votes in the Cabinet. It was headed by the war minister, General Anami. And the other group was for surrendering, and that was a group that was headed by Foreign Minister Togo. And the emperor asked them to---for the Cabinet to surrender, and---because the emperor saw the two atomic bombs and was under the impression that a third one was going to come on Tokyo. The U.S. did not have a third bomb, but that was the rumor. And so the emperor asked the Cabinet to surrender. And the Cabinet had a meeting, and again, they were divided: the military clique did not want to surrender; they wanted to fight to the last person, and the other side wanted to surrender. They divided, half and half. And so for the first time in the history of Japan, the Cabinet [52:00] asked the emperor to make a decision because they were deadlocked. Okay? So the emperor said surrender. And General Anami then at that time capitulated and said he has to go by what emperor said. Now, there’s a group within the Army that’s still very ultranationalist; they didn’t want to surrender, and they even occupied the palace grounds. So anyway, that was put down, so therefore, the atomic bomb, I think, played a very, very key part in surrendering---Japan’s surrender. When I read that book, I felt a lot better about the U.S. using the atomic bomb. So . . . INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 22 of 45 �Very good. ICHIKAWA: In schools---we teach schools, and twice now it happened, somebody asked me about atomic bomb, and, you know, did U.S. have to use atomic bomb to this. So I, you know, I explained that the reason why U.S. used the atomic bomb. And it’s amazing, a couple months ago I went to a display in Alexandria Middle School, and the kids had the display of, you know, whatever---what---I forgot what the theme was. Anyway, parts of it was on the atomic bomb---or rather---there were about six groups in that school that took the issue of the atomic bomb, and [54:00] the students were---I mean, this was a few weeks ago. The students were really interested in the atomic bomb, so, you know, I had a chat with the students, and I don’t know how they felt, but, you know, they felt that the U.S. used---U.S. used atomic bombs. They had little displays of atomic bombs and things like that. So it’s---I do get that question from the students sometimes---from the teachers, too. INTERVIEWER: Well, yeah, I mean, you’re very unique. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, so . . . INTERVIEWER: People have not have that experience, and you---you know, firsthand eyewitness account, and then you wrestled with the morality of it. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: And then, “War is hell,” as Sherman said, and so forth. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: So, yeah, if you want to know, you’re the guy. And on that note, we gotta stop this tape . .. ICHIKAWA: Okay. INTERVIEWER: . . . change up and . . . End - 851A-Ichikawa-Grant-1 This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 23 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: Now, in this next series of questions, what I’m trying to understand is the Nisei/Kibei role in occupied Japan. And I want to start by asking---now, I know that during the war, the MISers [Military Intelligence Service] worked in teams, and if you could briefly explain how individuals were selected to be teammates. ICHIKAWA: I have no idea how they were selected. INTERVIEWER: Okay. ICHIKAWA: They were just---well, certain groups, like the team that went to OSS [Office of Strategic Services] or the team that went to Merrill’s Marauders, they were very special, and they selected the best people possible, and they were trained separately. But other language teams, I think they just picked people out. There are no real selection process is my feeling. INTERVIEWER: Well, then when we get into occupation---and I always wondered this because all the MISers tell me, well, I was assigned to this or I was assigned to that. Who decided where they were assigned and on what criteria? ICHIKAWA: I did. INTERVIEWER: You did? You’re the guy I’ve been looking for for years. I’ve always wondered this. So, walk me through it. How does that work? ICHIKAWA: Well, after I came back from the atomic bomb, they assigned me to work with Captain George Sonoda. He was the head of the Assignment Training Section, and I got assigned to him [02:00] as his deputy. And then I went home on home leave and came back. I’m glad I did, because that’s the last time I saw my father; he died shortly after. But I came back, and then shortly after that, George Sonoda got out of the Army. He left and left me in charge, and so I was the assignment officer for maybe about a year, year and a half. And so I get all kinds of requests through the personnel office. They want so many linguists here doing this or doing that, and so I would select the people to be assigned. And a lot of times, it’s the person’s ability---determine. If they want a translator, I must provide a person that’s very good at translation, or if I needed somebody for a war crimes interpreter, he’s got to be a topnotch linguist. If I want a---if the CIC [Counterintelligence Corps] people want him, then you assign somebody that’s---with This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 24 of 45 �enough Japanese, but they don’t have to be very, very good linguists, so . . . Made a lot of enemies, I guess, because I had to send some [04:00] people to Korea or some remote sections of Japan. I sent them all over, including Korea, Japan, Okinawa. And all the linguists came through us. INTERVIEWER: You said the personnel office would send you requests? ICHIKAWA: Well, the request would come to ATIS, and the personnel administrative office would get that request, and they would buck it to me, and so I---they handled the people, so---the personnel people. They had to type up the orders and all that. INTERVIEWER: What was going on in Korea that you had to send somebody up there? ICHIKAWA: Well, there weren’t enough Korean linguists. They’re very rare. All the education has been in Japanese, and so when they---because Korea was occupied by Japan, you could use a Japanese linguist in Korea, during the early part of the occupation, anyway. And you couldn’t do that now because the people who spoke Japanese are gone or getting there. So . . . INTERVIEWER: So what was going on up there, though? What was the issue you were dealing with? What did they have to do up there? ICHIKAWA: Well, they were occupying Korea. There were troops over there. INTERVIEWER: That’s because Japan had conquered Korea and hadn’t given it up yet in the treaties. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. Well, no, Japan’s troops [06:00] were all---because during the war, there were---all the Japanese troops were being returned to Japan. INTERVIEWER: Oh, repatriation. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, repatriation. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Oh, okay, so that was going on in Korea. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 25 of 45 �ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Did you send anybody over to Manchuria? ICHIKAWA: I don’t remember sending any---I don’t think so. INTERVIEWER: But all the way up and down Japan . . . ICHIKAWA: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---you’d send people. ICHIKAWA: From Hokkaido down to Kyushu, Okinawa . . . INTERVIEWER: And you would base your decision---the criteria was the need for this linguist is, whatever that was, whether they need an interpreter, so someone’s really got to know the language . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: . . . or war crimes trials, they gotta know their kanji, they gotta know the language, man. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Or say they needed someone to run a PX. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Then that’s a whole different requirement. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 26 of 45 �ICHIKAWA: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. INTERVIEWER: And that’s how you base your decision? ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: In a overall big-picture view of the Nisei linguist, what were the top three, four, five, however many, qualities of a linguist that were effectively used to meet the goals of occupation? You touched on one earlier: communication, so language has to be one of the tops. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. Well, the person’s background. For example, we had a---I still remember this. We had a school principal from Hawaii come through. He was a corporal. [08:00] And he was so good that I picked him up myself, because we had a school. We had a school teaching Japanese, so . . . He was, oh, he was really good. And then he said---he worked for me for maybe six months, I guess, and then he asked if he could be transferred to a CIC unit. He wanted to---he heard so much about Hokkaido that he wanted to go up to Hokkaido. So the first chance I---opening came up there, I sent him up to Hokkaido. I let him go because he wanted to go, and I understand he did a very, very good job up in Hokkaido. So that’s an example. You know, if a person had a certain background also of use, you take that into consideration. So . . . INTERVIEWER: A Kibei---what is a Kibei? ICHIKAWA: A Kibei is somebody who was educated in Japan for---usually for three or four years. They would have very, very good knowledge of the Japanese language. And in our group, people like Harry Fukuhara, he ended up as a colonel. He retired as a colonel, full colonel. He was a Kibei. Tom Sakamoto, another fellow that---he was in the first class--[10:00] Tom Sakamoto was in the first class in the Presidio of San Francisco. He ended up as a colonel. In fact, Harry Fukuhara, we volunteered together from Gila River and--but he stayed in and became a colonel. INTERVIEWER: And these Kibei, because they were so strong in the language . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 27 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: . . . and when you say “language,” you’re talking reading and writing? ICHIKAWA: Reading and writing, right. INTERVIEWER: How was their English? ICHIKAWA: Oh, Harry---Harry is completely bilingual. I mean . . . So is Tom Sakamoto. I mean, they’re the topnotch linguists, I mean. INTERVIEWER: The gold standard. ICHIKAWA: That’s right. INTERVIEWER: Best that they can get. ICHIKAWA: Diamond---the diamond standard. INTERVIEWER: The diamond---ooh, even better. Even better. ICHIKAWA: Because Tom Sakamoto was a interpreter on the USS Missouri, I think. Yeah, I think---I think he was the official interpreter. Anyway, he was present at the surrender ceremony, so he’s a topnotch. So is Harry Fukuhara. Topnotch interpreter---not only as a interpreter, I mean, they’re linguists, you know. INTERVIEWER: So, Kibei---now, I realize those two guys are the diamond standard, but with Kibei . . . ICHIKAWA: You have all . . . INTERVIEWER: . . . not so much the diamond standard---but great, I mean, nothing wrong with them---but where---how would you use Kibei in placing them, more than you would use, say, a Nisei? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 28 of 45 �ICHIKAWA: Well, way at the bottom end of the Kibei standard, you have people with very limited [12:00] English; they’re much stronger in Japanese but very, very limited in the English language. Now, those Kibei, they were teamed up with---this is out in the field---you were teamed up with a Nisei with very little Japanese language ability. So you’d take a Kibei who would translate something, he would maybe even verbally tell the Nisei who would write . . . So they---those two made a very, very good team using two persons: one’s for the Japanese language, the other is for the English language, so they produce a beautiful English language report. So there are Kibeis like that, quite a few of them, that served out in the front. INTERVIEWER: And then in occupation? ICHIKAWA: In occupation, you have to team those up, Kibei like that up with a Japane[se]---with a Nisei with very limited English---I mean, Japanese. And those two team---those two would make a very good team. INTERVIEWER: So the same principle of teaming people up during the war, you used that same principle in occupied Japan? ICHIKAWA: Not so much during occupied Japan. They---not so much. I think wherever you sent these to---these people to, they made their own arrangement, made the best use of the Kibei, and team him up with somebody with [14:00] not too good Japanese language. Now, that was---that would depend on the local commander or chief or whatever it is. INTERVIEWER: Now, some of these assignments---we talked about repatriation, war crimes trials---guys working on those. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: What other areas did the Nisei work on? ICHIKAWA: Well, they used a lot of Nisei in CIC, Counterintelligence Corps, that they---the original CIC people, they trained themselves in Holabird in Maryland, at their school, before they sent 'em to the U.S.---I mean, to occupied Japan. But they needed so many new linguists that they relied on us. So these people were assigned to CIC not in the CIC itself, but This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 29 of 45 �they called them the 319th Military Intelligence Service, and they were---later on, many of them became regular CIC. If you were assigned---if you were a CIC personnel, you get assigned to 4-4-1 CIC, but if you’re coming from ATIS, then you become---you’re assigned to 319. And so these people really have no CIC training, but they use them primarily as linguists. But many of them stayed on and received a CIC training; they became CIC officers. So they used the linguists extensively throughout Japan, because that’s one of the things [16:00] you look for in Japan, are the groups or individuals who are against what MacArthur’s trying to do. These will be the Communist Party members, ultranationalists, and things like that. So that’s one of the key elements of the occupation is the CIC. Another key element is CCD, Civil Censorship Detachment. We sent a lot of people to them all over Japan, and they’re the one that censors what’s being produced, censors letters to make sure that the people are on track. You know, if there’s something adverse, they’ll print something adverse, you know, they get---they’re told not to, you know. For example, if it’s publication, they, you know, they get pulled up on the carpet and . . . And so it keeps the unwanted type of publication from coming out. These will be anything that’s against the democratic Japan. So, there again, that’s part of MacArthur’s plan. INTERVIEWER: Now, there was somebody very special . . . ICHIKAWA: Oh. INTERVIEWER: . . . in the C---oh, I’m sorry, go ahead. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, go ahead. No, [indiscernible]. INTERVIEWER: No, no. ICHIKAWA: Some questions. INTERVIEWER: Oh, I felt like I interrupted you earlier. ICHIKAWA: No, no, no, no, no, no. INTERVIEWER: ‘Cause we got CIC, CCD, repatriation, war crimes . . . This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 30 of 45 �ICHIKAWA: Government section, too. Government section is---I don’t know exactly what they did, but the Government Section used a lot of our personnel, and these are the people who are dealing with Japanese [18:00] in the government trying to make Japan into a democratic country. INTERVIEWER: And the Government Section was Japanese government? ICHIKAWA: No, they’re the---under MacArthur’s organization, there’s a unit called the Government Section, and they---I don’t know what they did, but they dealt with the Japanese government. INTERVIEWER: With Japanese industry being so huge and so powerful and so affecting the economy before the war, during the war, and then was dealt with after the war, the zaibatsu. ICHIKAWA: Well, they---during the war, the U.S. bombed all their factories. Now, one of the things that MacArthur did was to---this is under the ESS [Economic and Scientific Section]. Now, that stands for Economic---I forgot what ESS stood for, but there’s a huge unit called the ESS, and they’re involved in the factories and whatnot, rebuilding the factories. Now, it’s my understanding that the steel mills were all destroyed. MacArthur’s group, ESS, helped Japan rebuild the steel mills, and they---all the modern equipment was imported from the---America. I think it was on loan basis. We didn’t give it to them; I think we loaned it to them, or rather [20:00] they were supposed to pay us back. I don’t know what happened. But anyway, as a result, the Japanese had a first-class steel mill in a very short time, whereas the American steel mills were in the old, ancient ways of making steel. The Japanese were able to capture the mark[et]---a lot of the American markets because they had the modern equipment. So . . . INTERVIEWER: Did you ever have to send any linguists over to---Nisei linguists over to ESS? ICHIKAWA: Yes, yes, we sent quite a few over. INTERVIEWER: Now, see, I’ve heard these stories, and---about Nisei linguists being interpreters to very, very powerful and rich Japanese businessmen, and working---you know, trying to--ICHIKAWA: I’m sure. Yeah, yeah. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 31 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: Have you heard those stories? ICHIKAWA: Not really, no. INTERVIEWER: Not really? ICHIKAWA: No, no, no. INTERVIEWER: Okay. Okay. What would the Nisei linguists do in the ESS? What was the, like, job description when the personnel office . . . ICHIKAWA: Well, I’m sure they had many, many dealings with company owners and whatnot, and I don’t know what they did. Once I sent them, they’re gone. INTERVIEWER: [Laughs.] That’s true. Sorry. ICHIKAWA: So I really don’t know what they did. INTERVIEWER: Just two quick questions on the mechanics, ‘cause you’re in a position where, you know, you gotta meet the need by sending out the linguists, so there’s a responsibility. I---you know, regardless of what the guys think about what their duty ends up, that’s---you know, serve your country, buddy. But bottom line is, I mean, you have to fill the need. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: So how did you rate these linguists? Was there paperwork on 'em, or did you actually physically meet them and talk with them? How do you figure out how good they are? ICHIKAWA: Well, they---[22:00] I was given a---I didn’t do the rating, you know, and I had a very good assistant. He was---his name was Ted Soyeshima. He eventually became a lieutenant colonel before he retired. Anyway, he handled all the ratings, the schooling and all that; he did all that for me. And so when it came---sometimes I had just a few linguists in the pool, you know, to send out. Sometimes I had two or three hundred of This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 32 of 45 �'em. So he would---if there’s a few linguists, a lot of times I would, you know, meet them and talk to them; at other times, if there were a few hundred, I would go and talk to them in a group, but it’s mostly by paper, you know, I . . . INTERVIEWER: And was there any circumstances that you would use a non-Japanese linguist? ICHIKAWA: Well, all . . . INTERVIEWER: (Inaudible) ICHIKAWA: . . . I had about four teachers who were all Japanese. INTERVIEWER: Japanese nationals, citizens? ICHIKAWA: Japanese nationals. INTERVIEWER: No kidding? ICHIKAWA: They were the teachers over there. We hired them. And so while they’re waiting for their assignment, they come to us. We would put 'em in school. We had school for them, so . . . INTERVIEWER: One of the things that I’m always curious about, and when you first walk into this situation, I mean, you’re trying [24:00] to meet needs of, you know, with communicating with a population, and you’re trying to get the job done and move forward, and you start to bring in nationals or, you know, you include the defeated population in the system to push occupation forward. How do you evaluate or know that you can trust the peo[ple]--that population that you’re bringing in? ICHIKAWA: Well, they needed a job for one, so . . . They were former teachers, you know, and they were thankful for the job, because during early occupation days, jobs were a little hard. Japan was really destroyed; it was . . . When we got there---fortunately, again, General MacArthur left the police intact, so at least you had order in Japan because of the police, because you had to demobilize the military, there’s no more military. I guess MacArthur didn’t trust the military, that’s for one, ‘cause we fought---they were our enemies, and soThis transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 33 of 45 �--but unlike---here again, unlike Iraq, who---they---who---which got rid of all the internal police and all that, we kept the Japanese police. And as a result, [26:00] every little box had a policeman watching, keeping order. So, again, the---that was a plus for General MacArthur. Yep. INTERVIEWER: Now, a little side note is you had mentioned that 13 women had come into J[apan]--occupation very early on. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: And they worked as censors. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, they were with CCD, Civil Censorship Detachment. INTERVIEWER: One of them was particularly special to you, I understand. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, it’s my wife. INTERVIEWER: Look, the historians are gonna be watching this and reading to learn and dig out stories to, you know, put together the big picture of what the Nisei linguists did in occupied Japan . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: . . . and whether they like it or not, I like romantic stories, and I like yours, so if you could give me a quick story about how you met your wife. ICHIKAWA: Well, she---we---we lived---our temporary quarter was just across from the billet they were in. They were in the Shufu no Tomo, which was the building owned by a women’s magazine, and all the women were there, and we were located, I guess, across their building, so we didn’t even---we didn’t know who they are. We rode buses, so one day I rode a bus, and I sat next to my ex-wife and made some comments, and she wouldn’t give me the time of day. So [laughs] then my good buddy, we were living in tents together in Australia, [28:00] he spotted another one, and he wanted to get a date, but she wouldn’t go out with him alone. So she---we---so she brought her and my friend asked This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 34 of 45 �me to come along, so we sort of double-dated, and that was the beginning. We were the first couple to be married in Japan, and we had quite a publicity in newspapers, being the first couple. I had to get approval first. My first approval got lost, and then---so I sent another one, and they---well, they didn’t know how to handle us, you know, ‘cause we’re the first case to be married in Japan. So we got the Officers’---our Officers’ Club threw open the door for our reception, and we had a military marriage because there was no--the embassy wasn’t even in Japan, so we couldn’t get married over there, and so we had a military marriage. And the Officers’ Club threw open the doors, and it didn’t cost me a penny, so the marriage was very reasonable. INTERVIEWER: Now, you said it got some media coverage. Did the Stars and Stripes report on it, or was it media in Japan? ICHIKAWA: Media in Japan, and I think the Stars and Stripes did, too, I think. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Okay, for the---now, that’s really a good historical fact, is that you’re the first couple to be married . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: . . . in occupied Japan, so for historians who would want to look that up, I’ve got to ask you [30:00] the date you were married and the year. Do you remember? ICHIKAWA: Yeah. April . . . INTERVIEWER: (Inaudible). ICHIKAWA: April 2, 1946. INTERVIEWER: Thank you. Excellent. Let’s see . . . ICHIKAWA: So we had---in fact, we had the official military photographer doing all the pictures, and then he lost the film. [Laughs.] He was gonna give us copies, and somehow it got lost, and we never did get a---get their copies. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 35 of 45 �INTERVIEWER: I wonder if it’s over in National Archives somewhere. ICHIKAWA: I don’t know. That’s an idea. Maybe I should go looking for that. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: [Laughs.] And spend the next 40 years plowing through stuff. Oh my God. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Okay, let’s see. Then you left Japan, occupied Japan, but then you were recalled. ICHIKAWA: Yes. INTERVIEWER: And you moved up into Hokkaido . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: . . . during the Korean conflict . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: . . . but then you were back in Tokyo in a place called Washington Heights. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, tell me about Washington Heights. What year was this, first? ICHIKAWA: Well, I was recalled in November 19---October, I guess, November 1950. I was the---I left the Army as a first lieutenant, and during the Korean War, they were losing many, many infantry officers---company-grade infantry officers. In fact, they l[ost]---they said they lost a whole West Point class in Korea, and so when I got my commission, later on I was [32:00] asked to state a branch of service. I had any branch of service I could select. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 36 of 45 �I liked infantry, so I selected infantry. And so I got re[called]---because I was an infantry officer, I got recalled for the Korean War. They recalled 82 of us. And I objected, saying, “I may be a branch of---infantry branch, but I’m actually an intelligence officer; I know nothing about infantry.” They didn’t believe me, so they recalled me anyway, and--so I had to get rid of everything I owned, again, in 1950. And so I trained with 81 other officers, all recalled officers, all disgruntled recalled officers. And at that time I was the only Asian American in that group, and very, very different this time was nobody ever questioned my loyalty. That was a plus. There was no discriminatory action against me; I got recalled because I was an infantry officer. Anyway, nobody got out of the---we trained for giving us a refresher course in how to be an infantry officer, and---about three weeks’ training---put us on a ship, sent us to Zama to be reoutfitted as an infantry officer to be sent to Korea. And in Zama, I got a call to go to so-and-so [34:00] place. I don’t know how they found me, but they interviewed me and said they wanted my interrogation techniques, so they gave me an opportunity to go up to Hokkaido or stay in the pipeline with the rest and go to Korea. I chose Hokkaido, naturally, because I didn’t want to get shot at. So I went up to Hokkaido, and it was a---I was given---I was sent to CIC up there. And I had no CIC training, but the first job they want me to do is to be a---to do a security survey of Muroran Port; there’s a troopship coming in. I had no idea what a security survey was, so I borrowed an old one and sort of copied that and sent it in. [Laughs.] Anyway, I had to go down there, and everything went okay, and so . . . Then I---then they sent me to a special unit for interrogation, so I spent my early---oh, yeah, in 1952, Japan became a--occupation ended, officially ended, so . . . But there was no change for a number of years after that. Everybody assumed we’re still there. INTERVIEWER: And then Washington Heights down in Tokyo [indiscernible, overlapping speech]. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, then I went to Tokyo. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. ICHIKAWA: By then, I went to---I didn’t like the Army, so I got out and became a civilian, and [36:00] the unit that I was with was with CIA, and so they hired me. And so I went to Washington Heights, lived there for two years, and then came home to---came to CIA and got all kinds of training. INTERVIEWER: One of the things that strikes me so much about the Nisei and Kibei contribution to occupied Japan is intelligence, intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. They’re able to communicate, people to understand, and passing on information or knowledge. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 37 of 45 �ICHIKAWA: Well . . . INTERVIEWER: Just, you know, just generally speaking. ICHIKAWA: Well, linguists is all part of Military Intelligence Service, so it’s intelligence. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. How critical is intelligence to the success or failure of an operation like an occupation. How do you rate it? ICHIKAWA: Oh, very critical. It’s---with good intelligence, you can win, most of the time, anyway; with bad intelligence, you can lose, you know. INTERVIEWER: Now, when I hear these stories about the Nisei and Kibei talking with the Japanese civilians---and you gave a beautiful illustration about interpreting and softening the message so that both sides move forward and get the job done---and I think there’s an element to all of this that is almost diplomatic, almost like . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah, well, well. Some of our officers did move into the diplomatic service. [38:00] Are you meeting with Yukio Kawamoto? INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I talked with him yesterday. ICHIKAWA: Oh, you talked to him? INTERVIEWER: Mmm-hmm. ICHIKAWA: Well, he started out as a Military Intelligence officer, as an interpreter or translator. He ended up in the diplomatic service, so he was back in Tokyo. So, yeah, there is a relationship. INTERVIEWER: Now, the---before I ask the last question, just checking with my team. [Addressing crew.] Anybody got anything? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 38 of 45 �CREW MEMBER: Yes, I have something. I want to go back to that other question and ask, when he was assign[ing]---when you were assigning linguists to different roles, was there---and I assume that you had some non-Japanese linguists in your pool? ICHIKAWA: Non-Japanese linguists? No. CREW MEMBER: They were all . . . ICHIKAWA: All linguists. CREW MEMBER: Okay. Were they all Japanese American? ICHIKAWA: Yeah. No, there were some Caucasian Americans that came in as officers. We had---I even had officers in the pool. CREW MEMBER: Was---were there any circumstances where you would not send a Japanese American? ICHIKAWA: Where I would not send? CREW MEMBER: Uh-huh. ICHIKAWA: I don’t recall any. I mean, if the request comes in through---they would come in through the Army channel, and if they wanted somebody, you sort of had to fill it. No, I don’t---I mean, I didn’t have that choice of turning down a request. CREW MEMBER: Well, actually I meant in terms of the qualities or [40:00] what the---in terms of culture. I was just wondering, do the---did the Japanese Americans bring a different quality or a different knowledge base than the non-Japanese that you had to choose from? ICHIKAWA: The ones who came through, the non-Japanese, were all officers, and there were---so you couldn’t exactly send an officer to an enlisted man’s position or vice versa, you know. So you had to handle the officers with a little bit more gentle hand. In other words, if This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 39 of 45 �they didn’t want to go to class, they didn’t. You know. A lot of the officers, when they hit our pool, waiting for their assignment, some of them just didn’t want to go to class. And we let them, you know. But with the enlisted men, you were a little bit stricter. INTERVIEWER: So there was no situation that came up where somebody said, “You know what? In that situation, it’s better to send hakujin,” or somebody said, “In this situation, better to send Nisei?” ICHIKAWA: No, I don’t remember anything like that, no. I don’t remember any differentiation like that. INTERVIEWER: It doesn’t seem like it would come up, but we just---we want to make sure . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: . . . that we’re thorough in covering all the bases. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, yeah. [42:00] ‘Cause those days, people who are coming through, all the officers were---the Nisei officers were from the original group that’s been fighting, so they were already in Japan. The new ones that coming in, they’re all enlisted personnel. So there wasn’t that need. You know. No, I don’t remember anything like that. I just don’t. INTERVIEWER: [Addressing the crew.] Anybody else? ICHIKAWA: He’s asleep. INTERVIEWER: No, he’s thinking. CREW MEMBER: No, no. [Laughter.] INTERVIEWER: I work with him a lot, so . . . CREW MEMBER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 40 of 45 �I have to stop camera for a second because, you know, there was . . . [Interview stops, then resumes.] INTERVIEWER: You’ve explained already that you had a guy working under you that would go through all the paperwork because he’s MISer, linguist, had already gone through MIS language school, a lot of them early on had served in the field, so there was a pretty good picture of who these guys were and what their strengths and weaknesses were. And then you had a pool of these guys to choose from to fill slots, and sometimes you had tons of guys and little---very little slots; sometimes very little guys, tons of slots. Some of the more delicate issues, like I’m imagining the ESS or the government, dealing with the Japanese government, more specifically would require a linguist who maybe had some university or graduate work [44:00] training to deal in something very specific, something maybe about economics or land reform, property rights, something like that. Was there any request from the pool---from the office you got that was very specific about what they needed for a linguist, interpreter, interrogator? ICHIKAWA: I really don’t recall anything. I’m sure there were. There were some---and, you know, I’m sure I’ve gotten some special requests with a specific background that they’re looking for, but I---at this late date, I really don’t remember. But whatever it was, I had to fill it with people I have. So, you know, it may have fitted, or it may not have. I really don’t know what happened. I had no comeback on something like that. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, because we’re kind of getting into State Department stuff, working with occupation and---yeah, I’m not sure, but, we---hey, we’re trying to cover all the bases. ICHIKAWA: Yeah, okay. INTERVIEWER: That’s what we’re doing. Let’s see. The Communist threat. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: So big that Truman picks this guy named John Dodge to come up with an economic plan to rebuild Japan’s economy. He’s a banker from the U.S. And he has a meeting with him and says [46:00] Japan’s economy is now a national security issue; go make it work. And it became a national security issue because the communist threat from China and Russia. While you were in occupied Japan, how much of that Communist threat did you personally see or recognize at the time? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 41 of 45 �ICHIKAWA: You said China and Russia. I don’t recall anything external Communist threat. Then---I mean, something like that, it’s---you don’t do it openly, you do it secretly; you send agents. And that’s where CIC comes in. Their main target was the local JCP, Japanese Communist Party. Now, they would have, I’m sure, lines into Russia or China, but the CIC had operations, I am sure. Not being in CIC, I don’t know, but I’m sure they had operations involved in monitoring JCP. Now, [clears throat] on the [clears throat] . . . INTERVIEWER: Why don’t you have some water? ICHIKAWA: On the---up in Hokkaido, when I was . . . [Mr. Ichikawa's water glass gets refilled.] INTERVIEWER: Here you go. ICHIKAWA: Okay. Up in Hokkaido [clears throat] . . . INTERVIEWER: Take your time. Let’s have water before you talk. ICHIKAWA: Okay. [48:00] Up in Hokkaido, while---our main job was interrogation of people who came back from Sakhalin, and the Russians were very, very active in Sakhalin in sending back the Japanese residents of Sakhalin, and they trained a lot of 'em to become Russian agents. And that was our job, is to try to find out Russian agents. We were able to find a number of 'em, and---in other words---most of them, they had no---they went through the training, but they really had no desire to carry out---become their agents. But---so, things like that, I think we monitored quite a bit. So that was our main job on my second return to Japan. And we dealt with the police in finding where these people went to, and we carried this on until a couple years after the end of occupation, and the police still helped us along. There was no change. We---and I’m sure they felt no---very little change from---they’re used to seeing us come to their office, barge into their office with a request: find this guy; find that guy. INTERVIEWER: Mutual interests. ICHIKAWA: Oh, yeah. [50:00] Mutual interests. Yeah, we had a very good relationship with the police, and it became better and better. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 42 of 45 �During your time in occupation, reforms had begun. You had the land reform, you had the economic reform, the political and social reform, women having the right to vote, the right to own property and get divorced; you had the land---I mean, the land reform was huge. Anything that you saw, heard, or want to speak about regarding any of those reforms? ICHIKAWA: No, because I wasn’t really involved in that, so I have no knowledge or expertise on the reforms, no. INTERVIEWER: You were in Japan during occupation, you had left, you were recalled . . . ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: . . . back to Hokkaido and then back to Tokyo for a bit. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Describe physical changes that you saw to Japan between that lapse. ICHIKAWA: Oh, they were building like mad. The houses that were destroyed, gradually building it up. A tremendous difference between when I first arrived in Japan, and when I came back the second time, everything was running. The second time, I flew into Haneda, I guess, and---no, second time, I came by ship. Yeah, I came by ship. INTERVIEWER: You had described the Japanese people---when---you know, when you first arrived in [52:00] occupation, you had described Japanese people as fatigued by war, tired of the war; it had run them down. When you came back that second time, describe those same Japanese people. What was the population like? ICHIKAWA: Oh, they were---the second time I came back, within, let’s see, I was there in ’45–’46, came back in ’51, that’s only five years, a tremendous difference. They’ve---what happened was that the---up in Hokkaido, I couldn’t---even though the wives are in Japan, being a recallee from---they wouldn’t allow my wife to come to Japan. They wouldn’t let dependents come in. From the old part, yes, but from people like us, somehow they will not allow her to come in. So I was mad at the Army anyway, and so I brought her on my own, and I couldn’t---the Army wouldn’t give me any allowance or anything, so a This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 43 of 45 �Japanese family in Hokkaido heard my---we were living in a hotel---heard our plight, so he offered to let us stay with him. [54:00] And I turned him down because---and then he came back again and I under[stand]---everybody had very good things to say about him, so I said okay, so we moved in with his family. They were the richest family in Hokkaido, and they took us in. We stayed with them for about half a year before the Army gave us housing. So---no, they---it was very, very different. Well, of course, Sapporo was not bombed, so it was okay. But Japan---there was a lot of difference in Japan. But to explain how things were in Hokkaido, it’s---it was wonderful. We enjoyed staying in Hokkaido. INTERVIEWER: From seeing that dramatic change from the first time you set foot in Japan, you know, and then coming back almost five years later, how much did the Nisei contribute to that kind of change? How would you rate that? ICHIKAWA: Well, that’s---a question like that is [laughs] very, very difficult to answer. INTERVIEWER: I put you right on the spot. ICHIKAWA: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Well, the reason I’m asking---and this is in all seriousness---it’s not about ego, it’s not coming from a place of ego; the Army really wants to know what you guys think about what you did. And I know you guys are very humble, and I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable---I was just playing with you a little bit there. ICHIKAWA: Oh, I know. INTERVIEWER: But the honest thing is, they really want to know what you did, and they want to know how you think you did. ICHIKAWA: Well, put it this way. If we weren’t [56:00] there in the great numbers that we were there, I think the process would have been very, very difficult, very slow, because you couldn’t communicate. You have to communicate with them very quickly, in a very gentle way, because they’re the defeated country, and they’re very sensitive about that. And even today, you deal with the Japanese, they don’t want to talk about occupation days. They don’t. They’ll go around that subject. So even today, it’s sensitive, so those days, I mean, they’re hungry, their cities are collapsed, and without---look what they---in This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 44 of 45 �a short time, Japan is built up into a beautiful democratic country, and without the Nisei during the early days, it would have been very, I think, difficult. Maybe Japan would have been a very different type of a country, not as democratic as today, because of Nisei, because---for example, for---the ultranationalist group maybe could have risen very, very quickly without our control, without our intelligence, which required [58:00] Nisei. So, you know, it’s a very hard thing to judge, but I can say that, without them, I think it would have made a big difference. INTERVIEWER: When you look back at that time and what the Nisei did as a group, are you proud of the guys? ICHIKAWA: Oh, of course. Of course. There were almost 6,000 of us over there, and that’s a lot of Nisei, a lot of linguists at any particular time. So, yes, I’m very, very proud of what we did over there. INTERVIEWER: Is there anything else that you’d like to talk about or say? ICHIKAWA: No, that’s enough. [Laughs.] INTERVIEWER: Well, Grant Ichikawa, thank you so much for your interview today. ICHIKAWA: You bet, you bet. INTERVIEWER: Thank you for your service to our country. ICHIKAWA: Okay. End - 851A-Ichikawa-Grant-2 This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 45 of 45 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grant Hayao Ichikawa oral history interview, July 19, 2009 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Grant Ichikawa oral history interview transcript [full interview], July 19, 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ichikawa, Grant: narrator Hawkins, Richard: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcriptions Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Extent The size or duration of the resource. 45 pages, typescript Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-07-19 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2009OH0851A_T_Ichikawa https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/280579b5265123868eacdc860300a647.pdf 6cb3f1ae08acd2ed154c2f68a37689a6 PDF Text Text Go For Broke National Education Center Oral History Project Oral History Interview with Yukio Kawamoto, July 18, 2009, Arlington, Virginia INTERVIEWER: It is July 18, 2009. We are in Arlington, Virginia, and we are with Mr. Yukio Kawamoto. Paul Son is on sound, and Lisa Sueki is on catalogue. Steve Wasserman is running camera. And Richard Hawkins is chatting with Yukio. Thank you so much for coming today. Please state your full and complete name. KAWAMOTO: Yukio Kawamoto. INTERVIEWER: And what was your job in occupied Japan? KAWAMOTO: Well, first I was sent to ATIS, Allied Translation Interpreting Section. And I had some friends over at the tribunal, and they said, “Come on over to our place. You get better pay and better work.” So I---well, one of them, Sho (inaudible), he was one of the---and we’re slightly related. And so that’s how I got to the tribunal. And I think it was a better move. INTERVIEWER: So what was your job title? KAWAMOTO: Well, it was---technically, I was an investigator and interpreter. And so I was able to go to Sugamo Prison, interview people. And Japanese attorneys at the trial had college friends in Sugamo and--[02:00] but they can’t go without some allied person, you know, so I, I did some of that, too. One of them was Kishi who later became Prime Minister again. And he---I got a [clears throat] kick out of the way he came into the interrogation room. He had these wood clogs, geta, clack, clack, clack, clacking down the---and he had this summertime gown, you know, where you go to hot springs or something like that. And he sat down and we had a nice chat. But primarily, I was there to help his buddy, I mean, his classmates have a little get-together. And I---nothing harmful, so why not? INTERVIEWER: OK. You’re an investigator. KAWAMOTO: Well, in that situation, no. Well, [laughter]. Well, it was on my ID card, but . . . INTERVIEWER: Well, that, see, that--KAWAMOTO: I, I didn’t really do too much investigation. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 1 of 43 �Yeah, well, that’s kind of the interesting part of it all, because you’re classified as interpreter/investigator, and you’re working on the war crimes trials. Specifically, what team did you work on? Did your team have a name? Was it part of a specific prosecution or defense of a specific--KAWAMOTO: Well, we were on the defense side, and we were the, language and investigation branch. [04:00] And there, we had four allied people, a Navy Lieutenant, Australian Captain, and two Nisei. One of them was me, and the other fellow, Misaki, was a Nisei but he was a Kibei. He had studied in Japan so he knew a lot of Japanese language. And our job primarily was to manage the defense translation section. We had about 100 Japanese employees. I mean, and some of them were, you know, diplomats, ex-diplomats, some were professors of English, and so it was a high caliber group. They did the actual translation, and the---so the occupation people simply went over the, their product and brushed up on the English because, you know, in Japanese, English doesn’t sound so good sometimes. And that was the main job. INTERVIEWER: Now, you were assigned to specific guys that were put on trial? KAWAMOTO: No. You mean a certain . . . no. Whatever that came in from our translation group that needed, you know, any change or, you know, smoothing it up for the submission to the trial. INTERVIEWER: So did your defense group work [06:00] for one particular person put on trial, or was it-KAWAMOTO: Oh, no. INTERVIEWER: ---a flow of documents from everyone? KAWAMOTO: The whole---everyone. INTERVIEWER: I’m sorry? KAWAMOTO: Everyone. I mean, it wasn’t a particular person, although we did spend a lot of time on the Kido Nikki or Kido Diaries. Kido was the Imperial household minister who had direct access to the Emperor, and he kept a diary and so a lot of the defense division translation was his diary. And he’d come home one day and make a few notes. Some of, some of it, a lot of it referred to a fact that the Soviet Union, they were supposed to be neutral and the Japanese government pleaded with them to terminate the war for them. They wouldn’t do it until they, well, picked up all the good stuff in Manchuria. [laughter] But anyway, so that was interesting, the things that were going on before the war ended. And . . . INTERVIEWER: There’s something unique about the way that Kido kept the diary. I understand about his actually writing style? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 2 of 43 �KAWAMOTO: Well, yeah. A lot of the Japanese educated people write in sousho, which is a script form, and it’s kind of hard to read. And incidentally, my wife [08:00] was hired to kind of make it easier for us to review by making it into printed Japanese. So she had a function, and--INTERVIEWER: So the actually diary had been written in this more elitist type of script? KAWAMOTO: Well, I don't know about elitist. But anyway--INTERVIEWER: Well, you said educated people. KAWAMOTO: [laughter] Well, yeah. INTERVIEWER: It’s a form of writing, then? KAWAMOTO: Yeah, it’s---anyway, it’s not an imprinted language. That helped us in reviewing the (inaudible). INTERVIEWER: Beyond the dynamics between Japan and the Soviet Union at the time--KAWAMOTO: Mm-hmm. INTERVIEWER: ---just before the end of the war that Kido had written about, anything else in his diary that struck you as interesting or odd or something that you would take note? KAWAMOTO: No, he wasn’t that mysterious. I mean, he wrote, “I went to the barber shop today,” or something. [laughter] INTERVIEWER: No kidding. Really? KAWAMOTO: Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: That mundane. KAWAMOTO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 3 of 43 �“I had lunch at the Piers Club,” or that sort of thing too. INTERVIEWER: Anything about the Emperor himself? KAWAMOTO: I don’t recall. You mean personal things? INTERVIEWER: Yes, personal. KAWAMOTO: No. INTERVIEWER: No, OK. KAWAMOTO: Not that I remember. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Now, you said you had, you had---your wife was hired to do this translation? KAWAMOTO: Not translation. [10:00] She, she wrote the, I mean, looked at the sousho, the script form, and made it into printed characters so the allied people who were reviewing it could read it. INTERVIEWER: Now, was she your wife at the time? KAWAMOTO: Well, not at first. I mean [laughter] later on. INTERVIEWER: Tell us that story. That’s an interesting---tell us about your wife, how she got to occupied Japan. KAWAMOTO: Well, she’s a native of Japan, Tokyo-born. No, she---yeah. It’s kind of a funny situation. She came to visit some friend of hers at the tribunal, and she happened to come into our room. The four of us, four allied people, an American Lieutenant, Navy Lieutenant, Australian Captain, and two JapaneseAmericans like me---although Misaki was also a Kibei who had studied in Japan. I’m a, I’m pure American-born Japanese. And that was the defense division language investigation office, and we had a staff of Japanese nationals that did the extra translations. One of them was a retired Counsel General of Japan in Los Angeles. And so it was---and then a lot of them were professors of English and people like [12:00] that. [clears throat] INTERVIEWER: And these were professors of English at Japanese universities in Japan? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 4 of 43 �KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: And do you happen to remember that consulate’s name? KAWAMOTO: Oh, I can’t remember. INTERVIEWER: That’s OK. But they---we’re talking about a pretty high, highly educated group of people here. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. The staff was well-educated, yeah. Some were even foreign, foreign office people or had connections. Others were academic people. INTERVIEWER: And their performance level? KAWAMOTO: Very high. INTERVIEWER: How did you know you could trust the translation that they would give you? I mean, after all, you, you know. KAWAMOTO: Yeah, yeah. Well, well, we look at the, like Kido diary, we look at it too. You know? And when, for all practical purposes, there was no dishonesty or favoritism or, you know, slanting it. So it was fairly smooth. INTERVIEWER: You did work---did you work with Nisei translators who were women, women that came over from the U.S. who were Nisei? KAWAMOTO: We---I don’t think we had any Nisei--INTERVIEWER: You didn’t have any Nisei women? KAWAMOTO: In, in, in our particular branch. INTERVIEWER: Right. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 5 of 43 �KAWAMOTO: No, no. No, they were all native Japanese. INTERVIEWER: OK. Yeah, just making sure I understand--KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---who you were working with, yeah. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: [14:00] The size of your defense or the team with which you worked, that sounds like a pretty good-size group. The amount, number or amount of documents that were coming, flowing to you, did you have enough people to handle the work? Was it overload? KAWAMOTO: I don't know that it was a problem. I don’t think there was a problem. But compared to the prosecution, our staff was very small. Prosecution had an army of employees. INTERVIEWER: So, literally? KAWAMOTO: Yeah, literally. Prosecution section was well-staffed, powerfully staffed. [laughter] INTERVIEWER: That’s kind of interesting because then I’m wondering how well the defense was actually represented. KAWAMOTO: Yeah, well, I don't know. I don't know how you could compare it, but in terms of numbers, they had a lot more people with the prosecution. INTERVIEWER: You had mentioned Sugamo Prison. KAWAMOTO: Sugamo, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, and you had gone, you had accompanied Kishi’s attorney to--KAWAMOTO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 6 of 43 �Well, now, there’s an attorney on the tribunal defense side who was a college friend of Kishi, and he wanted to, to talk with him. Maybe it was just social, but he can’t do it [16:00] without somebody like me who had, you know, the necessary documents to go to Sugamo and, you know, bring, bring him as one that I could verify for. But in practical terms, he was just seeing how his college buddy was doing. And Kishi was very nonchalant about it, clackety-clack with his geta, and came in. And I just let them have the nice chat. INTERVIEWER: Any other prisoners that you encountered or were able to talk to or see at any time at Sugamo Prison? KAWAMOTO: No. I, I can’t remember. I mean, it wasn’t my duty to go in there, you know, on a regular basis. It’s only for certain things that came up and---or a request from, I guess, Japanese Defense Counsel. He wanted to talk to Kishi because they were college pals. And I saw no harm in it, so I complied and took him there. INTERVIEWER: Sure. I just didn’t know how often your duties required you to be there or not be there, so I was just checking around? KAWAMOTO: Well, I, I would have to be there if---the Japanese Consulate can’t go walking in on his own, you know, it was under occupation, you know? And I had [18:00] an ID card, investigator/translator. It helped a lot of time when we went to nightclubs where we were supposed to go. [chuckles] And MPs [Military Police] were, they would watch, you know, as Japanese take shoes off at, on the straw mat. And if they see some American, non-bush shoes or something like that, they had a pretty good idea that it wasn’t Japanese, they weren’t Japanese. But in that, I mean, some of the other guys who got caught had some problems, but I had this investigator’s ID so I had no problem. INTERVIEWER: Would the---would they confront you with a great deal of authority, and--KAWAMOTO: Who? INTERVIEWER: The MPs? KAWAMOTO: Well, if they--INTERVIEWER: Try to be all tough with you? KAWAMOTO: If they thought, you know, I was a guy who was there who shouldn’t be there. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 7 of 43 �Right. And then you’d whip out your card? KAWAMOTO: Well, I didn’t even do that. They assumed I was OK, I guess. But I had that card, see. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: OK, I was hoping to hear a really good story about a confrontation--KAWAMOTO: No. INTERVIEWER: And you, cool as a cucumber, just slip out that card and say, “Boys, investigator.” Didn’t happen that way, huh? KAWAMOTO: No, I--INTERVIEWER: Oh, shoot. KAWAMOTO: --I wasn’t stopped. INTERVIEWER: OK. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: OK. Now, with Mr. Kishi, there’s another good story about him. Many years after the prison, you got a chance to meet up with him again? KAWAMOTO: Well, yeah. This was way after. I mean, after he became [20:00] prime minister again and retired and so on. We---there’s a---well, they have, Washington has a Japan-American Society, and Tokyo has a JapanAmerican Society comparable, you know, goodwill type club. And Kishi, being a prominent government person, became president of the Tokyo Japanese-American Society at one time. So he had this, what do you call it, in Japanese they call it besso you know, country home, and after a golf tournament in which a lot of Japanese nationals were involved, went to his place for a reception. And most of the people who were there were, you know, pretty prominent businessmen and so on, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and that kind of stuff, Sony. And there was one Nisei, I don't know what his role was and, and how he got into the meeting, but I don't know, he was trying to, you know, make connections, and he didn’t go very far with Kishi. And then he noticed Kishi and I, well, we talk, talked rather extensively, because [22:00] Kishi had remembered that I had helped to, his friend, college friend at Sugamo Prison when he was still under This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 8 of 43 �surveillance. And so this Nisei guy, I don't know what his role was in the occupation, but he was kind of impressed, I guess, as were some of these big shot businessmen, Japanese businessmen. INTERVIEWER: You didn’t tell them you met Kishi in prison, did you? KAWAMOTO: Of course not! INTERVIEWER: Good. [laughter] OK, just checking up. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Making sure. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Making sure. KAWAMOTO: And, and---but later on, when he was Prime Minister again and was a state guest in Washington, I was at a luncheon there and the thing that struck me was how times change. You know, the early occupation days, Kishi was a suspect, you know, war crimes person. And then in Washington when he became Prime Minister again, at this capitol luncheon he was an honored guest. INTERVIEWER: See, that kinda interested me when, when I first heard you tell that story, because as I understand it, when occupation started the idea was to democratize and demilitarize Japan into a nice, pleasant, agregarian society. Just keep them peaceful, keep them down on the farms. KAWAMOTO: Well, I don't know about that, but they improved the farming situation, yeah, I mean, the occupation did. INTERVIEWER: Improved the what? KAWAMOTO: The farming sector. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, yeah. Well, these are books I’ve been reading about this. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 9 of 43 �KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: And they say in 1947, [24:00] United States got all nervous about the communist threat and Truman sent over John Dodge, a banker, with an economic plan and said, “Your economic plan is of utmost importance to United States national security. We must contain communism.” And suddenly, Japan became very important to build up as an industrial strength. And your story of Kishi--KAWAMOTO: Hmm? INTERVIEWER: Your story of Kishi--KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---always kind of reminds me of that flow of history of Japan itself, in a very kind of parallel---not perfect---but a parallel way. What’d you think of occupation when you first arrived? What was occupation? What is it? What’s it supposed to accomplish? KAWAMOTO: Well, I wasn’t so sure about what it was supposed to accomplish, but I was---my biggest surprise was Japanese natives, how friendly they were and how they welcomed the American personnel. They didn’t, you know, show any signs of, I hate you guys being here. So that was great for me because things were smooth between U.S. and Japan, and it was. So the occupation, I think, was particularly smooth. I mean, I would of---I mean, if the Soviets ever did that, you know, that would have been a nightmare, but ... INTERVIEWER: Now, that’s interesting. Explain to me [26:00] why you think it would have been a nightmare if the Soviets had tried to occupy Japan. KAWAMOTO: Well, just because of their culture and background, the Soviets. INTERVIEWER: Right, I get that. But what---can you give me, like, one or two examples of what you mean by Soviet culture and background? KAWAMOTO: Well, the, the, they are---they aren’t a democracy, and, well, communist. INTERVIEWER: What was that? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 10 of 43 �KAWAMOTO: They’re communist. Philo[sophically]---you know, politically. INTERVIEWER: Now, with the United States occupying Japan, what did the United States have working for it? What was, what was positive? What was giving it a chance to succeed? KAWAMOTO: Well, I think part of it is because America in general is pretty, well, nice. It’s a nice country. And it shows in the occupation. And even General MacArthur, you know, he was smart enough to respect the Emperor and that sort of thing. And . . . INTERVIEWER: Kind of a trigger word you said earlier about the soviets culturally---and I don't know any JapaneseRussians. Maybe there are Jap[anese]---you know, Russians of Japanese ancestry. KAWAMOTO: I, well--INTERVIEWER: I’m not sure, but I’ve never heard of them. KAWAMOTO: Well, I don't know about Japanese, but there were [28:00] Russians who lived in Japan, you know, because the communist rule, and they, these Russians had to flee their own country, and a lot of them assimilated as well in Japan. INTERVIEWER: Sure. But I was, I was trying to draw a contrast between not---I mean, with the Russians not having Russians of Japanese ancestry, at least not to my knowledge they didn’t have it at the time, but America did have Americans of Japanese ancestry. KAWAMOTO: Well, yeah. I, I don't know the Jap[anese]---Russian situation. INTERVIEWER: OK, we’ll just go with the American situation then. So the Americans had Americans of Japanese ancestry. KAWAMOTO: Yeah, well, that’s why we, Nisei were Americans. INTERVIEWER: And when America decides, we’re going to occupy Japan--KAWAMOTO: Yeah. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 11 of 43 �INTERVIEWER: ---they have this resource. KAWAMOTO: I guess so. INTERVIEWER: How valuable was the Nisei, to have that resource, for America to have that resource of the Nisei who knew some of the language, some of the culture? KAWAMOTO: Well, even just the language. I mean, the Nisei were, you know, we grew up in the States so their English is OK. They helped the communications. And I don't know, in general, I think Japanese people, the average Japanese people and the average Japanese, I mean, average Americans [30:00] are pretty much pretty good eggs. And that’s why it was simple to---I mean, easy to get along. INTERVIEWER: You’re talking about the Japanese citizens and the Nisei--KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---getting along? KAWAMOTO: Japanese what? INTERVIEWER: The---you were saying the average Japanese citizen and the average Nisei are pretty good eggs, so they got along? KAWAMOTO: The--INTERVIEWER: Is that right? KAWAMOTO: Well, I guess so. I mean, after all, they’d be father and son. INTERVIEWER: They what? KAWAMOTO: Father and son. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 12 of 43 �OK. KAWAMOTO: I mean--INTERVIEWER: No, I was making sure I heard you correctly. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. Well, the---like our parents, they were Japanese. And Nisei were born and raised in the States, but naturally there was a family ties or (inaudible). I don't know. INTERVIEWER: So the value of America having this resource of Americans of Japanese ancestry to use in occupation, how valuable would you rate that? KAWAMOTO: Well, I would say it was very good and very high. I mean, first of all, the language factor. And well, I guess the Nisei proved themselves to be loyal Americans. And at the same time, since their ancestry was Japan, they treated the Japanese people perhaps favorably. It was a good mix. [32:00] INTERVIEWER: On a---another element that I try to understand is cultural, whereas if I had been sent to occupied Japan, I wouldn’t know Japanese culture. I wouldn’t know the language. You know? And that’s---that would make things a lot harder for me. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. But people are people. INTERVIEWER: How do you mean? KAWAMOTO: Well, a lot of the people are not that politically, you know---well, they’re ordinary people. And that’s true in Japan. So the easy-going American G.I. although they were the conquerors, acted pretty much like they would in the States. So the occupation went smoothly. There were exceptions, of course. In fact, I wrote something in the Stars and Stripes one time when I observed some smart-alecky G.I., you know, he gave trouble to a Japanese native, you know, crossing the street or something like that. And I wrote into Stars and Stripes that this kind of thing won’t help our occupation. And it was a 1st Cav Division soldier, so a Captain from 1st Cav, this General sent him over to the tribunal to tell me, [34:00] we took care of the kid, and thanks for doing what you did because if that kind of stuff became habitual, the occupation would go down the tube. INTERVIEWER: Now, I’m going to press your memory a little bit. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 13 of 43 �INTERVIEWER: But this Stars and Stripes article, [coughs] as close as you can remember to when you had written that and when it was published? Do you have any recall of that? And I’m really pressing your memory. KAWAMOTO: Well, are you asking, was it delayed or. . . INTERVIEWER: No. What month or issue, or what week was it actually in Stars and Stripes? What was the date? I wanna look it up. I wanna find it. How do I find it? KAWAMOTO: I wouldn’t know, but time-wise, it was probably around ’46, ’47, the year. Early in the occupation. INTERVIEWER: OK, OK. That’s good. Thematically, what---every time I’m throwing something out to you about the Nisei being in Japan or you writing this article, and you talk about people being people, and treating people kind of as you would treat people here in the States. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: It’s all about behavior and it’s all about dynamics between people, how you relate to them. So what would you pinpoint [36:00] as one of the, the strongest positive ways of, of behaving toward or treating a Japanese national that made the occupation successful? KAWAMOTO: Well, I think the average American person is a pretty reasonable, decent guy. And the Japanese realize that. They would---I mean, the, the occupation was smooth because Americans are naturally nice people, although there are exceptions. [laughter] But you know, I . . . INTERVIEWER: So nice people. So what’s a nice thing to do? When you, when you---when I first meet a Japanese national, if you’re gonna instruct me, you’re gonna teach me--KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: I---Richard is going into occupation tomorrow. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 14 of 43 �So we’re going to give you a quick crash course. When you first meet a Japanese national, do this. What am I supposed to do? KAWAMOTO: Well, first thing you shouldn’t be is to be a domineering occupation person. INTERVIEWER: OK. KAWAMOTO: And try to behave like you would with any other person in the United States, and that would make it smooth. INTERVIEWER: Well, what if I’m a little afraid of them because I’m new to this, I, you know--KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---they’re the enemy, I don’t---I’m not sure. You know, they’re nice now, but they not, may not be nice at 10 o’clock at night when it’s dark and nobody else is around, you know what I’m saying? [38:00] So I’m a little afraid of them. So how would I treat them then? KAWAMOTO: Yeah, I guess some, somewhere, I guess, I don't know. INTERVIEWER: So how would I treat them then? How, how should I---how should I make them comfortable and me comfortable? KAWAMOTO: Well, if, if you’re fearful of something like that, stay in the occupation hotels. [chuckles] Or nightclubs or whatever. INTERVIEWER: Is there certain ways I should greet a Japanese national? Should I put out my right hand to shake their hand? KAWAMOTO: I don't know, hand shake is more like a Western way. Just have a pleasant attitude, and if you, a passerby, a smile or---I mean, you know, common decency applies in both cultures. INTERVIEWER: What, what if I bow to them? KAWAMOTO: They, they’ll think, well, this is a unusual American. [laughter] This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 15 of 43 �INTERVIEWER: Would that work for me or against me? KAWAMOTO: It wouldn’t be against. INTERVIEWER: What I’m trying to get at is--KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---is that here you are, of Japanese ancestry and you grew up learning Japanese culture, Japanese ways, it’s very natural. But you also grew up American, knowing American ways. So you hold two aces in your hand. You know how to conduct yourself in either culture for the most part. So there you are in occupied Japan, and you have a bunch of hakujin and they don’t know Japanese [40:00] ways, and you have a bunch of Japanese and they don’t know hakujin ways. How do you get them both to understand? Because you know both of them. KAWAMOTO: Yeah, well, I don't know. I think human beings have a certain standard of decency in any culture. So . . . INTERVIEWER: So it really boils down to decency for you? KAWAMOTO: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, even though you’re the occupier, you don’t want to make enemies of the native people. INTERVIEWER: And before when I was asking your advice, if I were to go into occupation, you had said to not act like a dominating conqueror. KAWAMOTO: Well, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Don’t act like that. KAWAMOTO: That, that wouldn’t go good, well. And most Americans aren’t that kind of character. INTERVIEWER: Most Americans are or are not? KAWAMOTO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 16 of 43 �Are not. INTERVIEWER: Are not. What about cultural issues, like when you walk into somebody’s home, you take your shoes off? What---is it important to know things like that about a culture before you go in to occupy them? KAWAMOTO: It would help. INTERVIEWER: It would help? KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: OK. KAWAMOTO: I don't know if the Army had any courses on occupation. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I’ve asked a lot of you guys. I’ve never heard of anybody saying that they had a, you know, an orientation kind of experience. How often did you advise hakujin [42:00] on how to conduct their selves or behave in a Japanese home? KAWAMOTO: I don’t think I had anyone ask me. INTERVIEWER: Did you offer? KAWAMOTO: No. Not really, because, well, generally speaking, even though the average G.I. reacted well because the Japanese were polite and seemed like an average, good Joe, so I mean, it catches on. I mean, some people, well, I don't know exactly, but---well, decency is probably the same for any culture. If you behave, there’s no problem. INTERVIEWER: You saved up all your advice for that one article in Stars and Stripes, and let everybody have it. That was good, that was good. What would occupa[tion]---occupation of Japan have looked like if Nisei had not been involved? KAWAMOTO: It probably would have, be OK. I mean, I think it was good that the Nisei played a role, sort of a [44:00] bridge of understanding. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 17 of 43 �What’s that mean, bridge of understanding? KAWAMOTO: Well, Nisei, of course, have had a little background on Japanese culture, so they got along OK for the most part. And even average Joe, you know, G.I., he went there. And first, maybe they had a little propaganda in the back of their minds as during the war, but dealing with the average Japanese people, they found pretty much a common trait between the average American and the average Japanese in terms of politeness or decency or kindness. INTERVIEWER: When you first got into occupied Japan, describe what the Japanese people, Japanese nationals that you saw, describe their bearing, how they carried themselves. Were they peppy and full of energy and trucking along? Were they moping around? Did they make much eye contact or not? Did they initiate conversation? KAWAMOTO: Well, I think the average Japanese, you know, doesn’t make an effort to---well, they just take it as it is or whatever. And, [46:00] and human nature is human nature, so if you’re honest and decent, it conveys--I mean, you know, that makes up for any language deficiency. INTERVIEWER: Did you see people begging--KAWAMOTO: Oh yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---or living homeless in the streets? KAWAMOTO: Yeah, I saw some in Tokyo station and things like that, and I thought that was terrible. But . . . I guess, well, things like that do happen when you’re a defeated country. Or, for that matter, even in peaceful times, you have that problem, certain segment of the population not being able to take care of themselves. INTERVIEWER: Was it a large number of Japanese people homeless? KAWAMOTO: I wouldn’t say it was large. And . . . INTERVIEWER: Did you ever meet any people who were living---any Japanese nationals who were living rather well and had comforts and plenty of food and good clothes, and it seemed as though the war hadn’t touched them a whole lot? KAWAMOTO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 18 of 43 �Well, that would sound a little bit like a Japanese nationals, how, were---I rented a room---see because [48:00] I married a Japanese national, and, who until very recently were enemy nationals. So my wife would be that category, but [pause] well, we lucked out in getting tea room housing from a prominent Japanese Tokyo person who had the banking connections with Sumitomo. His house was part Western, part Japanese, and we rented his tea room. [laughter] Slept on the straw mat. And it turned out to be a nice arrangement, because, see, as a---since I married a, an ex-enemy aid in my wife, we had no way of getting occupation housing. So I had to go to the local market. We happened to hit a nice family. And we also had the advantage of going to the PX [Post Exchange] and so on. So we were able to give them some benefits of our [chuckles] living with them. INTERVIEWER: So you were very attractive tenants because you were able to access the PX? KAWAMOTO: Well, yeah. But it---I mean, I think the people that we ended up with [50:00] wouldn’t let anyone come, because they, they didn’t really need to rent a room to, for survival. INTERVIEWER: I wasn’t saying that was the only reason. I was just saying that would make you an attractive tenant, you know, if you, if you had access to certain things that they might not. KAWAMOTO: Like PX and that sort of thing? INTERVIEWER: Yeah. KAWAMOTO: Well, yeah. In the early occupation period, that was a big item. Good coffee, good this and that. INTERVIEWER: But these, these people you rented from, they were doing OK? They had--KAWAMOTO: Oh yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---a, a quality of life or a style of living that wasn’t really affected too much by the war? KAWAMOTO: Well, I think they all were affected by the war. But on this particular place that I, my wife and I looked into, the man was a fairly high retiree of Sumitomo Bank. And his wife was family, I don't know what her family did, but it was comparable, you know. When they got married, they, you know, look up the family tree of each party and so on. And he, and he had been to the States and he, he would chuckle and says, “I went to Columbia University.” He didn’t get --- you know, studied there [52:00] but he went into entrance. So he kind of jokingly said, “I went to Columbia Univers[ity].” Things like that. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 19 of 43 �When you--KAWAMOTO: And also, he had a nice connection with a restaurant guy. I mean, you know, tempura, good tempura restaurant. But he had no place after his, you know, the bombings and all, he didn’t have a place to, to do his business. So he became sort of a caterer to Japanese and American occupation people. And he did his restaurant business renting certain times in rooms at this, Mr. Iba’s house. And we benefited too because he would give us extra, you know, tempura and stuff like that, and stuff you couldn’t get in Japan at that time because the rest[aurants]---food, there was a food shortage on, in Japan. And, and then he would, in turn benefited by getting American coffee and stuff like that. [54:00] INTERVIEWER: [coughs] That’s a great arrangement. KAWAMOTO: Yeah, it was. INTERVIEWER: Great barter system. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: See, that’s the kind of thing I wonder about sometimes, because I listen to vets talk about going to occupied Japan, and they see suffering, real, hard suffering. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Food. People begging. People in the park just wanting to die, they stop eating, they stop trying. It, it’s, it’s heavy. It’s tough. And yet, I hear whispers of a side of Japan where Japanese nationals still had money. They still had nice homes. They were tied into manufacturing and business. And they were doing OK. Now, I only hear whispers of that. You ever see anything like that? KAWAMOTO: See what? INTERVIEWER: See an upper echelon of society, of Japanese nationals--KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---that weren’t suffering so much, that were doing OK, that were actually pretty good. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 20 of 43 �KAWAMOTO: Well, yeah. Those, those---well, for one thing, after they, you know, firebombs of Tokyo, a lot of Tokyo was incinerated. So people lost a lot of homes. But there were some that were left, so those who had a house there were much better off and didn’t have that problem. Anyway, one of those fortunate people had an extra tea room, which they were happy to rent to us. And that helped us because we, although I was part [56:00] of the occupation, since my wife was an enemy aid (inaudible), we couldn’t get, you know, housing from the occupation. And it was all the better for us. We went native, and the home owner benefited from stuff we could provide him from PX or whatever [laughter]. And this caterer, who used his house also to---well, a lot of the people who were his customers were high military officers of the occupation. And they were being treated by Japanese companies who were starting to get back into business, but they did it in private homes so it wouldn’t be obvious and also, I don't know what else. INTERVIEWER: And these are hakujin officers? KAWAMOTO: Oh yeah. INTERVIEWER: U.S. Army military? KAWAMOTO: Oh yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Not ex-Japanese military. KAWAMOTO: Oh, no, no, no. End - 393A-Kawamoto-Yukio-1 BEGINNING OF TAPE TWO INTERVIEWER: We were talking about Japanese society after the war. And because you had married a Japanese national, suddenly some privileges as a U.S. serviceman in occupied Japan were cut off, and you had to find housing in the native population, which you then did. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: And it was actually a big benefit, some really good things came out of that. KAWAMOTO: Yeah, did. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 21 of 43 �INTERVIEWER: And then we started talking a little bit about the U.S. military brass, top guys would bring in Japanese chefs to prepare food for them, like tempura, other delicacies, which you also benefited from. So all this, like, kind of benefiting in a very distressful situation leads me to the black market. Had you heard about the black market or seen anything about the black market? KAWAMOTO: Well, in a way, but of course I was never involved with it. INTERVIEWER: Of course not. None of you guys were. KAWAMOTO: There, there was one guy in the, at the---well, he did some work for us at the tribunal. He was always carrying around a zipper bag and [laughter]---but I don't know. I think it was kind of nickel and dime sort of thing. INTERVIEWER: Him, or the black market as a whole? KAWAMOTO: No, no, him. INTERVIEWER: OK. [02:00] KAWAMOTO: Although he used to say, I have to go to juyaku kaigi. You know what, do you---that’s a big meeting of, you know, big executives. He’s got this zipper bag. [laughter] INTERVIEWER: And when he came back, the bag was empty. KAWAMOTO: Well, I didn’t see what. [laughter] INTERVIEWER: What about Yakuza? You ever see any Yakuza or have any involvement with them? KAWAMOTO: No. You, you’re talking about gangsters? Mm-hmm. No. I never got close to those people. [laughter] INTERVIEWER: Were there rumors or stories that you’d heard about them? KAWAMOTO: No. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 22 of 43 �INTERVIEWER: When you marry your wife, she’s a Japanese national? KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Her parents still alive? KAWAMOTO: Not now. INTERVIEWER: No. Back then when you got married. KAWAMOTO: Oh yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: They were alive? KAWAMOTO: They were alive. INTERVIEWER: How did they accept you or reject you? KAWAMOTO: Well, I married her so I guess they didn’t reject me. [laughter] INTERVIEWER: At least not to your face. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. Well, I think even the middle-class or upper middle-class people, after the war, had to be realistic. And times were---like, prewar, maybe they would have preferred a more traditional [04:00] marriage. But they saw benefits from a, a---their daughter marrying me. [laughter] (inaudible) And, well, there was no, nobody in the occupation who was poor, so daugh[ter]---his daughter would be probably taken care of well. But then I, I guess I, I would be a little different from the average G.I. who married a Japanese because, well, I, I have a good family background and college degree, and [clears throat], and in the occupation, had a good job. So I don’t think they worried too much about their daughter starving, which I said. INTERVIEWER: I was just thinking more about the cultural differences. KAWAMOTO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 23 of 43 �Well, there are cultural differences, of course, but not as much as if a white guy married a, you know, Japanese native. INTERVIEWER: Now, how long did you live in Japan and work in Japan? KAWAMOTO: Well, we didn’t stay very long, and much to the regret of, of the family and, and their friends. Because [06:00] the, there was a law that came out that gave special entrance privilege of brides married to American servicemen, both in Europe and Japan, we’d be admitted into United States without a problem. What the, they---but there was a time involved. We had to get married in that period, a onemonth period. And in my case, I was back in the States on leave, and took about two weeks to go across on an old, rickety steamer. So when I got to my home, my mother told me they had passed a so-called War Brides Act, but it’s limited to a one-month period. So I immediately tried to get some sort of help from the Sixth Army Headquarters in San Francisco, but the Judge Advocate there didn’t even know that the law had passed. [laughter] And it was hopeless to get her air transportation from Tokyo, GHQ [General Headquarters], the red tape would take so long. But fortunately at that time, Northwest Airlines just started commercial service about two weeks before [08:00], and so I was smart enough to get a reservation on the first flight, so I got back to Japan in time to meet the deadline of that so called War Bride Law. And my administrative officer was a guy who, he had a Japanese girlfriend himself, so he had all the paperwork cleared with GHQ. You know, we had to get GHQ approval to get married, you know, and the following day he provided me with a jeep to get down to the Yokohama, where the U.S. Consulate General Office was. And I got in line, and we were married with---we had a three-day in time. In other words, we had three extra days before the cutoff. INTERVIEWER: And you’ve been married how many years? KAWAMOTO: About 64 years now. INTERVIEWER: And you have who to thank for all that? Northwest Airlines! KAWAMOTO: [laughter] Yeah. INTERVIEWER: That’s a pretty remarkable story. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. KAWAMOTO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 24 of 43 �It’s almost like a movie. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, yeah. Here you are, putting your life together in a country that had been torn apart and defeated by war. When you’re trying to move on and live your life like that, and you’re having these wonderful things happen---you meet this wonderful woman. You fall in love. You’re going to marry her. You do [10:00] get married. You’re trying to set up house, get things going, and yet all around you is remnants of a torn up country. How do you push on? How do you keep going and doing, stay focused on what you want to do when you’re living in this, you know, amongst sorrow and pain and suffering and ugliness? KAWAMOTO: It wasn’t that bad for us. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, but you see it. KAWAMOTO: Well, yeah. But . . . INTERVIEWER: You brush shoulders with it every day. You’ve got 100 people working under you who’ve got to live in that muck and mire. KAWAMOTO: Well--INTERVIEWER: How do you shut that off? How do you not let that get you? KAWAMOTO: Well, I--INTERVIEWER: Because you can’t let it get you. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. Well, I don’t think it was all that bad--INTERVIEWER: No? KAWAMOTO: ---in Japan. INTERVIEWER: No? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 25 of 43 �KAWAMOTO: No. I don’t think so. I could be wrong. INTERVIEWER: How much would you credit the Japanese nationals themselves for the success of rebuild[ing]---of occupation and the rebuilding of Japan? KAWAMOTO: How---what was your question? INTERVIEWER: How much would you credit Japanese nationals for the success of occupation and the rebuilding of Japan? KAWAMOTO: I think basically because they, they were practical and they had no hate for the Americans, the average Japanese, even though the, there was a war. And . . . INTERVIEWER: Would you give them [12:00] a lot of credit or a little credit or no credit? KAWAMOTO: For what? INTERVIEWER: For helping rebuild Japan and making occupation successful. KAWAMOTO: Well, that’s to their own benefit to have a recovery in Japan. Well, one academic guy told me once, the difference between a Japanese and, say, a German is after---the German, after he sees his beautiful concrete building shattered to bits, he can’t get over it. He, he just becomes helpless. The Japanese guy who has his house burned up by an incendiary bomb, what he does is, “Where am I going to sleep tonight?” And he builds a little hut with the sheet metal scraps that he could find. The difference between the cultural attitudes . . . INTERVIEWER: How did the Nisei make it a little easier for that Japanese guy to build that little hut out of scrap metal? KAWAMOTO: How, would the Nisei? INTERVIEWER: Yeah, how’d the Nisei help that Japanese guy? KAWAMOTO: I don’t, I don’t think they went around helping them. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 26 of 43 �I’m speaking allegorically. What, what did you, what---in other words, if, if that’s the Japanese spirit, that’s their way [14:00] ---we’re not going to let this kill us, we’re going to take the next step and then we’ll build from there---if you’re, as an occupying army, if you’re starting with that kind of people, that’s a big advantage. KAWAMOTO: Oh yeah. INTERVIEWER: So what did the Nisei do to take advantage of that and make things better? KAWAMOTO: Why did the Nisei? INTERVIEWER: What do you mean? Why Nisei? KAWAMOTO: Yeah, I mean, what--INTERVIEWER: Because that’s what this project’s about. KAWAMOTO: They don’t, they, they don’t have a responsibility for, for that. Or what, what are you--INTERVIEWER: I don’t mean responsibility. I’m trying to understand the Nisei’s--KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---role in occupied Japan, and I’m trying to get you to evaluate it and tell me on a scale one to ten, ten being best, it rates a whatever. And I’m trying to get you to talk to me about what the Nisei did to make occupation work. How good were they? Did they---did Nisei do their jobs well? Could occupation have been (inaudible) without them? KAWAMOTO: Well, I, I think they did a good job, but not necessarily with the intention of doing that. They just happened to be there, and maybe they may have had a little more sympathy with, with the people who were deprived because, you know, blood-wise their own parents were Japanese and there was a sympathy, I guess. But no, they weren’t there for being a crusader. INTERVIEWER: You, you talked about a cultural bridge, something like a [16:00] cultural bridge? KAWAMOTO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 27 of 43 �I guess there was some of that because after all, our parents came from Japan. INTERVIEWER: Now, would you say the occupation of Japan in general was a success? KAWAMOTO: Oh yeah. I think everyone would consider it a success. And a lot of it was because Japanese were realistic. We lost the war. We’ve got to live, get back into work---whereas, see, this other guy I, well, I think I mentioned it previously, but the German guy sees his beautiful concrete building broken into smithereens, he just is so, well, he just can’t understand that and he doesn’t take any action. But the Japanese guy, the first thing he’s thinking about is where am I going to sleep tonight? And he goes and finds sheet metals, make a little roof. And tomorrow is tomorrow. That’s what this man, academic guy mentioned, comparing the cultural differences. INTERVIEWER: The Army wants to write a book about you guys in occupied Japan and what the Nisei and Kibeis did. And they have documentation, statistics, history, all that kind of stuff. What they don’t have is these [18:00] personal stories we’ve been talking about. But they also honestly have asked, you know, what do you guys think of your jobs? Were you good? Were you indispensable? Were you a big contributor? What role did you play? You know, that’s what we’re trying to get at, to get some kind of an idea. KAWAMOTO: You mean the role of the Nisei in Japan, occupied Japan? INTERVIEWER: Yeah, yeah. KAWAMOTO: I think for the most part, they didn’t necessarily think that way. I, I mean, they weren’t there for a rescue mission. They just happened to be a G.I. or went to Japan as a civilian because of some, for whatever reason they went there for. I don’t, I don’t think they went with the intention of, you know, for the recovery of Japanese economy and all that sort of thing. INTERVIEWER: Well, I’m sure they didn’t. But you make it sound very casual how they got there, and I, I mean, I, if--let’s fill in the blanks. You know? Executive Order 9066 interns 110,000 Japanese-Americans. Out of that comes volunteers and draftees of Americans of Japanese ancestry who fight in Europe and the Pacific. And then Japan’s defeated, their ancestral country. And suddenly they’re ordered to go into Japan to make sure that they can talk to the population, you know, and do what they’re supposed to do in this occupation. You know, whatever job they’re handed, they’re said, OK, do that. So I’m kind of looking at occupation from that point of view, and I’m thinking [20:00], “Wow, imagine if I was in one of these Nisei guys’ shoes. My parents were interned. They didn’t have a place to live once they were, shut down internment. I lost all my money. I lost my belongings. And yet I said yeah to this country that treated me like s***. And then, to top it all off, Japan’s defeated and I’m sent over there to act as I don't know what between the Japanese people and the occupied army. How much more can I give? What do you people want from me?” KAWAMOTO: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 28 of 43 �Who? INTERVIEWER: The Americans. They want me to do what with this occupation? KAWAMOTO: Well, I don’t think the average guy that went there thought that deeply. INTERVIEWER: They’re just doing their job? KAWAMOTO: They’re just doing their job, where the, they got sent there. INTERVIEWER: OK, that’s fair enough. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Now, all these years later, you have people like me looking back and saying, “My gosh, that’s a remarkable story. What did they do?” And we’re trying to find out about it more, we’re trying to understand it. And then we turn to you guys and we say, “OK, evaluate. Tell us how good a job you think you did. Tell us what was important about you being there.” And then we throw it in your lap to see what you want to tell us about your own experience. KAWAMOTO: I don’t think the average occupation guy went to Japan with those sort of thoughts. It was just a job. And the fact that they, they were Japanese made it easier for you to get a long, understand their situation, and so on. But . . . [22:00] INTERVIEWER: Well, sitting here right now today, when you look back on it---I understand the reality. I understand what you’re telling me, that you know, your intent is not to go in and be Superman. Your intent is to go in and do your job, and do it for as long as you can and then leave. But sitting here today looking back, is there anything remarkable about that story of Nisei being in occupation? KAWAMOTO: Remarkable? INTERVIEWER: Well, I don't know. Maybe remarkable’s the wrong word. What would you say? KAWAMOTO: Well, it just happened. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 29 of 43 �OK. KAWAMOTO: And each individual, I guess, adjusted to what his role or her role was to be. INTERVIEWER: When you look back at your service to our country, is there a sense of accomplishment or fulfillment or pride? Not pride in a bad way. I’m not talking about bragging. I’m just talking, you know -- it’s not about the humility thing, it’s about, you know, feeling good that I did something. Is there any of that, or is it just an event in your life? KAWAMOTO: Well, I, I guess it depends on each individual. Well, I, I, I certainly didn’t go to be a crusader. But . . . and it was a good educational experience for me, you know? I didn’t really know what a real Japanese was like, [24:00] other than my parents, you know? And Japanese also, the way they talked to us Americanborn, don’t, didn’t really understand how our thoughts were. But I saw---the Japanese people were very practical. The war is over and we’ve got to get recovered and so on. They didn’t hold any grudges against the so-called enemy who bombed my house down or something like that. They just, I think it was just being practical. It got us---we’re in this mess now that our houses are shot and everything is in disorderly fashion, but so we’ve got to get to work to, to recover and make life more pleasant. INTERVIEWER: I remember--KAWAMOTO: I think they were just very practical about it. INTERVIEWER: No, that makes sense, that makes sense. I remember a couple years ago when we first met and chatted, you had mentioned that as a boy, you had the hope of improving Japan-U.S. relations, as you began to tell me your life story and it unfolded. KAWAMOTO: Well, I was lucky that I got to be a participant in that. I, I think relations now between U.S. and Japan is as good as---or better than ever. There’s a lot [26:00] of things that I think both countries can admire of one another, and so although there, there was some tragedy in the war, the end result probably is for the better. INTERVIEWER: So did I--KAWAMOTO: I, I---and, you know, I had some mixed feelings too because my, my parents’ relations, I mean, family, had a lot of military officers, professional military officers. But . . . INTERVIEWER: Yeah. Your mother’s cousin was a Japanese Admiral, retired before World War II. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 30 of 43 �KAWAMOTO: You remember that, huh? INTERVIEWER: You, you had---yeah. You had, it was either an uncle or a great uncle---no, it would have been an uncle who was a Rear Admiral who died in the Battle of the Philippines, who was killed by U.S. forces. KAWAMOTO: You mean---you’re talking about the Cruiser--INTERVIEWER: Yeah! KAWAMOTO: ---Commander? INTERVIEWER: Yeah. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: And then you met your brother, or your mother’s younger brother in---near a fortress in, near Kyushu? KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: I think, yeah. KAWAMOTO: He was an artillery, heavy artillery officer, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. So war was real personal. KAWAMOTO: Well, I didn’t meet him, but [laughter]. INTERVIEWER: I know you didn’t, but it was real personal. So I---what I’m getting at was with this [28:00] goal as a kid to improve Japanese-U.S. relations, did occupation improve U.S.-Japanese relations? KAWAMOTO: I think so, in the long-term. If they could have avoided the war, it’d be a little bit better. But [laughter] . .. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 31 of 43 �INTERVIEWER: Now, because you worked primarily with Japanese nationals, then you had to interact with them and talk to them, you know, in, in, for the translation jobs and stuff. Did you ever see hakujins interacting with the Japanese people? Did you ever observe from a distance that, how that worked and didn’t work? I know we talked before a lot about people being decent, just common decency, and you spoke about that. But sometimes if you’re, if you’re watching people from a distance, it can be somewhat comical and somewhat heartwarming and somewhat neat to watch people try to communicate. Did you ever see anything like that? KAWAMOTO: I may have, but I never gave it much thought. INTERVIEWER: OK. Have you ever seen a--KAWAMOTO: On the whole, yeah, I think the occupation went well. INTERVIEWER: Yeah? KAWAMOTO: Both for the Americans and the Japanese. I don’t think there were too many cases of---to trigger any hate or anything like that. [30:00] Because basically, I think both Americans and Japanese people as a whole are pretty decent people, human beings, and they both work hard and honor education and---a lot of common ground there. Well, by the way. INTERVIEWER: Yeah? KAWAMOTO: What’s your academic background and how come you got into this sort of occupation? INTERVIEWER: Who, me? KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Personally? KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Well, I’m not really supposed to talk about that when the camera’s rolling. When we take you home, I’ll tell you in the car. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 32 of 43 �KAWAMOTO: [laughter] OK. INTERVIEWER: No, I just, I don’t wanna waste--KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---time talking about--KAWAMOTO: All right. INTERVIEWER: I don’t count. KAWAMOTO: What do you mean? [chuckles] INTERVIEWER: OK, I’m trying to get you to talk. OK, now I’m going to read this to you, and correct me if I say this---if you could choose between sending a serviceman to a country of their ancestry---like Nisei were sent to Japan---and language skill, to a country that we would occupy, would you choose---I can’t read that. [mumbles with crew member] Would you choose them over another American, and why? In other words, if you have the choice, Japan’s occupied, we’ve got Nisei. We could send them or we could send those folks over there. KAWAMOTO: What do you mean, [32:00] over there? INTERVIEWER: Well, I’m just---arbi[trarily]---hypothetically, somebody else. We could send somebody else other than the Nisei. Who would you choose to send? KAWAMOTO: I don’t think it makes a difference. INTERVIEWER: It doesn’t or does? KAWAMOTO: Doesn’t. INTERVIEWER: It doesn’t? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 33 of 43 �KAWAMOTO: I mean, a Nisei himself who was there may have enjoyed it or not enjoyed it, but so what? INTERVIEWER: I kind of have this theory that if somebody knows the language--KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---and knows the culture, that’s going to benefit the occupying Army because they’re not going to make as many mistakes, they’re not going to piss off as any people, their--KAWAMOTO: Well, that’s--INTERVIEWER: ---communication works. KAWAMOTO: Well, that’s probably true. I mean, if you have a--INTERVIEWER: Probably true? KAWAMOTO: Yeah. Why are you laughing? INTERVIEWER: Because I think it’s really true. I don’t think it’s probably true. KAWAMOTO: OK. INTERVIEWER: You’re being very Nisei on me, man. [laughter] You’re fighting me every step of the way. No, it just makes sense, you know, and that’s why it’s---that’s why we’re looking at the Nisei being in occupied Japan, saying, “Jeez, they knew the culture and they knew the language, and that has to benefit us. That has to be a good benefit.” So what was the benefit, and what did they do to make it work better? Because a guy on the phone to[ld]---asked---you know, he made a statement, the guy from the Army, that, well, if we had understood occupied Japan more, maybe we would have done a better job in Iraq. And I’m not joking around with you. KAWAMOTO: What is this about Iraq? INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 34 of 43 �He said if we understood why Japan, occupation of Japan worked so well, maybe we would not have [34:00] made so many mistakes in Iraq. KAWAMOTO: Well, maybe. But I think you’re, you’re comparing two different cultures. I mean, like Rumsfeld, remember how he said, “We’ll clean this war up in two weeks,” and Shinseki said, “It’ll take two or three years of occupation.” It’s a little different situation on cultural grounds. INTERVIEWER: Point well taken. I would still stand behind, it is better to know the language and the culture and fill your Army with people like that when you go to occupy a country, than not have that at your disposal. KAWAMOTO: Well, yeah, I guess so. And--INTERVIEWER: [laughter] Yeah. KAWAMOTO: But, and I suppose we don’t have too many people who understand Iraq in this country. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, I, I don't know about that. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: I was using that as an example, and I don’t want to stray too far away from the occupation of Japan as a topic, because Iraq is Iraq and Japan was Japan. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: And our project is about Japan and you. So that’s why I didn’t want to get too---we can talk about it in the car on the way home. We’ve got a lot to talk about in the car on the way home. [36:00] So yeah, the bottom line is the Army wants to write this book, and they want to hear from you guys some stories--and you’ve given us some terrific stories today---and they want your point of view, your perspective of what you think the Nisei’s contribution to occupation was. And you’ve been pretty clear. KAWAMOTO: Well, I think in general terms, it was an advantage to have Nisei in the occupation. I mean, we would, probably got along a little better than some other people. And it was a good lesson for the Nisei who had never been to Japan, too. Maybe that’s why it went well. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 35 of 43 �Now, I would like to say that you, after the war, your path and your goals in life to improve U.S.-Japan relations then led you into the State Department. KAWAMOTO: Yeah, well, that was always true be[fore]---even before the war. INTERVIEWER: You were heading to the State Department? KAWAMOTO: Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. KAWAMOTO: Well, [laughter] incidentally, what’s, what’s his---Mineta, he’s kinda in that category. I mean . . . INTERVIEWER: What category? KAWAMOTO: Category of making things work between the U.S. and Japan, not, not---you know, not just because he’s a Congressman or what---he’s a Secretary [38:00] now, Secretary of what? INTERVIEWER: Yeah, he was Secretary of--KAWAMOTO: Transportation? INTERVIEWER: Department of Transportation back under the last president. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. Well, he’s still in something. What---is he---let’s see. INTERVIEWER: Steve just did a documentary on him. KAWAMOTO: Oh. INTERVIEWER: But we can talk about Mineta on the way home. KAWAMOTO: [laughter] OK. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 36 of 43 �INTERVIEWER: We really need to focus on you. This is all about you. KAWAMOTO: Yeah, OK. INTERVIEWER: OK? So the evaluating---and I wanted to say that you, that you---you know, however, your life went into the State Department. And you had some very interesting encounters there. Princess Suga? KAWAMOTO: Mm-hmm. INTERVIEWER: Feel free to talk about that. Now would be a good time. KAWAMOTO: Well . . . INTERVIEWER: How did you meet her? What happened? KAWAMOTO: Oh, you don’t know? INTERVIEWER: They don’t know! The Army’s going to watch this, and they don’t know you from Adam. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: So this is why we’re doing the interview, so they can get to know you a little better. KAWAMOTO: Well, Princess Suga was the youngest daughter of Emperor Hirohito. And she married a commoner who worked in the, some bank, I forgot what it was. And so they came to Washington, and one, one evening---I forgot what the function was or---we met, and in the reception room of the State Department on the eighth floor, and that’s when a State Department photographer had the foresight to think I would appreciate a picture of them, and you know, so I, [40:00] I have that picture autographed and been one of my prize [chuckles] trophies. INTERVIEWER: And then you also have an Eleanor Roosevelt story? KAWAMOTO: You mean, the time I slept at Hyde Park? You---did I say that before? I guess you---I did, huh? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 37 of 43 �INTERVIEWER: Well, not in the same bedroom with Eleanor, I hope. KAWAMOTO: [laughter] INTERVIEWER: So you spent the night at Hyde Park? KAWAMOTO: Right, right, with---I, I was---I had Governor Hisamatsu, who was a hereditary ruler of Ekimeki-ken. His ancestors had the, lived in the castle that’s still standing. And he happened to be a cousin of the Empress of Hirohito. And so Eleanor Roosevelt, of course, treated us royally. And it was a very, well, it was a real treat for me. I mean, [chuckles] not many people would experience that kind of thing. INTERVIEWER: Is it--KAWAMOTO: And she, she incidentally is a wonderful woman. I mean, I don’t say that for FDR, but---[laughter]. INTERVIEWER: No, not her husband, yeah. KAWAMOTO: But she, she, Eleanor is something else, yeah. INTERVIEWER: Yeah, everything I’ve read about her, truly remarkable. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Truly remarkable. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Is there anything else regarding occupation or your time in occupation [42:00] that you’d like to talk about right now? Anything we missed? Anything interesting? KAWAMOTO: About my experience in occupation? INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 38 of 43 �Mm-hmm. KAWAMOTO: Well, I think we probably covered everything. But as it, as it turned out, I think, I was fortunate that I had that experience, both, you know, as an education for me and, I hope some of the people I touched felt more favorably on the States, the U.S., and maybe about Nisei. Because some people, you know, don’t particularly think that Nisei are such hotshots. And I can see why. I mean, you know, we have our wars. [chuckles, clears throat] INTERVIEWER: What---you said occupation taught you. KAWAMOTO: Taught me? INTERVIEWER: Yeah. What’d it teach you? How’d it mold and shape you? What’d you---besides a wife, what did you take away with you from occupation? KAWAMOTO: Well, it was an educational experience. I--INTERVIEWER: Well, you could say that about a lot of things. I mean, what do you mean? KAWAMOTO: Yeah. I, [44:00] well, I think I learned more about Japan really, not just books, you know, reading. And there’s, there’s a lot of plusses for them and some minuses, too. I mean, just because our parents came from Japan doesn’t make all Japanese wonderful people. On the whole, they’re OK, and as good as any decent country. More recently though, the real go-getters are the Koreans. They really work hard and have done very well after they’ve been able to immigrate here to the States. INTERVIEWER: Yes. Paul is Korean. KAWAMOTO: OK. [laughter] INTERVIEWER: He’s been telling us how great they are all weekend. KAWAMOTO: Oh, is that right? [laughter] INTERVIEWER: And now you sit here and tell me the same thing. He will never shut up now. Thanks a lot. [laughter] No, joking with you. OK, so we’ve got---but Paul really is Korean, so--This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 39 of 43 �KAWAMOTO: OK. INTERVIEWER: He really is Korean. KAWAMOTO: Yeah, yeah. Well--INTERVIEWER: He thinks highly of them, too. KAWAMOTO: Well, I guess so. [laughter] INTERVIEWER: Yup. So let’s--KAWAMOTO: You know, I’ve met some Koreans that are--INTERVIEWER: In occupation? KAWAMOTO: No, no, no, taking the Foreign Service Exam and have gotten into the State Department, too. They have some pretty high goals and they’re getting there. INTERVIEWER: Most people who try for [46:00] State Department have pretty high goals, that I’ve run across, they seem to. That’s why they go to the State Department. Well, is there any other questions anybody has? CREW MEMBER: Just one clarification. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. CREW MEMBER: I know he’s written the article in Stars and Stripes--INTERVIEWER: Stars and Stripes. CREW MEMBER: Did we ever really talk much about what that incident---what he observed? INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 40 of 43 �A 1st Cav soldier mistreating Japanese national walking across the street in Tokyo. CREW MEMBER: Yeah, but I wasn’t sure, like when mistreating, like how? INTERVIEWER: OK. CREW MEMBER: How mistreating, that’s what I wasn’t sure about. INTERVIEWER: Get more specific. OK. Because then when they try to track down the article, yeah. CREW MEMBER: Yeah, yeah. INTERVIEWER: OK. CREW MEMBER: That’s what I was kind of curious about, the specific on that. INTERVIEWER: Way back when, we talked about Stars and Stripes article--KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: ---that you wrote. KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: And tell me the story---tell me what you wrote about again in that article. KAWAMOTO: Well, I simply wrote a letter to The Stars and Stripes that I had noticed a G.I., probably never had combat, and he got to Japan and was mistreating a Japanese national crossing the street, you know, shoving him or something like that. And so I said, “This kinda thing can lead to future problems. And so we, the occupation, should behave more gentlemanly.” And that’s the way I felt. It could have, you know, repercussions in the future. And---but I guess this caught the attention of, who was it, General Chase of 1st Cav? So he sent a Captain over to the International Tribunal to look me up [48:00] and apologize for the behavior of one of their men. So . . . INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 41 of 43 �And just--KAWAMOTO: My letter did have some effect, I guess. INTERVIEWER: So was it more of a letter to the editor? KAWAMOTO: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: OK. You didn’t have an article that you had a title on and a by line? KAWAMOTO: No, no, no. INTERVIEWER: OK, so it was a letter, a response letter? KAWAMOTO: Yeah, and, and to---I knew if it got printed, it might be helpful to some other, you know, G.I.s who may have had more, well, who had---who may have been deterred in doing that sort of thing. That was the only intent. INTERVIEWER: No, that’s great. KAWAMOTO: And the other reason is, as a person who went through combat in World War II, it gets my goat when some of these occupation guys never saw a war, you know, acting like they were conquerors. [laughter] That sort of had me writing. INTERVIEWER: Yeah. KAWAMOTO: And, and you know, for the future of occupation, that kind of thing, could lead to problems. On the whole, I think most of the G.I.s on the occupation behaved. INTERVIEWER: That’s interesting, because you were in New Caledonia and then Bouganville too, and I mean, you fought. You were there. And then you went into occupation. I can see where I would, I would feel the same way as you. KAWAMOTO: It’s that kind of experience . . . This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 42 of 43 �End - 393A-Kawamoto-Yukio-2 This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 43 of 43 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Yukio Kawamoto oral history interview, July 18, 2009 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Yukio Kawamoto oral history interview transcript [full interview], July 18, 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kawamoto, Yukio: narrator Hawkins, Richard: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher US Army Center of Military History: sponsor Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcriptions Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Extent The size or duration of the resource. 43 pages, typescript Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-07-18 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2009OH0393A_T_Kawamoto https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/506a28cd4f5b53eadd74b031b3b0532b.pdf e4c91a256bfee360c4bfa7329fcc9ca7 PDF Text Text Go For Broke National Education Center Oral History Project Oral History Interview with Joseph Ichiuji, June 26, 1999, Arlington, Virginia INTERVIEWER: Okay, today is June 26, 1999, and we are interviewing Joseph Ichi---could you help me with that? ICHIUJI: Ichiuji. INTERVIEWER: Ichiuji. ICHIUJI: Yes. INTERVIEWER: And I am Ian Kawata, interviewing. We have Kenji Luster on camera, Craig Yahata doing audio and cataloguing, and we are in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia. Joseph, could you tell me your full name and where you were born? ICHIUJI: Okay. My name's Joseph Ichiuji and I was born in Salinas, California, February 14, 1919. Quite a time. INTERVIEWER: And who were your parents? ICHIUJI: My father was Kikujiro Ichiuji and my mother was Katsu Sobe, they're from Shimane-ken, Japan. INTERVIEWER: What was your---oh, and brothers and sisters? ICHIUJI: I have---I’ll start from the top. Mickey Ichiuji and then I come next, then I have a brother named Jimmy Ichiuji, and I have a sister, Kazume Oishi, she's married to Mas Oishi of Kailua, and then my brother Paul Ichiuji and Harry Ichiuji. I had a sister, Lucy, and she was killed in a auto accident when she was a baby, so actually we had seven of us. INTERVIEWER: What was it like in---while you were growing up as a child in Pacific Grove? ICHIUJI: (02:00) We---in growing up in Pacific Grove, I had a lot of Caucasian friends and we used to play together. We got to be good friends in school. And then I also had obligation to help my father, even though I was going to grammar school. I used to go help my father when I didn't have to go to a Japanese school. But we had, as I say, even though we had to go a grammar school, we also had to go to Japanese school which is located two and a half miles from where I lived, so it was a very long day for us in those days. But on weekends we used to get together and play football and, you know, had some This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 1 of 29 �good times together. So, I kind of enjoyed the boyhood days. But, like I say, you know, even though we had good camaraderie with our schoolmates, we were never accepted socially and we were never invited to birthday parties and stuff like that. So, in that respect we were sort of discriminated against because we were Japanese. INTERVIEWER: And this was even before the bombing of Pearl Harbor? ICHIUJI: Oh yes. Yes, that existed before the Pearl Harbor, yes. And it's a shame the way we were treated. And as I said, you know, I had a lot of friends that had gone to college and they were never able to use their education because of racialism against the Japanese. They don't want to see Japanese succeed in these professional ranks. (04:00) And I guess Depression had a lot to do with it, too, at that time. INTERVIEWER: What was the area like that you grew up in at that time? ICHIUJI: As far as Pacific Grove was concerned, my father was accepted in the business area. He knew the mayor of the city and he knew the chief of police, fire chief and, you know, all these businessmen. So, we were pretty well accepted in our small town, so we weren't subject to too much---we were treated on a friendly basis, but we were not accepted wholly, you know. And, for instance, myself, after I graduated from high school, my association with the white, my friends, stopped. I had to go to Monterey and start associating with the Japanese group, my own group. And that's how it was, both socially and---or going to church. INTERVIEWER: What were the fun things you did as a kid? ICHIUJI: Pardon me? INTERVIEWER: What were some of the fun things you did as a kid? ICHIUJI: As I say, I---as a kid we used to play backyard football with our neighbors, you know. And we also went hiking and camping and we also went fishing, Carmel River. And we had a good time in those days. But as I say, we were not treated equally (06:00) as far as social's concerned. INTERVIEWER: How did you do in Japanese school? ICHIUJI: I went to book 11. I don't know whether I did well or not, but they passed anyways. But I was able to write in kanji and katakana, and I was able to read properly. But, as time went on, I just lost the use of it. Especially when we moved out to east, you know, I just lost it, period. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 2 of 29 �INTERVIEWER: At home what language did you speak? ICHIUJI: Broken Japanese. And mostly, my mother, she spoke Japanese, so I had to speak Japanese. INTERVIEWER: And what religion did you practice? ICHIUJI: Presbyterian. I was baptized as a Methodist, but then that was when---before my---before I was registered in high school. After high school I went to Monterey for Japanese Presbyterian Church. INTERVIEWER: What was high school like for you? ICHIUJI: I think you still had the same camaraderie from grammar school days, and I did quite well in mathematics, science and chemistry, and I went out for sport but I was a mediocre second string. So then I served in the student body, and I enjoyed going to high school. INTERVIEWER: (08:00) What were some of your favorite things in high school? ICHIUJI: Well, I liked---I excelled in math so I became my teacher’s aide, I guess. I used to help my friend after school and help with mathematics, and I enjoyed that very much. I also---even though I was not very good in sport I enjoyed going out for basketball, and you get to travel, go out of town and so forth, so I enjoyed that. INTERVIEWER: What were some of the social activities that you did during that time growing up, teenage years? ICHIUJI: Well, socially, I think, social---I became more active socially after high school, in going to Monterey and going to church and meeting people there. And after that we started going to dances and skating parties and so forth. So actually that's what happened, socially. INTERVIEWER: Were you a pretty good dancer? ICHIUJI: Yeah, pretty good. That's why girls were all after me. [Laughs.] INTERVIEWER: What type of music did you like to listen to at that time? ICHIUJI: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 3 of 29 �Very slow music. Foxtrot-type music. And there was no jitterbug or anything like that in my days. You start picking it up just when we were in camp. Yeah. So---and, you know, the JACL used to have their annual dances, so people from Watsonville, Salinas, and have that joint annual dance, so we knew that, too. This is after the war, I mean, this is after high school days. (10:00) INTERVIEWER: So as a teenager, what community did you or how did you identify yourself, American –Japanese, Japanese-American? ICHIUJI: I considered myself American, but I know there was so little difference, I sometime wondered, you know, why wasn't I born like the other whites, you know, so I'd be readily accepted. But when I think of all Japanese Americans, we were raised as Americans, so . . . Of course, you know, my folks instilled some Japanese desires, I guess, whadyacall, they try to tell us that, you know, in order to succeed, you have to get higher education, and so, work for that. And my father was a very disciplinary person, so make sure that we walked a straight line. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: So would you say you grew up in a very strict, disciplinary way? ICHIUJI: Yes, yes, I was, yes. There was sometime we would rebel, you know, but he put the hand down. INTERVIEWER: So who was the disciplinarian in your house? ICHIUJI: My father. And sometimes my mother took over, too. Yeah. Of course, she had to raise, you know, how many children. There's six of us, you know, she had a rough time, yeah. INTERVIEWER: And . . . ICHIUJI: But they had pretty much under control; things were pretty much under control for them. INTERVIEWER: Did they instill any Japanese type of teachings, like bushido? (12:00) ICHIUJI: No. Well, they mentioned that, you know, in order to succeed that you must do more than what the other person did. That's what they're trying to tell you. Because you were Japanese, in that climate, in order to succeed you have to do over and above what's required. And based on that I---why I came here, I used that same approach to the war. INTERVIEWER: When did you graduate high school? What year? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 4 of 29 �ICHIUJI: 1937. So, you know, I was almost 22 at the time, '41. INTERVIEWER: So, leading up---going through high school, after you graduated high school, what did you do? ICHIUJI: After I graduated from high school I helped my father in business, shoe repairing business. And then my mother started working for the---went into fish cannery, so my mother said, why don't you, you know, help her, too, so I could drive the car and take her to the fish cannery and stuff like that. So my mother and I worked in the fish cannery after I graduated from high school. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what cannery it was? ICHIUJI: Yes, San Carlos Canning Company. INTERVIEWER: And where was that located? ICHIUJI: That was, if you know Monterey, going north, it was the first cannery going toward New Monterey. Do you know where the Presidio of Monterey is? Oh, you know, okay. That was the first cannery going north. (14:00) INTERVIEWER: And tell me how---what that was like, the fish cannery business during that time? ICHIUJI: It was seasonal, and when the fish come in, you go in when they call you at all hours of the day or evening. And you have to wear waterproof, you know, apron and boots and so forth. And it was sort of a dirty job because they use the---they use us as laying the fish on a tray, revolving trays, so that the tray will move toward a revolving knife and it'll cut the fish, a certain section, and that certain section will fall into a can. And based on the weight, the can will revolve and that will registered how many cans you're cutting, and you're paid based on that. INTERVIEWER: And what was the pay? ICHIUJI: I forgot what it was. I think we were making about $20 dollars an hour or something like that. Pretty good money. But it was seasonal, you know, so . . . And it was something, but it was hard work. You just stand there and just---as the fish come in from the trolley, you know, you grab the fish by the head and sometimes you grab two at a time, you know. The faster you cut, the more the can will revolve and will register how many were cut, so it was piecemeal. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 5 of 29 �What was Monterey like in 1937? ICHIUJI: Well, Monterey was a small town, it was (16:00) located near the Fort Ord, you know, army camp, and because of that it was so lively at weekends. And then you had---fishing was the main industry in Monterey. You had Japanese fishermen, you also had Sicilian fishermen, so it was sort of a resort, too. People liked to come to Monterey and---because it was located near Carmel which is very famous for its Pebble Beach and so forth. And people liked to visit Monterey because it also has historical significance because it was the first capital of California. And there's a lot of historical sites within Monterey. And you had Fisherman's Wharf and you had restaurants there and so forth. INTERVIEWER: So what would you do during your off time? ICHIUJI: Off time. I don't know, I guess I---I don't know. I don't know what I did. Is it after . . . INTERVIEWER: Like after work or on the weekends when you didn't have to work? ICHIUJI: Oh, I used to come home and listen to radio and do some reading. I did a lot of reading, too. INTERVIEWER: Did you have your own car? ICHIUJI: No, (18:00) I didn't have my own car, no. We had two cars, family cars, but I didn't have my own car, no. INTERVIEWER: Did you have any hobbies? ICHIUJI: Yes, I used---I collected stamps. And what else did I do? As I say, I like to go fishing, so we used to go fishing quite a bit, trout fishing. And, let's see, what else did I do? I know I did a lot of reading in those days. And chased girls. [Laughs.] No, I'm just kidding. INTERVIEWER: So what were the dances like that you went to? ICHIUJI: Well, dances were---we used to wear, you know, our coats and we dressed properly, and girls did too. And we had a lot of fun because we used to meet girls from cit---other town and you danced with your friends, too, so we had a good time. INTERVIEWER: Where were the dances held at? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 6 of 29 �ICHIUJI: They where held at the American Legion hall, on top of the mount---hill, I remember. And it was held by JACL chapter. So we had people from Salinas and Watsonville. Some people came from San Francisco sometimes. So we had a good time. INTERVIEWER: Were there always---I know when I was growing up we used to go to dances a lot, too, and were there are any, like, girls or certain groups that were known to be real popular? ICHIUJI: Yes. Oh yeah. Because of their dancing ability and looks, yes. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember any of them? (20:00) ICHIUJI: Some of them, yes. I know there is a girl by the name of May Naqao from Salinas she's very nice. And I've forgotten the names of some of 'em. Gee, I forgot their names already. INTERVIEWER: So what was the in thing during that time? ICHIUJI: Pardon me? INTERVIEWER: What was the hip thing to do during that time when you would go to these dances? ICHIUJI: Well, when you go to dance you take the girl to go to dinner, take her to go dinner, and then go dance, and then you take 'em home, that's it. [Laughs.] INTERVIEWER: Moving up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, how did that change your life, and do you remember where you were? ICHIUJI: Yes. I was, you know, I just finished my basic training at Camp Roberts, and I was home on furlough and we went to San Francisco to see my cousin. He was in the Army, too, he was drafted, and he was ready to go to Philippines, and so we went to see him off. And he was stationed at Angels Island, and after we came home---back from Angels Island, we saw newspaper boy selling Extra, it says, “Japs Bomb Pearl Harbor,” big headlines, and he was yelling and selling the paper. And she was shocked when she saw that. You know, you being (22:00) of Japanese ancestry, we felt terrible about the whole thing, and my folks felt terrible, too. And so we got in our car and we turn on the radio and, sure enough, the news was buzzing with news about the bombing. And he also said, “All servicemen report to base immediately." So we hurried back home to Monter---Pacific Grove and I went back to the base. There were some question about how I would be treated because, you know, I was of Japanese extraction, but there's no bad feeling about it, they kind of sympathized with us, how we felt, you know. So, that was a This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 7 of 29 �terrible time, it sure was. I didn't expect that to happen, you know, because like I say, you know, I felt that we were trained for European Theater, more so than Japan. But I think there was a lot of feeling of animosity toward Japan because, you know, you see the cars with big signs that say “Don't trade with Japs” or something like that, so there were bad feelings towards Japanese. INTERVIEWER: How did that make you feel being in the service? ICHIUJI: When Pearl Harbor happened? INTERVIEWER: Mmm-hmm. ICHIUJI: Yeah, I felt bad about the whole thing. I don't know why I should feel (24:00) bad, but being an American citizen, you know, but were wouldn't [clears throat], excuse me. But, you know, being raised as a America and you feel like you're an American citizen, but yet there's that feeling that, you know, how the other people react to us because we're Japanese, and I didn't know how they would react to me. But being an American citizen, I felt real bad because it was the country that my folks came from. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the President’s speech after the bombing? ICHIUJI: I remember I listened to talk, but not too much. I know that they declared a war against Japan and also they declared war against Germany and Italy at the same time. So we were at war at that time. INTERVIEWER: What happened when you reported to duty after the bombing? ICHIUJI: As I said, I thought---I was kind of worried about how they'll treat me, but they didn't treat me badly at all, they sympathized with me. It's hard feeling. And I remember, you know, after I finished my basic training, we were scheduled to go to Fort Warren, Wyoming. And---but that outfit moved to Fort Lewis, Washington, the 41st Division. So when the war---after the Pearl Harbor they changed the order (26:00) to go---to move to Fort Lewis, Washington, so we were sent there. And I remember taking the train ride and I talked to my buddies and they really sympathized with me. They really felt, you know, that "It's not your fault, you know, you're an American citizen,” you know. And so I felt good about that. But once I got to Fort Lewis, Washington, there was this---I remember I was assigned to a gun section, I think it was Battery F for 188 Field Artillery Battalion [of] the 41st Division. Remember they were removed from Fort Wyoming to Fort Lewis, Washington. So once we got ourselves settled in Fort Lewis we went to a [indiscernible] maneuver for about 45 days in some gun emplacement along the west coast of Washington. And after we got through, we went back to the base and I was removed from the gun section, and they put me in the front office as an orderly. I guess maybe they want to keep on eye on me, I guess. And so while---a week, they gave me my discharge papers that said that, “You're discharged This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 8 of 29 �for the convenience of the government.” And they didn't tell me why, you know, they just---only for the convenience of the government. INTERVIEWER: How did that make you feel? ICHIUJI: I felt bad about it, you know. And I didn't do anything wrong, you know. I said, "Why would they kick me out of the Army?" And I just got to know these fellows from North Dakota and Nebraska; most of 'em are of German descent, you know, and we got to be good buddies. And I felt real bad about the whole thing. It made me cry, I think. (28:00) And they saw me off, you know, and I said goodbye. And that was one of the low point of my life during World War II. So I went home, took part in the evacuation. And, you know, the Executive Order 9066 had just been issued, and when I went home, my father and mother already had moved to Dinuba. See, Dinuba was unrestricted areas. So, when I went back home I helped my brother Mickey and the rest of my brothers prepare ourself for evacuation. So my brother rented the business to a co-worker; he's to take care of it. And then we had a very close friend of German descent, he wanted to watch over our house, even our car, so we had a car in the garage. And we locked up the home and we went to Ridley, California. My father, my mother and his friends was able to find a house in Reedley, California. My father and mother and his friends were able to find a house in Reedley, which is not too far from Dinuba. So I took my two brothers and their friends, Uchida family, they're young kids yet. So I drove from a certain road to outskirts of Fresno. And, you know, Fresno's very hot. So my brother and their friends, they wanted to get some ice cream. So we found an ice cream parlor (30:00) on the outskirts of Fresno, and we all got out and ran to the parlor. And we were standing there and a lady was there behind the counter and she looked at us and she won't serve us. I said, you know, “We want some ice cream,” and she says, “We don't serve Japs.” I said, so, you know, “I just got out of the Army.” So I said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” So I just grabbed them and went out. That was my first exposure to real bad discrimination. BEGINNING OF TAPE TWO INTERVIEWER: Okay. I just want to back up a little bit. ICHIUJI: Mmm-hmm. INTERVIEWER: When were you drafted? ICHIUJI: In September of ’41. INTERVIEWER: And where was that? ICHIUJI: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 9 of 29 �That was in Pacific Grove. And then we had to go to San Francisco for induction, and then we came back. And then we came back to the City of Monterey. We stayed for about a couple of weeks, and I was assigned to Camp Roberts, California, for basic training artillery. INTERVIEWER: And where is Camp Roberts? ICHIUJI: It’s north of San Luis Obispo. You know where Camp Maria is? Do you know? Oh. It’s just north of San Luis Obispo. INTERVIEWER: What was that like when you reported to basic training? ICHIUJI: It was something new, you know, you’re so regimented and you gotta do what they tell you to do, and you felt like it has to be---your clothing, everything has to be arranged so neatly, and I’m not used to that. You don’t have to make bed a certain way. You had to get up early in the morning, and also you have to---your schedule, you don’t have your own time. Or in times, after hours. You get to know---you get to meet a lot of people from all over the United States, it was sort of an experience for me. Not only, you know, the Spanish people (02:00) I met and some Japanese, too, new people, Japanese Niseis from that area. INTERVIEWER: What were some of the things that you did during basic training? ICHIUJI: During basic training, oh, you mean---I know that we had certain duties like picking up papers, you know, cleaning duties. I don’t recall whether I had KP duty or not. I don’t think I did. But we learned how to shoot howitzers, 155mm howitzers. We learned how to drive a prime mover, a big, back---kind of a white truck. We used to---we drove that on top of the hill going up, and I never drove a truck in all my life, and I was scared going up the hill driving that thing. And that was the worst part of my training. But other things that we learned how to shoot rifles. We used the old Springfield rifles they used in World War I, and I remember we went to a range, gun range, rifle range. And I remember I was in prone section aiming my gun at the target. You know what I see? About 50 yards, I see a big tarantula crawling up that, and I dread spiders, you know. And---but it made me shoot, you know, I missed the target by doing that. So I’m not---I wasn't too good in (04:00) rifle, long-range rifle firing. But I remember when we came back to bivouac area, there was a hole in the ground, and there was a tarantula. It really made me---I didn’t care for it at all. But that was quite an experience for me, seeing--going to a firing range and see that spider. But I learned that you also had to learn how to maintain your weapons, clean the weapons, stuff like that. You’ve got to learn how to take the gun apart and assemble it together. And I became a temporary corporal. INTERVIEWER: What was the---what's---tell me about the howitzer and what that’s like. ICHIUJI: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 10 of 29 �The howitzer that I trained with, 1-5-5, and we also fired the 75mm French guns. There’s a picture I have. The 1-5-5 is a heavy gun. I don’t know how---what the range was; more than seven miles, I think. The procedure was different from the 1-0-5 that we used in the 5-2-2 in that the 1-5-5 was a heavier gun, and when you load it, you load your projector first. I think there was a piece---you lay this howitzer on top of the---I forgot how it (06:00) was. Anyway, you had to load the projector first, then you put your powder in, the charge in, then you close the breech. And then you had to elevate and you move your gun left to right, and you pull the lanyard. And the explosion was tremendous. It’s much more than the 1-0-5. So---and the gun would just jump, you know, after firing. So that was quite an experience. I remember we went on the maneuvers in Camp Roberts. And it was something to give the burst of cannon fire, yeah. But I’ll tell you one thing; I was very happy that---I was very fortunate I was---had my basic training in artillery because later on, it affected my---because when I volunteered, I could have been infantry. I wouldn’t be here talking to you. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: So what was that like? Do you remember the first time you shot that howitzer? ICHIUJI: It really shook me. Because, you know, being near the gun when you fire, it's a tremendous impact, explosion, you know. And it shook me. And I learned how to keep my ears closed, yeah. So---and then you learn how to operate the gun as a team. Each man has certain duty (08:00) to do and you just perform those in a systematic way, and you’re ready for fire. INTERVIEWER: And can you tell me how the---what is the team made up of again? ICHIUJI: Okay. The order will come, say, elevation so much, so a number of men would elevate---there’s a meter that you follow to elevate the thing. And then, once it’s elevated, then I think the gunner would say, I mean, the officer said, "Mils left, five," and he'll move the gun that way or that way. And then they say, "Load the projector," and say number---and then they tell you how---number of charges. See, charge comes in various bags. So there’s a charge five and you put five bags in there, and then put that in the howitzer breech, and then close the breech. And when everything's set, the gunner says, “Set!” And that tells the officer back here that we’re ready for fire. So he gives the command, everybody pulls the lanyard and it fires. INTERVIEWER: And how long does that take? ICHIUJI: It takes few seconds. It’s very fast. And it seemed like we operated much faster, 5-2-2, because our guys were more---was much more maneuverable, you know. And the projector in 1-0-5 came with a casing. So you take the projector off the casing and then you use the number of charges or bags that they tell---call for. And if this [indiscernible] is about five there, and he says three charges, then we remove two and (10:00) put it together and jam it in that way. INTERVIEWER: How big is that shell? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 11 of 29 �ICHIUJI: The shell's about---the projector's about this long, about this long. And it's about this round. So the shell's about this long. So, the whole thing is about this long. So it's much easier to ram it into the breech this way. Whereas the other way, the projector is much larger, and you have to---I think there’s a carrying case or something and bring it to the breech and shove it in; there’s a rod that you shove it in with. Then you put the charges in, and then you close the breach and fire. INTERVIEWER: So then after you’re discharged, then you---that’s when you went back home and your family was already packing? ICHIUJI: Yes. Yes, they were at home. And so they were pretty well settled because, as I said, you know, my father was business---had a business and knew all the mayors and chief of police, and they were pretty well accepted. We were one of the fortunate ones that were accepted back into the community. And my father was able to get back the business from this guy, he gave it back to us, and the home was kept intact. And we're lucky. And, in fact, my father helped a lot of these Japanese that weren’t able to relocate to their homes so they came into Monterey area. And he had a friend who was a real estate agent, and he and my father found a place to stay and live. So because of that, (12:00) my father was given a distinguished service award from the JACL for helping people relocate in the area. INTERVIEWER: When your family had to move, where were they relocated to? ICHIUJI: First they relocated to Reedley, California, because that was unrestricted at the time. We stayed there for three months and then we were given orders to move out. So my father and my mother decided to go to camp because we heard bad stories about people going west, they weren't accepted as well. Not west, but east. And so my father said, "Let’s go to camp," so that’s what we did. We moved to Poston 3 in August of ’42. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what your parents felt and what they might have said, or what they said in this whole process of moving the family out of Pacific Grove? ICHIUJI: Well, they didn’t like the idea of, you know, evacuating from their home, you know. And they couldn’t understand why they would be evacuated from the West Coast, just because they’re Japanese. They didn’t do anything wrong, you know, and so they were pretty mad about the whole thing. But they went along with the evacuation order and so did the Niseis, they all said the same thing. I think that pretty much the way the JACL leaders had---they wanted to cooperate with the government, so they pretty much went along with the idea at that time. As far as evacuation is concerned, (14:00) they moved---everybody ordered, I mean, they pretty much went along with the idea, except for maybe a few, you know. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what you felt personally? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 12 of 29 �ICHIUJI: Pardon me? INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what you felt personally? ICHIUJI: I felt real bad because, you know, being discharged out of the Army and you had to go back home, and seeing we had to evacuate our homes, you know, I feel real bad about the whole thing. You know, you're an American citizen, and we didn’t do anything wrong, and yet we’re treated like an enemy alien. And so I felt pretty bad about it. And then we're faced with this discrimination against an ice cream parlor. That really made me feel bad. But we accepted the evacuation, and while we were in Reedley, we helped the farmers with their fruit picking and stuff like that. And since we didn’t have any experience, I remember we were hired to pick some peaches, and we were given step ladders, you know, and lean against the branches. And we didn’t know how to do that, so we leaned that step ladder against the branch and break the branches, and we picked the fruit, and we ate most of it. So at the day’s end, you know, instead of paying us, they want to sue us for damages. So we stopped that. We also went to work in a grape vineyard. We had to---there was an instrument where you peel the bark. I think what it does (16:00) do---so that the water will come through and stay in the grape and not pull back in, something like that. We worked on that. And they warned us not to---watch out for black widow spiders. Sure enough, the big, black widow spiders right on the vineyard. So we had a lot of fun working in the farm. It’s the first experience. INTERVIEWER: What was Poston like? ICHIUJI: Well, Poston was, well, I never had exposure to other camps, but it seemed like it was a camp made up of hastily-built barracks with a tarpaper covering, you know. And you see rows and rows of barracks. And when we go off to Flagstaff, I think we got on the bus, [indiscernible], we had to go by the Camp 1 and 2 and 3. Camp 1 and 2 were already filled with people, and we were the last to get into Camp 3. And when we got off the bus, we were all assigned a unit within a block, and so they took us to our unit. And I remember it was Block 308. And, if I remember correctly, I think there was two rows of barracks, I think there was seven on each side and one ended up as a mess hall. And the other was the recreation hall or manager’s office. And in between was the lavatories for men and women, (18:00) and laundry room. And so that’s the make-up of the block. And I remember we were assigned to an end unit. I think barracks were divided into four units, and we were assigned to an end unit and I think the size was 20x24, and, you know, here there was eight of us in that small unit. INTERVIEWER: We’re going to stop right there and switch out the batt . . . [Interview stops, then resumes.] CREW MEMBER: Okay, we're speed. INTERVIEWER: [Dog barking in background.] Do you have kids outside? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 13 of 29 �ICHIUJI: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Should we wait? [Interview stops, then resumes.] ICHIUJI: We pretty much went along because we're, you know, we weren't accepted fully as American citizens. So under that climate, I guess, we had to go along. INTERVIEWER: Did your parents teach you the attitude of that Japanese attitude of shikata ga nai? ICHIUJI: I guess so. They also said shikata ga nai, you know. Yeah, I think so. INTERVIEWER: Did you feel that at that age? Because you were old enough to understand constitutional rights? ICHIUJI: Yeah. Yeah, even though we were deprived of our civil rights and personal freedom, I think we went along with the idea that we had to go along. And we went with---we're all good JACL, they usually tell us to go along with the evacuation. But, you know, under current---today’s climate, I don’t think we would have. We wouldn’t have. And JACL was, you know, was not a strong civil rights organization at the time. (20:00) And, you know, before the war, the Isseis, the head of the association, they were the leaders of the community. And they lost all that because a lot of these were put in camp, you know. So the JACL had to take over. And young guys, you know, in their twenties and early twenties, so I guess the national leader took upon himself that we had to cooperate; otherwise, if you do not cooperate, it would be bad for us, I guess. I guess [indiscernible] was involved, and I think he's right. Suppose all of us resisted evacuation, what would happen? They probably use a gun saying, you know, they force us into camp. I think that was it. That's my feeling, anyway. INTERVIEWER: Was it hard for you to see your parents have to endure this? ICHIUJI: Well, my parents pretty much went along with the evacuation, too, so I, you know, I [indiscernible] too. I felt it’s a necessity, you know, even though it was not right. You’re taken away from your home, your friends, and put in a camp that's in the middle of a desert, surrounded by barbed wire fence, and guarded by armed soldiers. It’s a hell of a thing to do, you know, for American citizen, and you're treated like an enemy alien, you know, that was a pretty bad thing. But still, like you said, shikata ga nai, we had to do it, (22:00) and we went along with the idea. But I---once you get into camp, I think people start thinking about their rights. So you had a lot of no-no boys and stuff like that. And they were in their rights, they were in their right because they were deprived of their civil liberties and personal freedom and constitutional rights. But, in my case, I went the other way. I felt that, even though you’re placed in a camp, I mean, you were placed in a camp, so how do you overcome this? How do you get out of here? I felt that you had to take advantage of volunteering for 442nd Combat Team, even though This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 14 of 29 �I was discharged before and kicked out. I felt that here’s my chance again to prove that I was a loyal American citizen, to serve my country and to prove to the outside that we were true, loyal citizens, so we could go back to our homes again. Now, also, that was the only way to get out of this camp. INTERVIEWER: How long did you stay in camp before you volunteered? ICHIUJI: I stayed in camp from August ’42 to about April ’43. I volunteered for 4-4-2 in about February ’43, so I was there about eight months. INTERVIEWER: What did you do during that eight months in camp? ICHIUJI: Well, you know, once you got in the camp, you start organizing just like a small town. You start setting up a fire station, police station, health unit. (24:00) And you start timekeeping for payrolls. So I got involved in timekeeping, keeping track of people working just for $12, $16, $19 a month. So I got a job as a timekeeper, watched people work. You just go through the motions. But, you know, camp was very much like in the army. And you're assigned a number and you have to line up for mess and toilet and showers. And my folks lost control of the family. They don’t have a family life anymore because, you know, back home, we used to eat at least once in the evening. The whole family got together and ate. But once you get in camp, you lost that. You ate with your friends, so you never ate with your family. Father---no one became breadwinner. So in that respect, I think the parents lost control of the children, too. It’s kind of bad. It was quite a conversion for them. INTERVIEWER: How did that affect your father being he was the head of the family and a strong disciplinarian? ICHIUJI: Yeah, well, he lost that. He lost that. Yeah. Yeah, I guess he no longer had to control the family. So in that respect, I think he felt pretty bad about that. And my mother too, I guess. My mother was always a house---she was (26:00) at home all the time. Of course she worked in the fish cannery. Most of her life she was a housewife. Now she got to mingle with other people, and so in that respect, I don’t know how my mother---I think she felt more liberated to do things that she wanted to do. So, anyway . . . But, you know, as time went on, we got accustomed to camp life and we tried to make the best of it. We formed a 20/30 Club. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the 20/30 Club, but it's people between the age of 20 and 30, we got together for social events. So we had a---we formed a club, and the girls did the same and we went to dance together on weekends or church and stuff like that, movies. So we tried to make the best of our camp life. Tried to reestablish ourselves within the camp; to carry on what we did outside. INTERVIEWER: Had you ever seen so many Asians in one place before reaching camp? ICHIUJI: No. No. I never saw so many in all my life. I saw some good ones and bad ones, but I met a lot of people. I met a lot of people. So---but, you know, as people start settle in camp, there were some This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 15 of 29 �resentment against JACL leaders that considered themself---they used to call them "inu" and this, because they provided names to the FBI, cooperated with the FBI. So they was a lot of resentment against them. INTERVIEWER: We're gonna change tape on that note. (28:00) BEGINNING OF TAPE THREE INTERVIEWER: So, we’re in the internment camps---getting back to how the internment camp experience broke up the nucleus of the family, do you think it was hard on your father, for that to happen? Did you see any signs of . . . ICHIUJI: No, I think he associated with his friends and they're playing "go" and stuff like that. But as far as my father's concerned, before I went to Camp Shelby or being inducted for the second time, I helped him set up a shoe repair franchise within the camp, and so we were able to get machinery and equipment and set up a shoe repairing business there. So he was in charge of that, he was the manager. And he became pretty well-known in camp because I think he taught a lot of people how to repair shoes. So he's very popular in camp, so he didn’t do so bad. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: What are some of the memories that you have of camp that stick out the most in your mind? ICHIUJI: Well, I think my first exposure really sticks out in my mind because you're going from a family like home, back home, and you’re going into a regimented type of life and you see these barracks and (02:00) you’re put into a small unit and you have to use sheets or blankets as partitions, you know, between ourselves and . . . So you had only room for living quarters, I guess, so the only time you see your father and mother is when you come back in the evening and so forth. But we had our---everybody had their own thing to do and the fact that you line up for mess, you don’t have your private bathroom, something like that, so it was sort of quite a change for us, especially in bad weather, you know, when you have to walk through cold weather and, you know, the ground's muddy, and if you want to go bathroom you had to decide whether you should go or not to fight the weather and stuff like that. That’s part of change. Also, I remember when we---a friend of mine wanted to make breakfast for the first time. He didn’t have no experience of cooking, but he took himself to make breakfast, the whole block, so we helped him, you know, scramble egg and all that stuff. I didn’t know anything about cooking or anything but we got into it. Eventually, he was removed for, you know, professional people came in took over. But that’s the exposure we had until, you know, we took upon ourselves to do things because we thought it was necessary, until it was organized. So, that was quite an experience for me. INTERVIEWER: What was the saddest (04:00) moment that you experienced in those eight months at camp? ICHIUJI: What? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 16 of 29 �INTERVIEWER: What was your saddest moment during those eight months at camp that you remember? ICHIUJI: The . . . INTERVIEWER: Saddest. ICHIUJI: Status? INTERVIEWER: Yeah, your saddest moment. ICHIUJI: Well, my status . . . Are you talking about my occupation? INTERVIEWER: Oh no, no, sad, sad, being sad. ICHIUJI: Oh being sad. Oh, well, the fact that I was uprooted from my friends, you never get see your friends anymore because you moved from the area. Instead of going to the assembly center, we went---we moved out of the area and went to Reedley and made new friends. But all my old friends went somewhere else. So we never---we lost contact and in that respect. And, of course, I didn’t have a steady girlfriend so it didn’t make me that bad [laughs], so . . . INTERVIEWER: What was the---what would you say is the happiest moment that you remember in camp? ICHIUJI: Well, the happiest moment is that I was given an opportunity to serve, to prove yourself as a loyal American citizen. After being kicked out and treated like an enemy alien, I thought it's a good chance for me to prove (06:00) that I was a loyal American and I could serve my country. That kind of opened the door for me. That was the highlight of my life, because it really opened the door for me. Because the fact that I served the Army, made a good record, and because of that, I was given GI Bill of Rights benefits and I was able to go to college, and I came here to go to school and I graduated, got a job with the government and, as I say, I got married and had two children and I have three grandchildren, and they all settled here in the East Coast. And after 37 years of service I retired from the government. And I was a deputy division chief at the time, so . . . And, you know, the government gave you good pension, so we’re sort of comfortable. INTERVIEWER: What---were you in camp during the time of the questionnaire, the loyalty questionnaire came out? ICHIUJI: Yes, yes. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 17 of 29 �INTERVIEWER: Do you remember---can you tell me about that time and what was happening in camp and the different issues surrounding that loyalty questionnaire? ICHIUJI: Yeah, the questionnaire came out and asked whether you would serve in the U.S. Army, and the other was for the---you will not serve for the Emperor of Japan or something like that. I think it was 27 or 28, right? Something like that. There was a lot of questions about that. And I thought that the questionnaire was out of hand. Why would, you know, we were American citizens, why would, you know, why would they have to ask us such, you know, questions. (08:00) But we said---I said "yes-yes" anyway. And---but there were a lot of people that said no, they wouldn't answer that. And there was no question about that when we volunteered, you know. People raised the question about "Why would they ask that sort of question when we’re American citizens?” But many of us volunteered for 4-4-2 when it came for it. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember having a discussion at all with your family or your parents? ICHIUJI: No. I don’t recall talking to my folks about it, no. But when I volunteered I told my mother first, and her reaction was that of a mother hating to see her son going off to war, she was concerned, not so much as, you know, the reason why I’m doing it, but because I’m going to war, and I could understand her feelings. And my father was the same way. I told him a few days later and he agreed with me that this is the right thing to do. I told him first that, you know, only way for us to get out of this camp is to show our---we are loyal Americans, this is our only chance to do that, and he agreed with that, and I was happy to hear that. And so when we were ready to go out of the camp to see, they all came out to say goodbye to us and that was really something. That was really something. And, you know, there was some resentments, I guess; (10:00) the administration for being treated---being in camp. And I guess they were considered no-no, right? And they were supportive of Japan. But I didn’t have any bad reaction from them. I know there were some in our camp, but they didn’t react to what we did. I'm very thankful for that. And in fact they give us a big sendoff; most of the people did. INTERVIEWER: Did your father tell you anything before you left? ICHIUJI: Yes. He told me that, you know, this is your country so you should fight for it. Do your best. That was something. I think---I’m glad that I was given this chance. It really opened the door for me. Yeah, because if I hadn't done that, I wouldn’t have gotten my higher education like I wanted, you know; I won’t be here today. Oh yeah. INTERVIEWER: What happened when you left? Do you remember the day that you left? ICHIUJI: Camp? I was given order to report Fort Lewis, Washington. No, I mean, Fort Douglas, Utah, and I think it was in April of ‘40 or early part of May ’44. Oh, wait a minute, ’43, ’43 I volunteered in January or This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 18 of 29 �February of ’43, and I was---I reported to Fort Douglas, Utah probably April, I think, and got into Camp Shelby in (12:00) May of ’44. INTERVIEWER: How did you get from Utah to Camp Shelby? ICHIUJI: By train. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember that ride out there? ICHIUJI: Yes. A bunch of us---we're volunteers, we're all made up of volunteers, we reported to Fort Douglas, Utah. And from there we were supposed to report to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, but on the way we stopped and saw some of our friends in Chicago. We stopped there for one day or so and then we took a train down to Shelby, Mississippi. INTERVIEWER: What did you guys do in Chicago? ICHIUJI: We just visited our friends. There were a few people that came out and worked and got a job in Chicago so we just visited those. We didn’t do anything. INTERVIEWER: Had that---was that the first time you’d been that far east? ICHIUJI: Yes, yes, uh-huh. Yeah, it’s quite an experience. And I remember we were always on a crowded train with GIs and so forth. I guess they're kind of looking at us, we're Japanese traveling. Yeah. I remember when we stopped in Camp Shelby, oh, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, we had to go to restroom, so there were two restrooms said colored and white and we didn't know which one to go to. So we asked [and were told], "You go to the white one," and that's what we did. That’s the first time we saw real bad discrimination. We weren't that bad on the West Coast, but the blacks were really discriminated against. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: What did you think of that, having your family behind barbed wire (14:00) and now you’re riding a train and then you get out at this train stop and you’re confronted with two bathrooms? ICHIUJI: It’s really---I thought that this is a crazy country being, you know. I guess they looked at colored people as second citizens, and black were treated worse than we were, I guess. You know, I guess the reason is there’s a difference between how we were treated and how the coloreds were treated because, I think the Japanese, you know, they came from a civilized country. You know how old Japan is, and whereas the blacks, they came from Africa and they didn’t have any, you know, up-to-date civiliza---civilized life. So, in that respect, we're way ahead of the blacks. And, you know, as Japanese are, you know, they This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 19 of 29 �came to the United States with the idea of making money and go back; and they were stuck in the desert land, they decided to go farming so they made this land to be very productive. So, they made a success of themselves in that respect. Like my father, he came through United States with the idea of making money and going back, you know. But he first worked for a nursery and he didn’t like that. No, at first he went to San Francisco. I think he---(16:00) he went to---from Japan he went to Hawaii and he stayed in Hawaii for two weeks and he didn’t like that so he went to Seattle, Washington and came down to San Francisco, and he got a job as a houseboy, cleaning house for a lady. And I guess my father didn’t do a good job so he was sweeping the dirt underneath the rug, you know, and the lady caught him at it, so she gave him holy hell. So my father got mad at her because he didn’t like the idea of ladies, some lady talking to him that way so he got mad and threw the broom at her and said, “I quit!” and took off. And he got a job working at a nursery, Oakland somewhere, and he didn’t like that so he went---then he went down to Monterey. And I think his sister and brother-in-law was in Monterey, their fishing business---doing---I think they were fishing, anyway. So he joined them and he got a job working in an abalone market; I think you have to take the shell---the abalone out of the shell and clean all that stuff. Well, he didn't like that, so he heard about an opening in Salinas, the truck farming, so he got in a contract with Yuki, what was his first name? Mas Yuki. He's a big businessman now, but---and they raised onions in Salinas. And I guess he made some money, but then the last crop they over-fertilized and they lost the crop, so my father said, “No more farming.” So I think he had some interest (18:00) in shoe repairing and I guess he used to go to a shoe store repair shop that was owned by a Japanese. His name was Hiroshige and my father asked him, you know, “How about teach me how to repair shoes.” And he said “Yes, I’ll teach you.” So then he---after he learned the business, there was an opening in Pacific Grove, so he took that and went over to Pacific Grove and started his own business, and that's how we got settled in Pacific Grove. I think I lost track somewhere, I don't know. INTERVIEWER: No, no, that's okay. When you get to Camp Shelby, what did you think? ICHIUJI: You know, I had been exposed to basic training so I had some experience, so I knew that I’ll be meeting new people and be regimented, and your life is no longer your own. You had to take orders and do what they tell you to do. So, I was pretty much experienced in that respect. But I did find a little difference in meeting people from Hawaii and how they talked, and there’s a lot of difference in how we reacted to certain things, so there was a little difference in feelings in that respect. But I noticed that all the commissioned officers were white, and there were few Japanese Niseis that commissioned officers. And I also noticed that the commissioned officers were---the noncoms were (20:00) all from the mainland. So as I said before that that kind of created a bad friction between the vols from Hawaii and the mainland. And there's also the fact that the Hawaiian volunteers were not subject to racial discrimination as the mainland were. They were not incarcerated in camp and the mainlands were, so there was some difference in that respect. And---so there was some bitter fighting between the mainland and Hawaiian group because of that feeling. And I guess the Hawaiian volunteer didn't realize what we had gone through in America until they were invited to Jerome and Rohwer Relocation Camp for dance, USO dances, so when they got there they found out how we were treated, so I think that had some bearing on---in closing the gap. And as time went on we, you know, we healed and we became good buddies. Yeah. Well, even before going over, you know, we were good buddies, so---there were some little differences, but as a whole, we were good buddies. INTERVIEWER: What did you think of Hawaii guys when you first met 'em? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 20 of 29 �ICHIUJI: Well, they weren't afraid to tell people off, how they felt. We kinda held back. And if they're discriminated, they won't hesitate to beat 'em up. Like if someone called [them] Jap, they'd beat the heck out of 'em, you know. But us, we just kinda held back. And so in that respect they were more bold than we were. (22:00) That's where they got the "go for broke" spirit. I think we acquired some of that, which is good for us. Yeah. And they were---and, you know, they had a lot of money. We didn’t have any money, they had money, so they were spending like my [indiscernible] and we couldn't keep up with them. But as I say, we picked up their pidgin language more than they're picking up on our mainland language. But my buddies were from my Hawaii, yeah. So whenever we have a reunion we have a good get together. INTERVIEWER: What did you guys do while you were not training? What were some of the things you and your buddies did? ICHIUJI: I didn’t go out too much. I didn't---I think that there was one---I forgot his name, he’s a Caucasian that took a liking to Hawaiian volunteers and they really took him in and treated him well. I forgot his name. God, I can't think of his name [Earl Finch]. And they were treated---he was---they were treated very well, Hawaiian groups. INTERVIEWER: What did you think of Louisiana? ICHIUJI: Well, we---it was very cold. It was really cold. But as we participated in maneuvers in that area, the people in Louisiana (24:00) are kind of friendly, the country people. You know why? We bought---they--we liked their fried chicken so we used to buy fried chicken and we'd pay 'em for the money and all that. And they have to be pretty nice people, provided us with side meals, you know, and we got to be friendly with them. And there was no---since we're out in the, you know, rural areas, we didn't have to see the people in the city and stuff like that. So, I don't know what the feeling would be. But the people that we contacted are, you know, came across, they were friendly. They were surprised to see Japanese Americans there, too. INTERVIEWER: Did you get a chance to go to New Orleans? ICHIUJI: Yes, uh-huh, yes. And we found out that we couldn't match the fellows from Hawaii because they had a lot of money to spend. We didn't, though; we had just overnight. So we just spent---I don’t recall too much about New Orleans but, you know, Charles Street and all that, I don’t remember that. But I went back New Orleans several years ago and had exposure to all that, but I don't recall seeing New Orleans that way. No. I wasn't too interested about New Orleans, [indiscernible] the last time I saw. INTERVIEWER: What do you---was there anything that you learned from your exposure to the Hawaii guys? (26:00) This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 21 of 29 �ICHIUJI: Well, I learned that, you know, that the Hawaiian-Japanese families were exposed to discrimination. They told about the Big Five, they all talked, and they were mistreated by the Big Five, they were exploited. So they had no use for white people, so they call them kotonks, you know. So they're trying to relate us---because we speak like the mainlander, they kinda characterize us kotonks. That's how it was. INTERVIEWER: What’s your most vivid memory of Camp Shelby? ICHIUJI: Well, I remember Camp Shelby as a very humid area, had a lot of chiggers, we used to hear a lot of Hawaiian music and also Frank Sinatra and Mills Brothers. But one thing that slipped my mind is that, my first exposure to Hawaiian volunteers, and they're a lot different in how they reacted and how they, I guess, how they associate with one another, a little different. My hutment was made up of mostly from mainland; there was no Hawaiian in that group. So our section was mostly mainland, except for one, he was a gunner, he was from Hawaii, he was from Kauai, and he got to be my buddy. He was a gunner at the beginning. (28:00) And then when we were in Menton, France, he got busted, so I took over his job, but still we’re friends, yeah. INTERVIEWER: What did he get busted for? ICHIUJI: I forgot what it was. Maybe because AWOL or something like that. You know, Menton is Riviera, part of Riviera, so maybe he didn’t come back in time as he should. But he was a good gunner, he was a good man. BEGINNING OF TAPE FOUR INTERVIEWER: Okay, after you finish your basic training in Camp Shelby, do you remember when you guys got your orders? ICHIUJI: Yeah, I think it was in about May of 1944 we got order to go overseas, and we headed for Newport News, Virginia and we boarded a Liberty ship and we headed east across the Atlantic for 28 days. And we were in a big convoy, I remember, a huge convoy. And I remember we landed in three different ports in Italy and then we assembled in Bagnoli, north of Naples. And then the 100th Infantry Battalion, they joined the 442nd Combat Team as the 1st Battalion. You know, they were already in Italy, and once we got---the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was formed, we’re headed north and we entered the front lines with the 34th Division north of Rome, I forgot the name of the place, Suvereto or something like that. And we started fighting for about three months going up north, and we were in this Rome-Arno Campaign, and that took three months. So (02:00) we helped liberate the town of Leghorn, Livorno, near Pisa, and we also pushed the German army north of Arno River. And after fighting three months we were pulled back for replacements. I know we had some big battles along the way, like, fighting at Cecina. I remember we had separate gun emplacements and we had orders to fire 20 rounds apiece. So, all the 12 guns fired 20 rounds apiece because they were shelling the Germans in the hill, I This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 22 of 29 �think it was 140. So, you know, we got orders of that type. Sometimes we, you know, 10 rounds, fire 10 rounds, or if we got orders to fire 20 rounds, that’s a very unusual call. And as the battle went on, the casing, you know, the shell casings, we stacked 'em up like that. And that was something. INTERVIEWER: On your journey overseas, do you remember what ship you were on? ICHIUJI: Yeah, it was called Sheepshead Bay. And when---that Liberty ship was sunk in Marseilles, harbor of Marseilles, when we pulled back and we're headed to France. So I saw that ship. It sunk halfway and you could see the side close. INTERVIEWER: What was that like, traveling on a ship? Was that your first time on a ship? ICHIUJI: Yes. A first experience where I got seasick. (04:00) But after that, I got over it. And it's a matter of going to bed and, you know, just later on not doing anything. Of course we were given language we're supposed to learn, Italian language, we're doing that. And we eat meal, we ate three meals, and we had guard duty too, I’m sorry, we had guard duty too, to make sure that, you know, no lights were showing through and all that. Blackout. INTERVIEWER: What did you do to pass the time? ICHIUJI: Oh, we used to play games and cards, and we used to talk with our buddies. I think mostly playing card games, you know, pinochle or something. We didn't play---we didn’t gamble, we played pinochle. INTERVIEWER: How long did it take to get overseas? ICHIUJI: Twenty-eight days. And toward the end the food was getting pretty stale. It was terrible. I remember as we approached Africa, we went through the Strait of Gibraltar, and then we stopped in Sicily, then we broke into three groups, and we landed in three different ports in Italy. We landed in Bari, Italy, that’s the east side of Italy, and we boarded a freight car, went all the way across Italy and joined the rest of the 4-4-2 near Naples. I remember that Naples harbor's all bombed and damaged. First sight of war. INTERVIEWER: How did you feel seeing that? ICHIUJI: Yeah, well, I saw the effects of the war is kind of a strange feeling, but you’re really into it now, (06:00) you know, you're getting close to it, yeah. Yeah, so, and then we took a trip into Naples and we got exposure to young kids begging for food; they were hungry, you know. And then you noticed that the boys were pimping for their sisters and stuff like that. Terrible. They had---they were really suffering from hunger and food, so they were doing all extreme means of getting food, yeah. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 23 of 29 �INTERVIEWER: When you see that at that age of 21, what does that do to your perspective on just your---on living? ICHIUJI: Well, when you going into a place like Naples, you try to compare the people there with how we live in the United States. Even though we were persecuted, you know, as---treated us, I mean, alien put in camp, you still can make comparison of how people living in United States with how they were living in Naples, and there's no comparison. I think when you want to see poverty, that’s what you see. They really---maybe because of war that they didn’t have enough food to go around. But it was a pitiful sight, especially when you see brothers pimping for their sisters and stuff like that. It’s terrible. (08:00) So we gave 'em candy bars and stuff like that to help 'em out. INTERVIEWER: What happens next when you finally assemble with the 442nd and the 100th? ICHIUJI: Then we board the LST and went to Anzio. But Anzio's already taken, and I think the 100th Battalion was involved in that. But we landed there and that place was devastated; they were just bombed. Hardly any roof standing, it was all bombed. And I remember we got off the LST and marched off on---in the city rubble and stuff like that and went to the hill. And we had to dig foxholes because the Germans still had air force, you know. Not a strong air force, but they---so they were . . . So we were prepared for a bombing. So I remember we were on the slope of a hill and I saw a slight dip in the ground so I started digging. There was a dead German in there, [laughs] so I moved out of there. But then that night, or the following day, we got orders to get on the trucks, and so we started headed to Rome, we got---we went on a convoy going north to Rome. And I remember we were traveling at nighttime, moving at nighttime, and we looked back, and German planes, bombers, came and bombed Anzio. We were lucky to get out of there in time. And then I remember going through Rome (10:00) in the evening. And I remember seeing the Colosseum, the old Colosseum, and the Tigris [Tiber] River, we crossed that, and I think we stopped by the Colosseum and then we headed north, went to Civitavecchia, and then we went through some maneuvers to make sure that we’re ready for combat; we were shooting practice rounds and stuff like that. And after that, we were assigned to 34th Division and entered [indiscernible] just north of Rome. INTERVIEWER: Did you know who the thirty, oh, sorry. [Break in interview.] ICHIUJI: [Interview resumes.] . . . each of the mines. INTERVIEWER: Okay, so let’s start---you land, you hook up with the 4-4-2 and then you start your travels northward, north into Italy, correct? ICHIUJI: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 24 of 29 �What is your first battle? ICHIUJI: My first battle was this Suvereto, I think it’s the name of the place. And remember I mentioned that my first baptism of fire was hilarious because we had dug in gun emplacements and we just start digging our foxhole, and then all of a sudden the German planes came over us and we jumped in our foxholes. And the ack-ack crew that was assigned to us laughed at us because, you know, the German planes couldn’t do anything to us, they were [indiscernible] to, you know, avoid being shot down. But one thing I’d like to say is that we were lucky in that the (12:00) German air force had lost their power, we had dominance over their air power, so we were lucky in that respect. But I remember, I forgot where it was, but we had to move out of the position in the middle of the night, it was dark, but there was a full moon, and we had hooked up our---we put---I mean we hooked up our howitzer to the prime mover and we were ready to move out, but we had to sit still because the German planes were flying around looking for targets. So we---so, once they started moving out of the area, this German plane, they found a target and they hit a convoy on the road and they dropped their anti-personnel bombs. An antipersonnel bomb is that once it hits the ground, it bursts in many different---I guess it had different explosions and killed people, personnel. And I remember, after that, we started moving gun in position. And we were right by the roadside and we got into position and there was a big ditch behind us so we heard anti, I mean, German planes dropping bombs, so we dived into this ditch, you know, so that . . . And of course we weren't hit at all, we were lucky, but some other outfits were hit by the Germans. Because, you know, they were able to see, I guess, moonlight. INTERVIEWER: That first experience of having the enemy (14:00) shooting at you, what goes through your mind? ICHIUJI: Well, like I said, I was in artillery, so I didn’t confront the enemy at all. We just got orders to fire and we just fire and hope that, you know, it killed the enemy, that’s about all. We had no---we can't see our enemy at all. Only time you see an enemy is when that big fighter comes. Of course I did see some dead Germans, you know, that the Germans weren't able to be moved before they moved out. INTERVIEWER: What was that like, seeing a dead body? ICHIUJI: Oh, it was terrible because it was bad smell. Terrible. And they didn't---they covered it mostly with dirt, you know, so that---but it wasn’t buried in the ground, it was on top of the ground, and it was covered with dirt, but the smell is terrible. I could never forget that. INTERVIEWER: So Sivecchia [Suvereto], what is that battle like for your team? ICHIUJI: Oh, you mean . . . INTERVIEWER: That first battle, what was it like for your team? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 25 of 29 �ICHIUJI: Well, the fact that you're firing your howitzer for the first time in actual action is something, you know. You get orders to fire, and so your reaction is to, you know, you kind of got nervous a little bit because it’s your first reaction to action, and you're actually firing at the enemies, you know, so that was kind of a funny feeling. And then you hear the results of what you’ve done. If you kind of---(16:00) you feel that you had contributed some to push the Germans back. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: How do you know where the shells are landing when . . . ICHIUJI: You don't know. You hear a report that, you know, that the shell was good by the officers coming back from forward observing and all that. See, because, when you hear about forward observing, there’s a team within---each battery has a forward observing team, so they go up and they go with the infantry, and the infantry asks for, "How about getting this target out of the way," so then they call it in and we fire, either tank, three tanks or it'd be a machine gun, you know, position or whatever. Or it could be a mass congregation of German armies, soldiers. INTERVIEWER: When you were going through that, what---take me through the whole procedure of you going into battle---you go into a battle and then you have to set up your gun and---how does that all happen? The procedure that happens. ICHIUJI: It’s like you go through what you did---you learned in training. Like maneuvers, they’re the same thing. What you do is, the captain will find a site, I guess they work with the headquarters what the position should be to support the infantry, so they find a good site, usually behind a hill, and open field, and so the captain says, “Section A, go here, B and C.” So (18:00) there are four sections, and so then they tells us where to go, so then the prime mover driver back the howitzer up and put it in place, okay? Then we get off and unload all our beddings and ammunitions and unhook the howitzer from the prime mover, and then we---all of us hoist the gun for that position and we start digging emplacements. And filling sack with dirt so---and I put it on as a protection. After you get that done and the gun's are already set for firing, then you dig your own foxhole. You either share a foxhole with another person or dig your own, because you have a---you're equipped with a bedroll and you also have a half a tent, so if you want to pup a tent you have to share it with another person so that, you know. So what we do, you share a tent and you put this over your foxhole. And sometimes you---they put it, I mean, you fill a sack with dirt and put it on top, too, as a protection. So once you get your gun emplacement, and then you have your ammunition all [indiscernible] up ready to go, and then if the mission comes in, then you get the first call is the elevation, number one, set the elevation, and then they says to the gunner [to] move right so many mils, and he moves it, then he says charge [is] so much, so the person who's in charge would deduct or add, (20:00) you know, charges or, I mean, you deduct charges or use all of it. And then there's a timing device that you set the timing on the fuse---on the projector [projectile], because you want to time it so that when the projector lands near the ground, it explodes before it hits the ground. So they use a timing device for that. And so each man is assigned a duty what to do. So . . . INTERVIEWER: And how many men---is it just one . . . This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 26 of 29 �ICHIUJI: No, one, two . . . INTERVIEWER: . . . group of ten men for one gun? ICHIUJI: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Do you work in shifts or . . .? ICHIUJI: No, no. But each one is assigned a duty and you stick with that. And then you have a chief of section, he's a sergeant, he's in charge. So he's the one that direct you what to do. Number one is responsible for elevation and pull the lanyard. Gunner is in charge of moving the gun left to right. And then you have number two man, he's in charge of loading and stuff like that. INTERVIEWER: Then once you shoot the gun, then what happens? ICHIUJI: Then once you shoot the gun, the gun recoils back, okay, and I eject the shell. The number two man is ready to put in the shell, and before it goes into position it's ready to fire again. So the gun recoils, right? And once it---after it fires, then it starts going back again. But we eject the shell, (22:00) and the number two man's ready to throw the next shell. INTERVIEWER: What do you do with that empty shell? ICHIUJI: We stack it up on the side and camouflage it so they won't, you know, find it. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the battle of Sivetzio [Suvereto] and the taking of Belvedere? ICHIUJI: What was it? INTERVIEWER: Do you remember the battle of Servettio [Suvereto] and the taking of Belvedere? ICHIUJI: I know we entered the battle, but I don't recall too much about it. I know we fought [indiscernible] one is Cecina and so Florence and . . . INTERVIEWER: What about the battle of 140, Hill 140? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 27 of 29 �ICHIUJI: That was north of Cecina, I believe. That's where we fired those 20 rounds and so forth. That was taken---that was held by the Germans, you know. Belvedere also was top of the mountain. You know, whenever you fought in Italy, because the Germans were retreating, they always had the high ground looking down upon us. That was a disadvantage to us. But we push, push, push, and pulled back. And I guess Hill 140 was one of the crucial hills that had to be taken. INTERVIEWER: What was the weather like at that time? ICHIUJI: It was very hot. Very hot. And we weren't---we didn't have fatigues, you know, we had a summer, I mean, olive drabs on, and I guess (24:00) they converted that to fatigues. INTERVIEWER: What was the next---what's the next battle you remember? ICHIUJI: After Belvedere I think we took a break. We were pulled off the line and we took over the resort, Mussolini's resort. But in order to---we took upon ourselves to clear the beach of mines. They were for--they were expecting invasion, Allied invasion there, so they have mines there. So you know what we did? We looked for mines and we looked for booby traps, so we put our finger underneath there. If you didn't see anything, just lift it up. I wouldn't do that again, I'll tell you that [laughs]. It was mean. I don't know why we risked doing that. But we just did it for our own, you know. It should have been cleared by the engineers, but we did it ourselves. And some people used that detonators for killing fish, but I wouldn't do that. But I remember we used to dug around---we find a mine---we used to dug around and make sure there's no booby trap, and push it up. Suppose it was tied underneath there on the bottom, oh God, it would've exploded. INTERVIEWER: Did anyone in your group run into that accident? ICHIUJI: No, no, no. No. But I heard the infantrymen did, yeah, bomb. INTERVIEWER: After (26:00) you had that break and you cleared those mines off that beach, what was the next thing you remember? ICHIUJI: We were heading toward Florence, I believe. We pushed the Germans back of the---on the other side of Arno River. And we also fought---we fought thereabout, liberating Leghorn, Livorno, near Pisa. The 4-42 had a lot to do with liberating Leghorn. And then I remember we moved into---as we pushed the Germans north of Arno River, we got into position in Florence, near Florence. And I remember I told that we got behind a hill and we were in position for some time there. And I remember some Brazilian troops were assigned to us. I guess they're gonna take over or something. They would take over that area for us. And I think there were some Niseis. Not Nisei, but Brazilian Japanese in that group. And This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 28 of 29 �were teaching them---I guess they were gonna learn from us what they had to do and everything, so we teach them. And I remember, as I told you, that one evening we were shelled by the Germans, and we had guns here, here, and here. Mine was here. And there was a section on the right-hand side, they were shelled, and I don't see how they could have seen us because we were behind the hill. So I suspect that there was a German spy or whatever, observer, on top of the hill giving direction. (28:00) No one was hurt, though, from the shell. And then from there, we were ordered to pull back. And I remember I had my roll against a rock wall and I pull out my roll and there was a scorpion right underneath where I was---had my hand. Gee, it was something. Anyway, we were ordered to go back---we're ordered to pull back and then we went to Naples, and we're waiting for replacement there. And we had---we were assigned to Seventh Army for combat duty in France. And then when replacement came---in case---my cousin came at that time, he was assigned to Company E, 4-4-2. So we boarded a LST from Naples and we head for Marseilles. And when we got into the harbor at Marseilles, I saw this Liberty ship sank in the harbor . . . This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 29 of 29 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Joseph Ichiuji oral history interview, June 28, 1999 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Joseph Ichiuji oral history interview transcript [full interview], June 26, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ichiuji, Joseph: narrator Kawata, Ian: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher US Army Center of Military History: sponsor Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcriptions Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Extent The size or duration of the resource. 29 pages, typescript Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-06-26 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0071_T_Ichiuji https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/c5a936a62c17b20a99e672df550870c0.pdf 65849b76e31c2778a3995346376c34d5 PDF Text Text Go For Broke National Education Center Oral History Project Oral History Interview with Norman Saburo Ikari, June 27, 1999, Arlington, Virginia CREW MEMBER: We're rolling. INTERVIEWER: This is June 27th, 2 p.m., and today's Sunday and we are in Arlington, Virginia, interviewing Norman Saburo Ikari. I, Ian Kawata, am conducting the interview. We have Craig Yahata on camera and Joy Iwata doing sound and cataloguing. Norman, can you tell me your full name, where you were born and when you were born? IKARI: Norman S. Ikari, the "S" middle initial standing for the Japanese name of Saburo, and I was born in Seattle, Washington, February the 17th, 1919. INTERVIEWER: What was it like during that time growing up in Seattle? IKARI: Well, it was---I thought it was a very normal boyhood. I had Caucasian neighbor boys to play with and also Japanese boys. The fact that we were Japanese, I never gave it much of a thought; we were all involved in just growing up. And being in Seattle, why, we were able to hitchhike down to the Puget Sound and go fishing, and then hitchhike over in the other direction to Lake Washington and go fishing, and so we had a very, very good normal time. INTERVIEWER: What type of fishing did you do---conduct? IKARI: The type of fishing we did as little boys is a piece of string, probably no more than about 4 feet long, a regular fishing hook and whole can of worms that we dug out of the garden, and that was it. And the fish that we caught were little tiny things we call as shiners. Now, whether we ever ate any of them or not, I don’t know. We certainly brought them back to mother. Whether she wanted to cook 'em or not, I can’t remember. INTERVIEWER: And what age were---(02:00) was this when you were growing up in Seattle? IKARI: Oh, from the time, you know, from my birth until age eight, nine, when we left Seattle. INTERVIEWER: What was Seattle like during that time? IKARI: Well, Seattle, of course is, you know, the Rome of the Northwest, built on seven hills, and so it was hard to find a flat piece of ground where we grew up. It was a fairly cosmopolitan mixed neighborhood. And This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 1 of 28 �like I say, it was not really very cold, you know, for being a northern city. Because there are many Christmases when it didn’t snow and we were very disappointed on Christmas morning when we looked out the window and there's no snow. INTERVIEWER: In elementary school, what were some your favorite activities besides fishing? IKARI: I went to a little elementary school just about four or five blocks away from the house. It’s called Central School, Central Grammar School, and I don’t recall too much of the school except it was a big old building near Collins Playfield. And like I said we had a cosmopolitan bunch of pupils. I had a very close Chinese friend by the name of Herman Foy who was a Boy Scout at the time, and I envied very much his uniform, and we played sandlot football. We went to hardball games and then we would come back and emulate all the baseball players on the street with a hardball, knock each other out, you know. So (04:00) it was a very normal upbringing, I thought. INTERVIEWER: Who are some of your favorite baseball players at that time? IKARI: My father used to take me to the Pacific Coast League games, the---for the professional games. But even at that time they had visiting teams from Japan, and I remember the Waseda Japanese team coming to Seattle, and of course the entire Japanese population of Seattle turned up for those games. And so it was a very interesting time. INTERVIEWER: At home, oh, sorry. IKARI: I'm sorry. I should mention that I had two older brothers who were Japan-born. INTERVIEWER: And what are their names? IKARI: My oldest brother was Willy or Shintaro, and my second oldest brother was Jiro or George, and they were somewhat older than us, but---and they came here to the United States as teenagers and grew up, and so my recollection of them was that they loved motorcycles. So they would tear around the streets of Seattle in Harley-Davidsons and Indian motorcycles which we envied very much. INTERVIEWER: What part of Japan is your family from? IKARI: My parents are from the northern part of Japan. My father is from Iwata-ken and my mother is from Miyagi-ken, or that may be just the other way around, but I think both are in the northern part of Japan. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 2 of 28 �And what did your parents do while you were growing up? IKARI: My father ran a dry cleaning shop and my mother was just a housewife. INTERVIEWER: And you said that at the age of nine you moved out of Seattle to Los Angeles? IKARI: Yes. Now that was the time of the stock market crash (06:00) in 1929, and of course that was the depths of the Depression, and all families were having a very difficult time making a living. So one of my older brothers went to Southern California and found that it might possibly be a better place to try to make a little better living, and so the decision was made to move the entire family from Seattle down to the Southern Cal area, which we did. INTERVIEWER: How was that, being at that age and then having to move away from your friends? IKARI: Well, it was a little bit disturbing. I think I probably missed Herman Foy the most, my Chinese friend. But other than that, it was not a real traumatic departure. The trip was traumatic because we all piled into an old sedan. I believe it was a Durant, if you’ve ever heard of a Durant. The entire family of, well, six, seven plus a dog, and it took us a week and a half to get to Los Angeles. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember that journey down? IKARI: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. It was very hot, and the dog was a Spitz and it constantly shed, so we had white hairs all over the car. But somehow we have finally made it. INTERVIEWER: How many places did you have to stop along the way? IKARI: I don’t recall all the stops. The one stop I remember was, I believe, it was Yosemite, where we drove all the way into the Yosemite National Park and was turned away because we had this dog. And so that was very, well, it was tiring, exhausting. We had to turn around (08:00) and bring the dog back out to---I don’t know how many miles it was---farm the dog out in the kennel someplace, and then come back. I remember that one stop. INTERVIEWER: And did you guys camp in Yosemite? IKARI: You know, I really don’t whether we---I don’t think it was camping in the sense that we were under a tent or anything. I think probably in something like a, you know, cabin or something like that. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 3 of 28 �INTERVIEWER: When you reached Los Angeles, what part of L.A. was that? IKARI: We went to a place called Rosemead first, this is East Los Angeles, and camped out there temporarily with some friends who had sort of taken care of my older brother who’d gone down there. So we stayed with the Suzuki family in Rosemead for a while and then we were in San Gabriel for a while and then we finally found a house in Montebello, and that was where I got one of my first boyhood shocks, you might say, of discrimination. INTERVIEWER: Can you tell me about that? IKARI: Yes. We finally found this house in Montebello to move into. We arrived at this house in a truck with the entire family piled on the truck, and the landlady of the house, this Caucasian woman, came out in tears and told us that we could not move into this house because the neighbors had complained they didn’t want a Japanese family in the neighborhood. And I believe that was the first time I saw my mother cry bitterly. So we had to find another house, someplace to live in. And strangely enough we found it (10:00) on the other side of Montebello Park, directly on the other side. I guess that must have been the Boyle Heights of Montebello. So we were able to live in that house for many years, all through my grammar school years and all through my high school years. INTERVIEWER: What did that---was that a major shock to you, coming out of Washington? IKARI: Well, yes, and not just the fact that we came out of Washington, but simply the rather overt discrimination that was shown to my entire family. Because what was disturbing was that we eventually found out that there were other Japanese families in the outskirts of Montebello because they ran nurseries and truck gardens. But perhaps that was because they didn’t want a family, the white neighborhood didn’t want a family right in town. INTERVIEWER: What was . . . [Interview stops, then resumes.} What was it like---what were the differences between Washington and Montebello that you noticed at that age? IKARI: The differences I felt were mostly, you know, physical ones. I was so homesick for Seattle, you know, Seattle was so cool and green. I had moved to Southern California and everything is so hot and dry. Of course, that was the big glaring difference. But of course, you know, when you’re kids, you adjust fairly rapidly. We found the kids pretty much, in Montebello, pretty much the same as they were in Seattle. INTERVIEWER: Did you go to Japanese school at that age? IKARI: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 4 of 28 �I went to (12:00) Japanese school when I was in Seattle. And I hated every minute of it for a couple of reasons. One reason was that we would have to go to Japanese school every school day after regular school, which meant that from about 3, 4 o’clock on, we had to go to Japanese school. So the Japanese school was called Kokugo Gakko, but we call it tip school for some reason or other, I don’t know why, it was on the tip of a hill. And like I said, I hated every minute of it, so I didn’t do very well. I got in one of my first big fights there at tip school and got sent to the principal, you know, for disciplining, this kind of business. I do remember these occasions when Japanese battleships will come into the Puget Sound on visitations, and this was supposed to be one of the big deals where the admiral, you know, the Japanese officer in charge of the battleship will come out to the tip school and be presented to the students. And we all dutifully bowed and we’re given the great honor of shaking hands with this officer. INTERVIEWER: What was it about Japanese school besides having to go to school after already going to school that was--that you really disliked? IKARI: I think that was probably the only sort of a narrow-minded reason for disliking Japanese school. I was not particularly enchanted with, you know, with the Japanese language, really; it was tough enough learning English. But I did have some reasonably good roommates. (14:00) And I also loved the hill that ran alongside tip school. It was a wonderful hill, wonderful sledding street, so that had nothing at all to do with Japanese education, but I loved that sledding hill alongside tip school. INTERVIEWER: What language did your family speak at home? IKARI: We spoke a mixture of Japanese and English. Of course, we had to speak Japanese to our parents. But it was all mixed in with, you know, English slang and so forth. My parents never became even reasonably proficient in English, especially my mother. And I believe that was typical of most first generation Issei parents and their children. INTERVIEWER: Would you say your parents were very traditional in the upbringing of you and your brothers? IKARI: Oh, yes. Yes, very much. My father was a very taciturn, rather nonverbal person, somewhat authoritarian but not physically. I have a feeling sometimes that the raising of his family was rather remote, and so that the nitty-gritty of raising the kids fell to my mother. And of course, you know, we---I guess we really didn’t appreciate that until we’re much, much older. You know, what remarkable patience and stamina it took, you know, to raise five kids. INTERVIEWER: When you got to L.A., what did your parents do then? IKARI: My father opened up another dry cleaning shop. (16:00) He was helped out by my two older brothers, and my mother stayed a housewife. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 5 of 28 �INTERVIEWER: Did you help out at the dry cleaning shop? IKARI: No, I did not. I was still a kid in school. INTERVIEWER: And do you remember what school you attended when you first got to Montebello? IKARI: You know, I've forgotten the name of that school, every bit of it. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember . . . IKARI: I finished, I guess, sixth and seventh grade there, yes. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what type of activities you enjoyed there? IKARI: Well, the usual playground activities. I played softball, volleyball, but I believe the–--and I didn’t get into any fights, thank goodness. I think the California kids may have been tougher than Seattle kids. But the highlight of---at grammar school was that I won a spelling bee, the school spelling bee. And I was awarded a school cap and a pin. I still remember it was---that was a big deal, particularly in those days, to have a little Japanese boy become the champion speller of the school. And so that was quite a deal. And I still remember the words that---the last two words of that spelling bee, which if the girl who lost out to me had to give her word to me, I couldn’t have spelled it. INTERVIEWER: What were those? IKARI: I had the word sirloin, no big deal. She had the word fuchsia. I didn’t even know what it meant. (18:00) Of course, she couldn’t spell it. I wouldn’t have been able to spell it. INTERVIEWER: And so then after that, then you moved on to high school? IKARI: Yes. Yes. I went high school. I believe it was a pretty normal four years of high school, the 9th through the 12th. I played some basketball, ran track, handball. I suppose I was a pretty average student. We had a few Japanese kids in the school. Not too many, most of them were kids of farmers and nurserymen in Montebello. And we got along quite well; we had a little Japanese club for social activities. And all in all, it was a nice, fairly uneventful four years of high school. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 6 of 28 �So who did you socialize with most while going to high school? IKARI: I believe most of my play kids were the neighborhood white boys. It was very difficult to have Japanese kids to play around because they were always working on the farms, and they were somewhat out on the outskirts, so it was difficult to get to them. So I wound up joining the Boy Scouts, a Caucasian troop, and I had a good time there until we formed a so-called Japanese troop and brought in the farm boys, and that was fun. That was fun. INTERVIEWER: So did you switch troops then? IKARI: Yes, I switched troops from Troop 70 Montebello to, I forgot what this other troop was. Our scout master was a, he was a very fine Caucasian gentleman (20:00) who was interested in Japanese, and he was our scoutmaster. And I rose to, I forgot what they call it now, Junior Assistant Scoutmaster. I was a senior in high school by that time. So I had some pretty good times in scouting. INTERVIEWER: Did you attend any of the high school dances? IKARI: No, I didn't. That was a difficult social activity in those days for some reason, so I didn't attend any. Not that we had any. Maybe the white kids did, but we didn't. INTERVIEWER: What year did you graduate high school? IKARI: 1936. INTERVIEWER: And in '36, did you---were you following anything about the war in Europe or the war in the Pacific? IKARI: Yes, we had enough reflections of the world situation that there were difficulties in the Pacific with Japan. This is emphasized by the fact that across the street was the Japanese Congregational Church, and the minister who was the---who was---do I date mention names here? His name was Reverend Joseph Fukushima, and he would spend a lot of his sermon time apologizing for the Japanese actions in Manchuria and so forth. We found it very boring, but we knew that there were problems in the Pacific. INTERVIEWER: So when---in '36 you graduated, what happens after you graduate high school? (22:00) IKARI: I had visions of going to college, which in this day and age would be normal. But in those days it was a problem because of the finances, mostly. Our family was strapped for finances, and so just the desire of wanting to go to college doesn't necessarily reflect the fact that you can go; it's not that easy. So I This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 7 of 28 �wound up working. And in those days, young Japanese fellows could only work either out in the farms or in the fruit stands around Los Angeles which I did for almost three years. INTERVIEWER: You worked in the farms or in the fruit stand? IKARI: Both. But mostly out in the fruit and vegetable markets. In those days the salary for fruit and vegetable workers is about $15 to $20 a week, ten hours a day. INTERVIEWER: And what were some of your activities and duties? IKARI: Oh, this was working in these markets for---the fruit and vegetable portion was always run by Japanese, and so we worked in those places. INTERVIEWER: And what were some of the duties you had to do working in the fruit stands? IKARI: Oh, we unloaded the trucks which came in from the wholesale markets, the produce and the fruit and so forth. We always had a wet room in the back to clean up, clean these vegetables and so forth before we displayed them. And then we were cashiers, salespeople. That was about the time that I realized that some of my workmates were college graduates, and I was astounded. (24:00) And I look back on it now and I realize that they were working in the fruit stands because they were not able to get jobs on the outside. And, of course, this is very discouraging, you know, for somebody who just left high school, probably wanted to get an education to---for a better paying job of some kind. And to have these college graduates, these Nisei college graduates, working alongside you for $15, $20 a week was discouraging, it was disheartening. INTERVIEWER: So even at that age you were pretty conscious of the type of discrimination that was going on? IKARI: Yes, I'm afraid so. Afraid so. INTERVIEWER: How did that make you feel as far as your identity between American and Japanese or Japanese American? IKARI: Well, from the standpoint of personal friendships, you know, I had hakujin friends, Japanese friends. So the consideration of being out and out discrimination when you didn't enter is just the way things were, you know, if you were Japanese you just had a tougher time. But working in fruit and vegetable markets and working on farms, you know, it was just not my idea of a future or anybody's idea of a future for that matter. I even went up to pick grapes up in San Joaquin Valley, Delano, California. Picked grapes up there and packed grapes for 25 cents an hour, and fight off the black widow spiders. And that was This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 8 of 28 �really, I think, my downfall from the standpoint of any more manual labor. I decided I had to do something. And I eventually did find something. (26:00) INTERVIEWER: In the years that you were picking grapes, what year is that? IKARI: That was probably about 1938 or 9. INTERVIEWER: Now, at this point, are you really aware of how the tensions are mounting between Japan and the United States? IKARI: Yes, just a little more, a little more. But just making a living, of course, was, you know, paramount, and this is where new activity came into being. There was this activity called chick sexing. They established what they call the Southern California Chick Sexing Association School, and the word got around that the people who went into the association got trained to go out and make a lot of money. And that was indeed the case. This is an activity where there is a manual hand-eye technique which can take a newly hatched baby chick and tell whether it's a male or female. What does that mean? It just means from the standpoint of the poultry industry that if a farmer normally buys a hundred baby chicks from a hatchery, you know half of them are gonna be males and half are females, and he would want the females to be egg-laying hens and he wouldn't want the males. But if he can buy a hundred female chicks, which we call pullets, and know that within 99% or so they're all gonna be egg layings---egg layers when they grow up, why, that's a huge advantage. So if you multiply that situation, (28:00) you know, thousands of times over from the standpoint of the poultry industry, you can see what an advantage this could be for a hatchery that has somebody that can segregate his newly hatched chickies. And to make a longer story short, we got into---I got into this business. And I was duly licensed and the association sent me to Ohio where I formed my own route of hatcheries that would engage my services. So this took up the next three seasons. INTERVIEWER: We're gonna stop right there and change tapes. IKARI: All right. BEGINNING OF TAPE TWO INTERVIEWER: Going back to this chick sexing job that you did, how were you trained of doing that? IKARI: The association set up a little room in one of the hotels in downtown Los Angeles in the Little Tokyo area. In fact, it’s on North San Pedro Street. And the association will buy several hundred baby chicks from a hatchery and they would set up these flood lamps and we’d sit on benches and we'd practice. It was a kind of a nasty thing because you had to squirt, squirt, squirt them out first, you know, before you can invert. [Laughs.] So various names have been ascribed to that, too, other than just chick sexing. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 9 of 28 �INTERVIEWER: And could you describe for me again exactly what the technique is? IKARI: Yes. These are, of course, newly hatched baby chicks; probably not more than a day or two or so out of the egg, out of the eggshell. And the baby chick is held in one hand a certain way and the hind end of the chick is sort of cupped with a couple of fingers and you squirt 'em out to clean out the hind end. And then the other hand, with the thumb and forefinger, you would invert gently and invert the lower part of this open rear end, and the male chick has a little, you know, primordial sex organ. In Japanese, I think it's called tokki. And basically, the female does not have any kind of protrusion like that. Now, it’s not all that simple, there are sometimes variations, depending on breed of chickens, interestingly enough. (02:00) And so it’s a matter of the chick sexer being able to do this very quickly, and eventually we would be able to go through a box of a hundred chicks in just few minutes. INTERVIEWER: And how much did you make doing this? IKARI: You know, I can’t pin down any money amount, because we kind of splurged it pretty much. I was sent to northwestern Ohio. Of course, the association that sort of sent out solicitation letters to hatcheries and so forth, all over the country. And so after we became proficient in this, and we’re licensed, we were sent out to various parts of the United States. And I wound up going to the northwestern part of Ohio with another fellow. We got some rather nasty letters back from some of the hatcheries. For example, one hatchery in Florida says, “You send any of your Jap kids out here and we’re gonna sex them.” You know, this kind of thing, so we stayed away from Florida. But the season for us lasted from midwinter, around January or so, until about early part of May; this is the so-called hatching season. This is so that the farmers in the Midwest, for example, would have the summer, spring and summer, to raise their baby chicks. So the hatching season itself was the early part of the year. And it was kind of exhausting, because we would have to drive between these hatcheries and this would have to be done, you know, within a day or two or three, (04:00) because the baby chick survives on this yolk from which, you know, he was born with a yolk, and this sustains the baby chick until he’s large enough to feed, which is just within a few days. So the sexing had to be done just within a few days or less, so the hatchery could have a chance to pack it up and ship it out. So it was a time-sensitive situation, and so it made it very tiring for us. We would go sometimes a couple, two days and two nights without sleep, traveling in between hatcheries and so forth. But the money was good for those days. And of course, this is another thing where I’m sure we didn’t want to be chick sexers for the rest of our lives either. And then, of course, the winter of 1941 came around. And we were getting ready to go out to Ohio for the sexing season of ‘41, ’42, and of course you know what happened December 7, ’41. And that was the end of our chicken days. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember where you were on December 7th? IKARI: Yes. By that time, I was in my second semester at Los Angeles City College, and I was living at home in East Los Angeles. And I will never forget that Sunday morning when over the radio came these announcements in almost a hysterical voice, "Japanese planes have bombed Pearl Harbor. This is no This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 10 of 28 �kidding, this is real." (06:00) And I remember sitting there in my house, just stunned with the realization that, did this fantastic crazy thing happen, and I guess it happened. And I had tremendously confused feelings about this. Also, the realization that I had to go to class the following day, on Monday, December the 8th, I was still in school, our semester was almost finished. And so I did go back to class on that Monday morning, and that was the Monday morning where President Roosevelt for joint session of Congress declared war on Japan. But I went back to school to face the mundane business of getting an education, and I had one of my white classmates lean over to me and say, “Where were you yesterday?” you know, this kind of business. I also had a Chinese-American friend, good friend of mine, who came in to my laboratory section with this big button on his shirt, you know, Chinese-American, with the crossed flags of China and the United States. I don’t blame him, you know, I wouldn't wanna take a chance of getting beaten up on the streets of Los Angeles at that time. And so things were rapidly developed from then on. INTERVIEWER: Did you run into any incidences on the 8th when you were going to class? IKARI: We had many reports of some violence. Most of them were reports of Japanese Americans being taken into custody for (08:00) having a short-wave radio or being too close to an airfield, this kind of thing. I recall the evening of the following day, I lived across the street from Hiroshi Suzuki. And Mr. Suzuki was the Japanese ed---Japanese section editor of the Rafu Shimpo, and he had been taken into custody almost immediately. And his daughter came over to my house with his coat, asking if I would go with her down to the police station to give him this coat, because Mr. Suzuki came---had come out to the front door in shirt-sleeves and they had nabbed him and whisked him away, so he had no coat or anything, so Mr. Suzuki’s daughter asked if I would go down to the police station to take this coat. And I went down to police station and, of course, I was turned away. He says, "He’s going to be taken care of." So I remember that incident immediately following Pearl Harbor. But in the days that followed, while I was going to class, you know, my classmates were just dropping out of sight, right and left. They were enlisting, volunteering, the draft was picking them up, and I believe that was---that’s the beginnings of my military history. INTERVIEWER: I want to step back just a little bit . . . IKARI: Yes. INTERVIEWER: . . . before we move in to your war time. When you were making all this cash, doing this chick sexing, where did---what did you do? What are some of the luxuries that you were afforded? IKARI: Well, of course, I did send some home. Of course, like I said, we (10:00) bought a new car every year. That was only about three years. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what car you bought? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 11 of 28 �IKARI: Oh, yes. I was partial to Fords. So I had a brand new '37 Ford, then a '38 Ford, then a '39. My partner was a GM person, so he didn’t show up at Ford agencies with me at any time, so he went into Plymouths and Buicks. I also had some friends who were chick sexers in the eastern part of Ohio, and they were banging around kind of guys from Los Angeles, so they went in for convertibles. Of course, I guess they’re pretty much the talk of Ohio because they went in for red convertibles. And of course, we had a very busy social life. But I went back to Los Angeles, of course, you know, as a matter of saving some of my earnings. Of course, by the time Pearl Harbor came I don’t know where my earnings were. I think--I’m sure some of it went to my parents, my family. INTERVIEWER: You must have been pretty popular during that time rolling around in that car. IKARI: Oh, yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Because in between, I had decided to go back to school and, of course, I had all these cars, and so life was very comfortable. It eased the way for dates and things like that. INTERVIEWER: Now, going back to the bombing, (12:00) did you yourself experience any hostilities towards you? IKARI: Well, not out and out hostilities, no. Of course, these incidents of hostilities were constantly in the paper, and accusations of sabotage, contaminating the food and so forth, because a lot of us were fruit and vegetable market workers. But I didn’t experience anything, any kind of hostility overtly in my neighborhood because my neighborhood was East Los Angeles. We had a very large Japanese population then, and also a very large Mexican population. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what your parents or what your brothers felt, and what they might have said during this time, right after the bombing? IKARI: No, I’m afraid I don’t recall anything that was said, if there was indeed anything said. I’m sure there was something said. INTERVIEWER: What religion were you and your family at that time? IKARI: We were Protestant. When we were in Seattle we went to the Methodist Episcopal church, and when we were in Montebello, we went to the Baptist church down the street, a Japanese Baptist church. And so we were fairly decent churchgoers. I don’t think that we, you know, went out of the way to be real, really involved in church activities except my youngest sister who became very interested in the church. But the boys did not. We as boys did not. INTERVIEWER: (14:00) So what is it – what’s the next most memorable incident after the bombing that you remember? This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 12 of 28 �IKARI: Well, I guess the most memorable incident was getting this letter from the draft board, which said, you know, at the top of the page, ”Greetings from the President of the United States. You’re now in the army,” and I was drafted. And this was on the 20th of January, 1942, 40 days after Pearl Harbor. INTERVIEWER: And what did your parents say to that? IKARI: Well, I don’t recall any specific conversation in regard to that. In fact, the only piece of conversation I recall was when my kid brother drove me up to the draft board in Alhambra, and I waited, and I said, “Well, I’ll see you pretty soon.” And I didn’t see him for four years. INTERVIEWER: What was that day like when you reported to the draft board? IKARI: We were sent down to the reception center at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, and there we went through the processing of---that all draftees go through, got into Army ODs, learned how to stand, and this kind of business. There were, in my group there were several Japanese-American fellows, Nisei fellows, and we had a pretty good contingent of Mexicans also in our group, of course. (16:00) But it was the initiation in the Army, the shots, the physicals, the getting into uniforms, very basic things of standing in formation, and I don’t know whether we had any drill or not, I don’t think we did. I don’t think we had time for that. It was mostly paperwork and waiting to be shipped out from the reception center. INTERVIEWER: How long were you at the reception center? IKARI: I don’t believe I was---we were there for more than, probably three days, two or three days. And then we were duly shipped out by train. We didn't know where we were going but it looked like we were heading east. And we did wind up finally in---at least our group wound up finally in Camp Grant, Illinois, which is just, I believe, just southwest of Chicago, about 90 miles. And Camp Grant was a medical replacement training center. There wasn't a gun in the camp, except for the side arms and so forth that the MP detachment carried. It was medics, and that’s where we started our basic training. INTERVIEWER: Did you get to say goodbye to your family before you shipped out? IKARI: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. INTERVIEWER: Did your parents tell you anything before you left? IKARI: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 13 of 28 �I really don’t recall. I don’t recall. I don’t think there were any patriotic words or anything exchanged. I think there’s a---from the standpoint of Japanese parents, they---it was probably, I was probably wished a fond (18:00) goodbye, and that’s about it. INTERVIEWER: Arriving at Camp Grant, what was that like? IKARI: Well, we were fitted into the training battalions, and then we went through all the actions of making raw recruits into soldiers, the marching and the drills, and the physical training. And then we were initiated into some of the medical training that we were supposed to get later on, some of the fundamentals, which was terribly boring, you know, things like anatomy and things like that. Our field work was really pretty elemental; I don’t think I even carried a stretcher all that time in field work, even though we were supposed to have been medics. [Laughs.] INTERVIEWER: Let’s see, let’s pause one second. [Interview stops, then resumes.] How long did you stay at Camp Grant? IKARI: Basic training was probably---my estimate is probably two to three months. Of course, that took place in the early, you know, early part of the year, so it was wintertime in Illinois, it was cold. But there’s a lot of marching, drilling, field work, setting up your tents and so forth, and sitting in lectures of anatomy, and Army discipline, and regulations and so forth, and (20:00) sitting through movies on VD and, you know, all this kind of thing. We learned how to salute all the officers all the time. And incidentally, our company did have a Nisei officer who was a physician in the Reserves, and so he was called back in. And this was Lieutenant Nishikawa from San Jose, one of our training officers. Interestingly enough, the training battalion across the way, the entire battalion was commanded by a Nisei officer who was a major. And he was also a physician from San Francisco, his name was Kan Ueyama. And so we thought this was a pretty big deal, you know, particularly in those times, to have a Nisei major, you know, in command of an entire training battalion. But like I said, our basic training finished in about two, three months. And then it was the gossip of what were they gonna do with us. That’s the beginning of another story. INTERVIEWER: What---what is---how did you take to basic training and Army life? IKARI: Oh, I think pretty well. The challenges in basic training for recruits, you know, in the medics, I think, is different from, let’s say, an infantry. I don’t think we had the same physical challenges that infantry recruits go through. And I know about that because I did take infantry basic later on. So we (22:00) adapted to it pretty well. Of course, we toughened up because we lived a regular life, and we were fed a lot of calories, and regular hours and so forth. It was all Army discipline, daily, nightly. I recall the amusing situation early on where---when we went to eat in the mess halls. We would try to avoid sitting next to the Mexican guys. Because a lot of those Mexican fellows came from very poor families, they had never been fed so well in their lives. So if you sat next to a Mexican group, you know, the food plates could be exhausted before it got to you. So if we had to sit next to our Mexican fellows, you This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 14 of 28 �know, we made damn sure that we sat over by the serving area. So that was a real big kick. We used to kid them about it. INTERVIEWER: And after you completed your training at Grant, what happened next? IKARI: So the question rose among---particularly among us Japanese fellows is, what are they gonna do with us? Where are they gonna send us? Well, shipping date came around and we shouldered our barracks bag and we walked across the street. And that was as far as we got shipped, to the---we got shipped to the---there were---first of all, there were about, oh, 15 or 20 of us at that time, out of my training battalion. So we got shipped across the street to the medical detachment of the station hospital at Camp Grant. So these are the medics who service this hospital, post hospital. And we got farmed (24:00) out to various jobs in the hospital. And since I had told them that I was a premed, they put me in the laboratory. And so I spent my next year and a half or so in the hospital laboratory. The rest of the Nisei guys got farmed out to jobs like ward boys and supply. Some got into the OR emergency room, and a lot of 'em got just simply farmed out as yard birds, that is, taking care of the grounds. And so eventually they became quite a large contingent of Nisei in the medical detachment at Camp Grant. But we all did our jobs well and, of course, promotions inevitably came because we were hard workers, pretty much. But this created some adverse publicity in some of the neighboring papers, particularly in some of the Chicago papers. And at that time, I didn’t know about it. I only saw these clippings after the war, where there were accusations of Jap soldiers, you know, being promoted over white soldiers, and all this kind of thing. What kind of treatment are wounded veterans from the Pacific gonna get when they come back here and find out they have to be, you know, taken care of by Jap ward boys, you know, this kind of thing, and it was really---some pretty nasty press came out. But even then we were not aware of it because we were doing our jobs. And we had a commanding officer of the medical detachment who was very understanding to us, about us. Made sure that all promotions came on time. (26:00) And so by the time I left Camp Grant, we had a fair number of Nisei fellows who were noncoms. INTERVIEWER: And what rank were you? IKARI: I went from private to corporal, that is, T5 corporal. I skipped the Pfc business for some reason or other. Not that I was that good or anything, I think it was just an administrator thing. And then from T5 corporal, I went to T4 or technician 4th grade sergeant. By that time, I had started off in the laboratory just as a laboratory clerk, then I asked to be put back into the technical section. And so, I rotated around the hospital laboratory, doing the usual diagnostic things that all laboratories in any hospital do. You know, the blood counting and the bacteriology and the chemistry and so forth. So I was involved in all those areas. And then, of course, we would get daily briefings on the progress of the war from the chaplain. Just to make sure that he realized---that we realized that there’s more going on, you know. And then word came about that this combat team was going to be formed of Japanese-American volunteers. And I didn't think too much about it at the time, until I heard my kid brother had volunteered for this team from Colorado. And then it just suddenly dawned on me that this is a rather comfortable but boring Army life, you know, to be rattling test tubes in the hospital (28:00) laboratory. Not that I was that adventurous, but I would like to have something more going in my Army life. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 15 of 28 �We're gonna pause there, change tapes, and let . . . [Interview stops and then resumes.] BEGINNING OF TAPE THREE INTERVIEWER: You were in the---so you were at Camp Grant for two months or so, at what time was the Executive Order 9066 signed and where were you during that time? IKARI: 9066 was signed, I don’t know my relocation history because I never got relocated to camp, but it was in the early spring of ’42, obviously, because I didn’t hear about it until after way---well into the end of my basic training which by that time I guess it was around March, April of ’42. And then I didn’t know where all of my family was. I didn’t know my older brothers were in other camps. I didn’t know that for a long time. INTERVIEWER: And can you tell us where your family was sent? IKARI: My oldest brother was sent to the camp in Arkansas, Rohwer. I had another older brother who was sent to, eventually, to the Manzanar camp, I guess Eastern California. And then my mother and the rest of the family wound up in Poston, Arizona. INTERVIEWER: And do you know why they were sent to different camps . . . IKARI: Yeah. INTERVIEWER: . . . and how that came about? IKARI: Just simply because they lived in different places in California. Not that there’s any intention of splitting up the families or anything like that. But if I was to have tried to visit them, in the Army I mean, that would have been very difficult. But I was able to visit my mother in Poston. After I finished my basic training, I was given a pass to (02:00) Poston, Arizona. INTERVIEWER: And can you tell us what that was like, the journey out there? IKARI: It was a difficult trip. Of course, all transportation in the early part of the war was difficult. But I recall finally getting to Parker, Arizona from Chicago. And Parker is the closest small town to the Poston camp. Of course, there's no scheduled, well, first of all, there were very few scheduled trains to Parker from, I believe it was Phoenix or Tucson, I forgot which of the big cities in Arizona I was in. So from there to Parker, I finally had a ride of a freight train, a caboose, you know the end train on a freight train, and that was a hot, dusty trip. So when I got to Parker, I went to a lunch counter in this little town and sat This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 16 of 28 �down at the lunch counter, and I noticed a bunch of other Japanese people standing around the walls behind me. I was the only one sitting at the counter. Of course, I was in my uniform and I was waiting to get served. And I recall beckoning to the waitress, I was hot and thirsty, I wanted a Coke or something, but I was not served. And I was wondering, you know, this is a very lackadaisical place. I was about to call a couple more times for service and this didn’t happen. By that time, somebody stuck their head in the door and said that the bus to the camp had arrived. So the Japanese people behind me left and I left the counter (04:00) and make the bus. Got on the bus and an MP stuck his head in the door of the bus and asked, “All you Japs got passes?” And I was shocked. I said, “Do these people need passes or do I need a pass to go see my mother?" first of all. I was flabbergasted and I was about to reply when the MP turned around and walked off. And then we drove to camp and the camp of course was a very, somewhat depressing place, you know, out there in the middle of the desert, it was hot. I saw barbed wire only in a corner of the camp because, you know, you’re out in the middle of the desert, where you gonna go? I mean . . . [Laughs.] But, nevertheless, it was depressing. It was a barracks community, the common mess hall and the common latrine and all this kind of business. And although it was good to see my mother and my kid sister was there and one of my younger brothers was there. So it was a fairly good visit. My younger brother’s girlfriend wanted to have some kind of a celebration for me and there was another Nisei fellow who's also on pass from a different camp. So she wanted to have a little celebration for us and we volunteered to go into Parker and get a case of beer, which we did. We went to Parker, went into the saloon and immediately the bouncer came out from the back and the bartender yelled at us to, “Get out! (06:00) No Japs!” Well, we didn’t go in there to drink, we just wanted to go in there to buy a case of beer, and we were, you know, verbally thrown out of the place. It was very interesting because, as we left the saloon, there was an Indian GI---an Indian---American-Indian GI from the 45th Division who had also fought in Italy, and he saw us come out there and he shook his head and he says, “Yeah, that’s the way things are with us, you know, with all of us kind of people." He said, "You gotta be white.” So we learned a lesson there. INTERVIEWER: Were you in uniform at this time? IKARI: Oh yeah. Oh yes. Yes. INTERVIEWER: How did you feel wearing an American uniform and going into this place? IKARI: Going through all these business of, well, it’s kind of upsetting. It’s upsetting enough to have to go to relocation camp to see your family, to see your mother under those conditions. Then to have these insults, you know, from this MP and then this very hostile attitude in Parker; it was not comfortable. So it was with mixed feelings that I finally left this first visit. INTERVIEWER: What were the conditions of your family’s barrack? How was that? IKARI: They, well, I don’t know whether you’ve seen a relocation camp barracks community, but that’s what they are. They’re just barracks, partitioned off into family units. My mother had an end unit, it was terribly hot, dusty. And it was typical (08:00) barracks life: ate in the common mess hall, the food was This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 17 of 28 �just passable. And the washing situation, you know, there's no washrooms or anything out there in the barracks, it's just a common washroom and a common latrine room. So it was sort of a almost the bare necessities of living. INTERVIEWER: How long did you stay? IKARI: I think I stayed maybe a couple of days. INTERVIEWER: What happened when you guys came back and didn’t have any beer for the party? IKARI: I forgot what we did. I think we probably had to settle for soft drinks or something. We had heard by that time that some of the older Nisei were able to brew sake, but we’re not able to locate some of these old codgers, and I don’t know whether they would have let go of any of their supply or not, just for us to celebrate. So it was a very sober, nonalcoholic visit. INTERVIEWER: Was your mother happy. . . How was it to see your father in this situation? IKARI: My father was not in this camp. When the relocation orders came out, my father was somewhat separated from my mother, so he asked to be repatriated back to Japan. And it’s at that time where one could ask to be repatriated back to Japan even though it was in the middle of the war, and so my father’s (10:00) request was granted and he went back to Japan on the Gripsholm, that neutral Swedish vessel. And so he served out his life in Japan by himself. INTERVIEWER: Did you have any contact with him through letters or anything? IKARI: No, no. Only later on when my kid brother who was in the MIS was sent to Japan occupation. He was the only one of the family that made contact with my father during the war years or right after the war years. INTERVIEWER: Was your mother happy to see you when you came to visit? IKARI: I believe so. I believe so. INTERVIEWER: After your visit, where did you go? IKARI: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 18 of 28 �Went back to camp, to Camp Grant. And, oh, that’s where we were finally shipped across the street. So my visit happened before our permanent assignment to the medical detachment. INTERVIEWER: And then how long was your assignment to the hospital? IKARI: So I was in the medical detachment for over a year and a half, almost two years, and I had been promoted T4 sergeant. Heard about this combat team that was being formed, and in November of 1943, I asked for transfer to Camp Shelby and that transfer was granted. I was busted, (12:00) my stripes were taken away and I was sent down to Camp Shelby as a private to be retrained in the infantry. INTERVIEWER: Why did they take your rank away? IKARI: I don’t know. That’s a puzzle. That’s really a puzzle. Because when I was being retrained in that recruit detachment at Camp Shelby, I recall another group of about eight or ten Nisei soldiers who were transferred from Fort Sheridan in Chic---near Chicago, transferred from Fort Sheridan to Camp Shelby. And every one of those fellows was a noncom, there was nobody less than corporal. They were all sergeants and they weren’t busted, they retained their rank. I still remember some of those fellows. INTERVIEWER: Did you ask anyone? IKARI: Well, who can you ask, you know, when you’re in the Army? And it’s very possible, I'm just trying to think of any conversation that I had with my medical detachment commanding officer when he okayed my transfer as to whether I was going to take a bust or not, and I just can’t recall that. All I can recall was that when I got to Shelby I was a private and I was cutting off my stripes. So whether it was a technical kind of thing where one is transferred from a medical service command, you know, to infantry, whether that’s a factor, whether the medical detachment want to, you know, hold on to that rank for something, for some other guy or, I have no idea. But later on I found out that (14:00) Spud Munemori . . . [Interview stops, then resumes.] INTERVIEWER: Okay. So no one ever told you that when you left Camp Grant, that when you arrive at Shelby you’re not gonna have your rank? IKARI: That’s right. You know, I don’t recall that. I was just too excited or interested in getting transferred out [and] going to the combat team. But later on I found out that I was not the only one that---the situation seemed to differ between groups. And it seems that when Spud Munemori, who was the only Congressional Medal of Honor winner, that when he transferred from Fort Snelling or was it Camp Savage to Shelby that he was also demoted from sergeant to private. So, I don’t know what factors enter in here. But---so you have a situation where some guys got busted and other guys did not. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 19 of 28 �How long did you train at Camp Shelby? IKARI: When I got there in November of 1943, the combat team was well past their basic training; they were into their unit training. In fact, they were just about ready for what they call, oh, they were in the middle of D-series maneuvers, which is final maneuvers with large units. So therefore, when I came in as a raw infantry recruit, you might say, I was put into this separate unit called a recruit detachment to be retrained right from the beginning. So, you know, so I could find out which end of an M1 rifle was the danger end, you know, [laughs] this kind (16:00) business, having been a medic all these years. Other fellows filtered in from other camps into this recruit detachment, and they would have rotating training sergeants from the other---from the infantry companies to come and help train us. And I'm not sure how long I was in the recruit detachment before they finally decided I could be transferred to a company, but that probably took place at midwinter, say, about January or so, or perhaps even February. And that’s when I got assigned to Company E in the 2nd Battalion. INTERVIEWER: Now, didn’t the 4-4-2 think that maybe they could use you as a medic within the 4-4-2? IKARI: When I first came to Shelby, you know, with a barracks bag on my back to report into regimental headquarters and I got sent down to Service Company, and that’s when they were processing my papers, and I had the first sergeant come in and ask me whether I wanted to be in the medics or going into a line company, and I recall saying then that I just left the medics. He says, “Well, then you want to be in the line company?” I says, “Well, there's no other choice.” So I wound up in an infantry company and I got trained that way. So the fact that I went from medics to infantry was of my own doing, my own choice, pretty much. INTERVIEWER: (18:00) What was Mississippi like and what were the differences between Camp Shelby and Camp Grant that you remember? IKARI: Well, physically there’s a pretty large difference. Camp Grant was a very established community camp almost, and of course being a medics unit, you know, it was reasonably civilized. Also being near Chicago and being near Rockford, Illinois which was a nice small city. But down there in the Camp Shelby which was out in the swamps of Mississippi and the camp surroundings were nowhere near, you know, as nice as in Camp Grant. You probably wouldn’t expect it to be, you know, being an infantry training center. So there are, you know, pretty large physical differences between where I was at Camp Grant and where I wound up in Camp Shelby. And then the closest town to Camp Shelby of course was Hattiesburg, it’s a little Southern community. And I recall taking on just very few passes there, and it was just like another Army town. And of course the impact of 35 to 104,000 Japanese faces come--being dumped into the middle of Mississippi, it was quite an impact, I'm sure, at the beginning. INTERVIEWER: When you were at Camp Grant, did you just train with Niseis or did you train with . . .? IKARI: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 20 of 28 �Well, my group had a few Niseis but we were a mixed group. Like I said, we had a fair number of Mexican-American fellows, but it was a mixed group. It’s a mixed group. (20:00) INTERVIEWER: So then when you get to Camp Shelby, it’s kind of a drastic difference? IKARI: Oh, boy. Yeah, the faces are all Asian but the languages were different, as we found out very shortly, because, you know, we had a mixture of Hawaiian boys and mainland boys. and I suppose you know that there was this huge friction that developed between the two groups. One could go on and talk about that for some time but it was not very pleasant on many occasions. In fact, my first initiation to this difference was when I was taking the bus from Hattiesburg to Camp Shelby to the 4-4-2 area, I was on this bus with my barracks bag and here are these two Asian fellows sitting in front of me, and I couldn’t understand what they were saying. They’re a couple of Hawaiian boys, you know, of course they were talking in this pidgin English, and I was a little bit puzzled. Then I realized, well, you know, half of it must be Hawaiian. And I found out soon enough when I got established into Camp Shelby. INTERVIEWER: Was that your first experience to people from Hawaii? IKARI: Pretty much. Pretty much. At least in those numbers. And I found out that we not only had some communications language difficulties, they had difficulties basically in attitudes also. And when one considers that, you know, a lot of these Hawaiian boys have not (22:00) experienced the kind of prejudice that mainland boys have had, you know, this results in a different attitude toward other people. This makes the Hawaiian boys much more extrovertive, much more outgoing, much less inhibited than we were. And so therefore a lot of the Hawaiian boys could not understand us, you know. Not only language wise---couldn't understand our slang. And the other factor was that the mainland boys---can I talk about this for a bit? A lot of the mainland boys who volunteered from the camps, you know, came into Shelby broke. They had no money. But the Hawaiian boys, you know, they had been working in defense establishments, and when they left Hawaii, their parents just loaded them up with funds. And I never saw so much money among the Hawaiian boys. And of course they were very free spenders, and they spent it freely among all of us; whereas the mainland boys are just kinda strapped. We would go out for one bottle of beer; the Hawaiian boys would go out and they'd come back with a case. So it was not a matter of, you know, not wanting, it's just a matter of the finances which created some interpretational problems, I think. INTERVIEWER: So what did your---what were your first impressions then getting to know the Hawaii boys? IKARI: Well, there---it was mixed. I found them to be fun guys, but I found some of them to be very, I don't know, (24:00) very somewhat antagonistic. It took awhile for me to understand their pidgin English, they had so many expressions. And of course if you didn't understand their expressions, you know, they'd get mad as hell. But there were some very unfortunate, bad incidents between Hawaiian boys and mainland boys. While I was there, I recall Colonel Pence, the commanding officer of the 442nd, calling out the entire group, and he expressed his alarm at the friction between the Hawaiian boys and the mainland boys. And what he brought it down to was that "If you boys can't get along here together, This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 21 of 28 �here in Mississippi, you know, how the hell you gonna fight together when you get out in combat?" And so he put it right to us. whether that had any effect or not, I don't know. We have---we also had a very--of course this is only just in my company---but we also had a rather traumatic thing happen in our company where one of our company mainland boys got beat up badly; he was hospitalized. And the culprits, evidently, came from another---over in 3rd Battalion, and couple of those boys were rounded up. And Colonel Hanley paraded those boys through the ranks of the 2nd Battalion as sort of a punishment for having instigated this beating, and it was kind of awful, (26:00) it was kind of terrible. And then we wound up---he wound up establishing guard duty just around our own company area. Can you imagine setting up guard duty around E Company so guys wouldn't come in to beat up other guys in E Company? It was kind of awful. So, you know, we did have our rather unfortunate frictions. INTERVIEWER: Had you been witness to any of them? IKARI: Yeah. Yeah. INTERVIEWER: Can you tell us about that? IKARI: Well, we had some---another couple of fights in the PX one time. I don't know what precipitated the fights, but Lord knows what. I think there was an occasion in the motor pool one time that I was witness to, and it was obviously between Hawaiian guys and mainland guys. But, I don't know, you know, in any Army outfit, you know, you're gonna have some friction, you're gonna have fights. But we used to think that it didn't take much to set off the Hawaiian guys, you know. That they were much more volatile than we were. And when I say "we" I mean the mainland boys. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember when tensions started to change between the two? IKARI: Well, I suppose the occasion that Dan Inouye likes to refer to is that they sent a contingent of mostly Hawaiian boys to the Roh---to the relocation camps in Arkansas to visit, have a dance, you know, with the girls down there and so forth. And the Hawaiian boys got off the bus there at the camp and looked around and saw this barbed wire (28:00) around this camp, saw all these Japanese people inside the barbed wire, and I think they were just shocked. They had---Dan likes to say that, you know, for the first time the Hawaiian boys realized, you know, what---under what circumstances, you know, the thousand or so volunteers from the camps were in, and to volunteer from those camps. And so, I think Dan and some of the guys like to say that this sort of turned the tables from the standpoint of attitudes between the two groups. And I'm sure that there was, you know, some of this happened, but, you know, even after the war, even after I came home from overseas we still had some pretty---some bad incidents. INTERVIEWER: Okay, we're going to switch tapes . . . BEGINNING OF TAPE FOUR This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 22 of 28 �INTERVIEWER: Okay. Why don’t we go ahead and continue. So you did see some of the tension subside? IKARI: Yeah, I think so. Either that or I got used to it. What way to get used to it is to be as Hawaiian as possible, pick up some of their language, which is of course unavoidable. But it did not turn the other way around, you know, I mean, you’re not gonna have any Hawaiian boys talking like us, I mean. But I would like to mention another situation when I finally left the recruit detachment to be assigned to E Company. When I got assigned to E Company, most of the company was gone on maneuvers. So there are a few, very few guys left, just a couple of the officers, and I was assigned to the supply sergeant, Kiyo Yamate. So I wound up helping him, just to have something to do. And then eventually the company came back from maneuvers, and I was never given any assignment into any of the platoons or squad, and later on I found out it was because the company was overstrength, and how they gonna fit an odd guy into a squad or a platoon. But this created some difficulties for me because in the morning fallout, you know, where you got up in the morning, stand on formation, I didn’t know where to stand. So I just stood wherever there’s an empty space, and this was the situation that was constant. I was not a particularly organ---I was not an organizational fit into any platoon (02:00) or squad because they had been trained together, you know. So I just kind of fitted it in where I could. So, of course, after the company came back from maneuvers and the whole 4-4-2 came back from maneuvers, and then we had this big inspection by the Army’s General George C. Marshall, you know, Chief of Staff, and a few days after that we got our POM, our orders for Prior for Overseas Movement and so forth, and then we had a big job of getting ready to go overseas. In the meantime, some training continued, and so May the 1st, we were all ready to go over. And so I went over with the original group. We left Camp Shelby [and] went to Camp Pickett, I believe it was, and then to the Newport News area or Hampton Roads area for shipping out. INTERVIEWER: And what is that journey like? IKARI: Well, we were---got loaded on to these Liberty ships, more commonly called banana boats. We were in a huge convoy, and it took us 28 days to go across the Atlantic, to the Straits of Gibraltar to Italy. There was some speculation as to where we exactly we were going to go, but I think the best guess was that we would probably go to Italy because the 100th was there. And sure enough, that was the case. So after 28 days of (04:00) seasickness and bouncing around in the Atlantic, we finally arrived at the bombed out harbor in Naples. And I recall one incident there as we were unloading from the ships. There’s a caravan of white troops, they’re going by in trucks, and these white guys would---saw us and they would lean out from the back of the trucks. “One puka puka!” which really meant that our reputation had been made ahead of time by the 100th. You know, in Hawaiian, you know, puka is hole or circle, and they were the 1-0-0 boys, and they had made a reputation for themselves in the seven months that they were there before we even got there. So this was a very interesting welcome we got in Naples. INTERVIEWER: Had you heard the stories of the 100th while you were at Camp Shelby? IKARI: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 23 of 28 �No, not much. We knew that there was a lot of activity going on. We did hear a roundabout that, you know, they were taking a punishing, because while we were still there in training, three different replacement groups were taken out from the 1st Battalion of the 442nd to be sent over to Italy. The three replacement groups had totaled almost 600 men, officers and men. In fact, I believe the last replacement group joined the 100th at Anzio. So this means, of course, that when we shipped out, we shipped out as a regiment minus one battalion because we had no more (06:00) 1st Battalion left. They were all sent over as a replace---most of them were sent over as replacements for 100th. And those that were remaining out of the 1st Battalion were fitted into the other 2nd and 3rd Battalions, and some, I believe, were kept behind as training cadre for future replacements. INTERVIEWER: So before you ship out and you take---you get on the Liberty ship, were you assigned any position now to any platoon or squad? IKARI: Oh, organizationally? No, I was still not. I just kind of fitted in wherever there was an opening or space. The guys came to know me, some of 'em. So there was, I suppose, a tacit understanding that I was part of the company, and I did make acquaintance with a number of the Easy Company group. But I don’t believe I ever got a firm assignment into a platoon for whatever reason. It’s very possible that, you know, platoon sergeants and squad leaders don’t want a add-on guy coming in, you know, and upsetting their unit’s balance. But whatever, I did go over with the original group. INTERVIEWER: And what did you do to pass the time on those 28 days? IKARI: Oh, well, there’s really not much to do. Of course, the guys that gambled, gambled all 28 days. The guys that played cards played cards for 28 days. But in between we had some entertainment. A lot of the Hawaiian guys were pretty good singers. They got together in groups and somebody (08:00) always had, you know, ukeleles and small guitars, and so they had good musical entertainment. And we also had some of the black boys from the ship’s crew come give us some entertainment; they sang and they danced. And of course we had calisthenics everyday. And there was really not much more than that. Of course, for the boys who were seasick, I don’t think it mattered what they had, but there were some poor guys that were seasick for 28 days. That was just terrible. So I was lucky because, well, I could brag about and say I was a former fisherman and so I’m used to it. But anyway, we were all glad that the 28 days finally went by. We knew that we were approaching Italy, because, you know, we had gone through the Straits of Gibraltar, we had gone by Sicily, or Sicilian fishermen had come out to the boat to meet us, and then we finally landed at that bombed out harbor at Naples, then we knew where we were. INTERVIEWER: What’s that like for a mainland boy at your age traveling on this ship, across the ocean, never part---had you been on a big ship, anything like that, prior to this? IKARI: On a big ship? Oh, no, no. INTERVIEWER: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 24 of 28 �So what goes through your mind? IKARI: Well, it was a new experience, of course, but then we were all in it together, and we were jammed into this transport, small transport ship, bunks five high, and it was a very cramped situation. (10:00) We were blacked out, the ship was blacked out during the night, of course, no lights. I don’t believe there is that much danger from sub attacks that time. I think by that time sub---German submarine attack was pretty well under control. But even then, you know, we had a huge, almost a 100-ship convoy. And we had destroyers just, you know, buzzing around the convoy all the time, keeping us in order and keeping us protected. So it was an interesting voyage, in a way, but also it was very boring because there just is not that much to do. INTERVIEWER: And then when you reach Naples, what do you think, and what was your observations when you reached Naples? IKARI: Well, we realized for the first time, you know, what a torn up place looks like from war, and of course, the harbor at Naples had been bombed. But we realized that we were indeed in a war zone, pretty much, but not in the combat zone yet. But other than the so-called greetings from the haole boys on the trucks, it was a matter of unloading. And then we were shipped out to the outskirts of Naples to a little place called Bagnoli. And there we pitched tents and waited out the next movement. There was some separation of the combat team on the trip over. A lot of the 2nd Battalion, my battalion, didn’t arrive in Naples, they got sent to Oran in North Africa. (12:00) And of course there were a lot of rumors about that, but we found out later on that these ships with the rest of the 2nd Battalion had gone to Oran in order to unload supplies from the ship. So, a few of us in E Company, we had to wait for the rest of the 2nd Battalion to catch up to us. And eventually, they did. So we all came together in Bagnoli. And then we had another trip from there, up into the combat zone. By the time we were just about to . . . [Interview breaks, then resumes.] By the time we were at the end of the voyage to land in Naples, that was just about early part of June. So therefore, as you know, June 6 was D-Day in Normandy. So the invasion of Normandy was taking place about the time we were landing, really. Also, the other thing that happened while we were on the voyage was that Rome had been declared an open city by a mutual agreement between the Germans and the Allies. This meant that the Germans were not gonna defend Rome, that they were gonna pull out of Rome and then they established their defensive lines above Rome. So of course this was a blessing in many ways. First of all, Rome did not have to be bombarded or shelled. It didn’t have to be fought for. And this was a blessing for, certainly, the city of Rome and also for us. I suppose for the Germans, too; they didn’t have to fight for the city. So then it was a matter of us catching up to the new defensive German line above Rome. So, after we all got together at Bagnoli, we loaded back on to LSTs, Landing Ship Tank, (14:00) and to LCIs, which stands for Landing Craft Infantry. These are smaller Navy vessels. And up the coast we went to an area, er, to a town called Civitavecchia, which is northwest of Rome. And we landed there and unloaded and then went inland. And we waited there in that area for a while, and that’s where the 100th caught up to us, and we joined together. INTERVIEWER: What happens next? IKARI: This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 25 of 28 �After the 100th hooked up with us, of course they got fitted in to the 442nd as the 442nd's 1st Battalion. But they maintained their designation as the 100th. But now we were a complete regimental combat team of three infantry battalions. And the German line was being pushed back all this time by the Fifth Army on the left, by the British 8th Army on the right; they’re pushing the Germans up the boot. So at the end of June, or I believe it was June the 26th when orders came in for the 442nd to go into the line, this means to go to combat. And so, this happened. By that time, again, we were still north of Rome, and our first action was a town called Belvedere, which was inland from the coast a little bit, but north of Rome. (16:00) And that’s where the 442nd got initiated. This is an interesting initiation into combat because, in order to take this town of Belvedere, there was a German force, of course, in the town above it. And in the first hours, the 4-4-2 was kind of stuck. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions were stuck a little bit. And the 100th had been held in reserve, so the 100th was called up and they performed a very interesting flanking action around Belvedere, took the town, established roadblocks. And by that time, you know, the 100th was just about overwhelming this German force which turned out to be an entire armored battalion, and eventually the pressure from our 2nd and 3rd Battalion and the 100th who had just really blasted the German force there in one afternoon. And this was written up in Yank Magazine, in a later issue called "The Battle of Belvedere." It was our initiation into it but it was not a glorious initiation. It was a situation where the 100th had really shown their experience and their combat readiness. And the first Presidential Unit Citation went to the 100th for this particular action. So that was our initiation into the line. INTERVIEWER: What was that like for you in your experience? IKARI: Well, I’m talking in terms of the unit. But to backtrack, (18:00) when we landed at Civitavecchia, north of Rome, which is where we joined up with the 100th, I was taken out of the company. I was put into a little group called the SPs or the Special Police. And they gave us helmets with the white SP on it. And we wondered, “What are we going to do with this?” We found out that we were going to be road guides and prisoner escorts. Again, this probably is an expression of the fact that I had not been a clean fit into E Company. But this was rather nonsense duty, where you stood at a 90-degree angle road, and you pointed to the 442nd to go that way, because that was the only way they can go, which is pretty stupid. And then the prisoner escort part was not much more challenging either. We wound up escorting German prisoners who had been captured, who had been sent down, at least down toward to Battalion, and we would have to escort these prisoners either to Regimental Headquarters or to the MP holding station. And that was the extent of my duties together with the other SPs for about a week. And I finally told the lieutenant in charge of this duty that, “You know, I really want to get back up to my company.” And so he made arrangements to get me out of this, but I had to find my way up to the company. And I think it took me about a couple of days to (20:00) finally find my company. And I don't know whether they were in reserve or whether they were in the line, but they were all dug in on a hillside. And I recall walking up to my company and seeing some of the guys that I was familiar with, and I was met by Terry Hara who was the 1st Platoon platoon sergeant. His first words to me were, “You better get yourself an M1.” Because I had been carrying a little carbine, you know, for this guard duty business. And I thought to myself, “Where am I gonna get an M1?” But a few minutes later, one of Terry’s boys came up to me with an M1 and we exchanged weapons. By that time, of course, you know, I told you it had taken me two days to get up there and I was exhausted. And at nightfall, [clears throat] excuse me, I had fallen asleep. Some of the guys were dug in, I don’t know whether they were getting shelled or not. I just kind of fell asleep on a hillside. Woke up in the middle of the night and my This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 26 of 28 �company was gone. And I thought, boy, this is a hell of a thing, I mean, I joined my company, all of a sudden they disappear, and I didn’t know whether I was in front, you know, really, up in the line or back in reserve. So I got up on the---it was pitch black and I decided that, certainly, the safest way to go is not over the hill because that would be in the wrong direction toward the enemy line, I was just going to skirt this hill. And I stumbled my way across this hillside for some time. Finally, caught up with my company who were dug in in a new position. So that was a rather inauspicious joining with my guys in my company. But from there on, (22:00) we had the, you know, the usual activities of the front line. INTERVIEWER: Do you remember your first firefight? IKARI: Yes. I recall moving up on a hillside toward a house that was on top of the hill. And of course, anytime you see a house on the top of a hill, and if you're in the line, you know, you have to assume that it's gonna be defended. But fortunately, in this case, it had not been defended. But there was movement in the woods behind it, and so there was a flanking movement, and we sprayed the, you know, woods just to drive 'em out, and have other squads and platoons come in from the sides. And I believe that was about the only time I really pulled the trigger on the M1. There are other times when it came close but . . . And so, combat from day to day, you know, was pretty much like this. And the worse part, of course, is the shelling from the German 88s. I recall the first time I ever heard those things come in, and that you hear this sort of instantaneous scream of the shells, high whistling scream, and then within a fraction of a second it explodes. And all your hope is that it doesn’t explode near you. But these are the famous German 88s that you probably heard of, heard about, and to be caught in an 88 barrage is a fearful, frightening thing. (24:00) I saw some pretty close hits of my company, and of course, the farther down you’re dug in the better you are. Of course, this won't protect you, you know, if you get a direct hit, because guys had been killed, a lot of---without any shrapnel wounds or anything like that, just got killed from the close concussion of the explosion of the 88 shell near their foxhole. So, this is the way it went for front line men from day to day. The few times you got pulled back into reserve--sometimes when you got pulled back into reserve, all you did was just go one hill back. Other times, if it was a battalion reserve, then you’re able to get a little farther back and get a shower set up by the engineers, and a change of clothes. By that time, we didn’t care what kind of clothes we got as long as they were clean. But we were a terrible-looking group of guys after we got out of that kind a rest stop, because nothing fit. And I’ve seen guys cut off their sleeves, you know, they have sleeves come out to here. But we welcomed those breaks. There we would get back our bedrolls, which is almost a luxury because in our bed rolls, you know, we had all our personal belongings, and able to write letters and so forth. And when you’re in the line, of course, you only have a strip pack. You just have the essentials, bare essentials, you know, helmet, rifle, ammo, first aid pack and so forth. (26:00) So to get called in the reserve where you can get to your bedroll is a real blessing. And we had a variety of things that happened just in a very short time that I was in the line. Because within two and a half weeks, I was taken out of action. INTERVIEWER: Can you describe that for us? IKARI: It was the 17th of July 1944, it’s late in the afternoon, and we had moved up this hillside, and I believe there was a house up on top of the hill. And I believe also in that particular incident we didn’t get any fire from the house, so it was not a matter of trying to clear the house. So we got up to the hilltop, and This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 27 of 28 �Lieutenant Brown, the platoon leader, said that we were gonna keep going. And I believe he asked my [indiscernible] squad leader to set up two guys for the point. Now, the point are two men: Number 1 and Number 2 in the point, and we move ahead. We move ahead. In this case it was moving down the hill, and I was Number 2 in the point. We got down from the top of the hill, probably no more than 40, 50 yards, and then there’s a burst of gunfire and I was hit. (28:00) The Number 1 man ran back up the hill, yelling that Ikari got hit. I felt like I had been whacked on both legs with a steel pipe or a baseball bat, and I couldn’t move. And of course, you know, I yell for the medics, and I was on an exposed slope. And I was in, I think, I was in shock from the pain. I realized . . . INTERVIEWER: Oh, I’m sorry. I’m going to pause right there. This transcript is hereby made available for research purposes only by Go For Broke National Education Center. Page 28 of 28 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, June 26, 1999 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview transcript [full interview], June 27, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ikari, Norman: narrator Kawata, Ian: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher US Army Center of Military History: sponsor Type The nature or genre of the resource Transcriptions Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Extent The size or duration of the resource. 28 pages, typescript Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-06-27 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0068_T_Ikari https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/9ecf010977c2051fbb66caeea815a3c3.xml 6a93a0e616cb8eeb82986f9968a761c9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Masana "Jack" Hirose oral history interview, October 11, 2003 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. 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Title A name given to the resource Masana "Jack" Hirose oral history interview, part 6 of 6, October 11, 2003 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2003OH0392_06_Hirose Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Description An account of the resource Jack Hirose describes his children and grandchildren, and about sharing his military experience with them. In addition, he talks about his brother's service with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Finally, he discuses the loyalty questionnaire and what advice he would have for the future generations. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hirose, Masana: narrator Wasserman, Steven: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Subject The topic of the resource Child rearing--moral education Military service World War II--Loyalty Questionnaire Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mv4 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 00:10:26 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-10-11 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. 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Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Masana "Jack" Hirose oral history interview, part 5 of 6, October 11, 2003 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2003OH0392_05_Hirose Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Description An account of the resource Mr. Jack Hirose continues to describe Tom Holland, how he left Manzanar, and how he got drafted into service. He then goes on to describe basic training at Camp Croft, working for the training aid department, being honorably discharged, as well as working as a civilian consultant for the Army. He describes how his first son was born and the tumultuous return to camp after an extended furlough. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hirose, Masana: narrator Wasserman, Steven: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Subject The topic of the resource World War II--American Concentration Camps--Manzanar World War II--Military service--Basic training Military service--Post-World War II service Child rearing Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mv4 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 00:28:48 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-10-11 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia basic training civilian consultant honorable discharge induction training aids https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/29dd2220ec252f509b11cd95547b5308.xml b0b4174f979103560fdbb6b22f7c096d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Masana "Jack" Hirose oral history interview, October 11, 2003 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. 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He recalls memories from going to school, working with Glenn Ford, his family's visit to Japan as a child, as well as his father's involvement in the Imperial Japanese Army. He also discusses the political "bashing" of Japan, as well as his family's move from Santa Monica to West Los Angeles. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hirose, Masana: narrator Wasserman, Steven: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Subject The topic of the resource Identity and values--Parents Japan Education Race--Discrimination Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mv4 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 00:26:53 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-10-11 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. 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Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Masana "Jack" Hirose oral history interview, part 2 of 6, October 11, 2003 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2003OH0392_02_Hirose Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Description An account of the resource In the second part of his interview, Mr. Jack Hirose describes more about playing football with Mickey Rooney. He also recalls memories of eating together with his family, and making projects for wood shop class in high school. In addition, he remembers fishing trips with his father, and memories about his mother. Finally, discusses growing up in Santa Monica and the difference of community in West Los Angeles. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hirose, Masana: narrator Wasserman, Steven: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Subject The topic of the resource Social activities--Sports Identity and values--Family Community activities Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mv4 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 00:29:19 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-10-11 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia childhood discrimination father food football mother https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/5e254fa9e5aadfd7302eb49521053998.xml bbdf29b63ec548abfa436c1745d7d4f4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Masana "Jack" Hirose oral history interview, October 11, 2003 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Indexing Metadata hidden field containing indexing metadata 0 --- --- --- 442nd Regimental Combat Team baseball cadre Denver immigration Nisei veteran Sacramento Yamanashi Prefecture --- --- --- 17 --- --- --- ::: 298 --- --- --- 442nd Regimental Combat Team apprenticeship artist discharged eldest son printing service record Washington DC --- --- --- 17 --- --- --- ::: 500 --- --- --- American citizen art Chinese food comedian friendship Harold Lloyd Japan Shriner --- --- --- 17 --- --- --- ::: 820 --- --- --- business chop suey friendship newspaper restaurant Santa Monica siblings --- --- --- 17 --- --- --- ::: 1063 --- --- --- actor football high school military academy movies musician Santa Monica Washington DC --- --- --- 17 --- --- --- Index indicates an oral history item with an XML file indexed in OHMS. Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Masana "Jack" Hirose oral history interview, part 1 of 6, October 11, 2003 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2003OH0392_01_Hirose Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Description An account of the resource In the first part of Mr. Jack Hirose's interview, he discusses his family history and personal background, describing his close relationship with his siblings. He talks about his father's restaurants, which were located in Downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica. He then recalls playing football in high school, and how he became close friends with Mickey Rooney. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hirose, Masana: narrator Wasserman, Steven: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Subject The topic of the resource Identity and values--Family Education--Public schools Social activities Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mv4 Extent The size or duration of the resource. 00:23:22 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-10-11 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia childhood Chinese food football friends high school Issei parents https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/11d808a1659a8c79ef6eb7f404ccc442.xml 81a2d221ae9ef0d63bf5be61529658ee Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fred Murakami oral history interview, June 27, 1999 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. URL http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/mp4/070-Murakami-Fred-5.m4v Date of Birth [YYYY-MM-DD] 1924 Feb 21 Location of Birth Berkeley, California Incarceration Facilities Tanforan Temporary Detention Facility Topaz Concentration Camp War or Conflict World War, 1939-1945 Branch of Service Army Entrance into Service Drafted or Volunteered Drafted Location of Basic Training Fort McClellan, Alabama Fort Snelling, Minnesota Unit of Service Military Intelligence Service (MIS) Campaigns/Battles Philippine Islands Post-war Occupation of Japan Tokyo Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) Index indicates an oral history item with an XML file indexed in OHMS. Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fred Murakami oral history interview, part 5 of 5, June 27, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Murakami, Fred: narrator Iwata, Joy: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0070_05_Murakami Description An account of the resource Murakami discusses his grandchildren and the Japanese American Community. Murakami is on the board of the Japanese American Citizen League for a year and the Japanese American Veteran Association for six years. Currently Murakami is involve with Japanese American National Memorial Foundation. Murakami discusses the Nisei identity. Subject The topic of the resource Identity and values--Family Community activities--Associations and organizations Military service--Veterans' organizations Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/m4v Extent The size or duration of the resource. 0:15:21 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 June 27 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia community organizations family hapa Japanese American Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) Japanese American Veterans Association (JAVA) Nisei veterans Sansei Yonsei https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/5818186087c4fe5c940ce1f3f9053918.xml f24f9485e86a4f1ed00dd786681583ea Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fred Murakami oral history interview, June 27, 1999 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. URL http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/mp4/070-Murakami-Fred-4.m4v Date of Birth [YYYY-MM-DD] 1924 Feb 21 Location of Birth Berkeley, California Incarceration Facilities Tanforan Temporary Detention Facility Topaz Concentration Camp War or Conflict World War, 1939-1945 Branch of Service Army Entrance into Service Drafted or Volunteered Drafted Location of Basic Training Fort McClellan, Alabama Fort Snelling, Minnesota Unit of Service Military Intelligence Service (MIS) Campaigns/Battles Philippine Islands Post-war Occupation of Japan Tokyo Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) Index indicates an oral history item with an XML file indexed in OHMS. Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fred Murakami oral history interview, part 4 of 5, June 27, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Murakami, Fred: narrator Iwata, Joy: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0070_04_Murakami Description An account of the resource Murakami discuesses being discharge and going to the University of Utah. First job as government agency and also helps his family restaurant. Later he goes to Japan and gets employment as a civil service employee. He recalls meeting his wife in Japan and learns how to dance. Murakami's discusses his career achievements. After retiring, Murakami joins the Fairfax County Public School System. He also volunteers as a mentor. Subject The topic of the resource Japanese Americans--Post-World War II Industry and employment Identity and values Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/m4v Extent The size or duration of the resource. 0:28:03 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 June 27 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia employment family Japan Japanese American Korea Nisei Nisei veterans post-war Sansei volunteering wedding https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/429e1776aed3ec7713ab298c8b864b01.xml bfa1623d9939cc40363fa5398b939ff6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fred Murakami oral history interview, June 27, 1999 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. URL http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/mp4/070-Murakami-Fred-3.m4v Date of Birth [YYYY-MM-DD] 1924 Feb 21 Location of Birth Berkeley, California Incarceration Facilities Tanforan Temporary Detention Facility Topaz Concentration Camp War or Conflict World War, 1939-1945 Branch of Service Army Entrance into Service Drafted or Volunteered Drafted Location of Basic Training Fort McClellan, Alabama Fort Snelling, Minnesota Unit of Service Military Intelligence Service (MIS) Campaigns/Battles Philippine Islands Post-war Occupation of Japan Tokyo Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) Index indicates an oral history item with an XML file indexed in OHMS. Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fred Murakami oral history interview, part 3 of 5, June 27, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Murakami, Fred: narrator Iwata, Joy: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0070_03_Murakami Description An account of the resource Murakami discusses basic training and Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS). He goes overseas and describes the environment and climate of Japan after the bombing. During occupation, Murakami's duties deal with translation, interpreting and interacting with Japanese Nationals. After discharge in Japan, he works as a civil service employee. Subject The topic of the resource World War II--Military service--Military Intelligence Service Allied Occupation of Japan World War II--Military service--Military Intelligence Service Japan--Post-World War II Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/m4v Extent The size or duration of the resource. 0:28:07 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 June 27 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia Allied Occupation of Japan democratize interpreter Japanese American Japanese language school Military Intelligence Service (MIS) Nisei translation war https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/0dd2b14b6222850a10e67e853815b6b1.xml c913001b5a0c5f9f5c0b3412cc9d9346 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fred Murakami oral history interview, June 27, 1999 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. URL http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/mp4/070-Murakami-Fred-2.m4v Date of Birth [YYYY-MM-DD] 1924 Feb 21 Location of Birth Berkeley, California Incarceration Facilities Tanforan Temporary Detention Facility Topaz Concentration Camp War or Conflict World War, 1939-1945 Branch of Service Army Entrance into Service Drafted or Volunteered Drafted Location of Basic Training Fort McClellan, Alabama Fort Snelling, Minnesota Unit of Service Military Intelligence Service (MIS) Campaigns/Battles Philippine Islands Post-war Occupation of Japan Tokyo Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) Index indicates an oral history item with an XML file indexed in OHMS. Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fred Murakami oral history interview, part 2 of 5, June 27, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Murakami, Fred: narrator Iwata, Joy: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0070_02_Murakami Description An account of the resource Murakami discusses going to Tanforan Temporary Detention Facility and the living conditions. He shares his thought on how the camp experience is different from Nisei to Issei. When Murakami goes to Rochester for seminary school, he contributes studying, playing and working help interrogate the Nisei with the school community. Murakami also reflects on why American Concentration Camps came about when the war happened. He gets inducted in to the army after graduation. Subject The topic of the resource World War II--American Concentration Camps--Topaz (Central Utah) World War II--Temporary Detention Facilities--Tanforan Identity and values Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/m4v Extent The size or duration of the resource. 0:27:07 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 June 27 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia Executive Order 9066 forced removal Fort McClellan Fort Snelling Issei Japanese American Military Intelligence Service (MIS) Nisei prejudice Racism Tanforan Temporary Detention Facility Topaz Concentration Camp war https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/2dcee6bd639c6bc383c90edd2d4bbdfa.xml 2451dabb9b8781a13756ec67c445b00d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, June 26, 1999 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. URL http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/mp4/068-Ikari-Norman-7.m4v Date of Birth [YYYY-MM-DD] 1919 Feb 17 Location of Birth Seattle, Washington War or Conflict World War, 1939-1945 Branch of Service Army Entrance into Service Drafted or Volunteered Drafted Location of Basic Training Camp Grant, Illinois Camp Shelby, Mississippi Unit of Service 442nd Regimental Combat Team Campaigns/Battles Rome-Arno Campaign Index indicates an oral history item with an XML file indexed in OHMS. Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, part 7 of 7, June 26, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ikari, Norman: narrator Kawata, Ian: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher US Army Center of Military History: sponsor Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0068_07_Ikari Description An account of the resource Ikari discusses the bonds of the Nisei veterans and how combat brought those bonds much closer. After this, he shows off some of his artifacts from the war, including an M1 rifle tool, a travel order and his discharge papers. Subject The topic of the resource Military service--Veteran history Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/m4v Extent The size or duration of the resource. 0:11:44 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 June 26 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia 100th Infantry Battalion 442nd Regimental Combat Team bond combat discharge german weapons legacy M1 Carbine Maryland Nazis Nisei soldiers private rifle souvenirs travel order https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/164d8f19ddb8e0bcbec663ee9c12da3e.xml 90dff643c6462ca365cd94bdb0e4b80a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, June 26, 1999 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. URL http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/mp4/068-Ikari-Norman-6.m4v Date of Birth [YYYY-MM-DD] 1919 Feb 17 Location of Birth Seattle, Washington War or Conflict World War, 1939-1945 Branch of Service Army Entrance into Service Drafted or Volunteered Drafted Location of Basic Training Camp Grant, Illinois Camp Shelby, Mississippi Unit of Service 442nd Regimental Combat Team Campaigns/Battles Rome-Arno Campaign Index indicates an oral history item with an XML file indexed in OHMS. Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, part 6 of 7, June 26, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ikari, Norman: narrator Kawata, Ian: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher US Army Center of Military History: sponsor Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0068_06_Ikari Description An account of the resource Before getting discharged from the Army, Ikari was asked to participate in an objective Army program, in which they wanted Nisei soldiers to dress in Japanese uniforms and act as one would in the Japanese Army in order to help train new recruits. Ikari and his group would end up denying the request and instead took over janitorial duties. He speaks about the humiliation of this request and the other Army assignments that were similar to this, such as the one on Cat Island. Next, he talks about his educational path, using the GI Bill, ending up with a P.h.D. from Georgetown University. After this, he speaks about his career path and settling down in Maryland, having children and grandchildren. He then shares a message for future generations. Subject The topic of the resource Military service--Veteran history Japanese Americans--Post-World War II Identity and values Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/m4v Extent The size or duration of the resource. 0:30:36 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 June 26 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia attributes Camp Ritchie Cat Island family fights Gaithersburg George Washington University Georgetown University GI Bill Hawaiian soldiers hospital humiliation janitor Japanese uniforms laboratory legacy Los Angeles marriage Maryland National Institute of Health P.h.D Richmond UCLA Veterans Administration Virginia Washington DC https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/9e8f1126a37fd7f2001a51878d3b61e7.xml 6cde7cec65a35e8c61cbc0e21919b6ab Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, June 26, 1999 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. URL http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/mp4/068-Ikari-Norman-5.m4v Date of Birth [YYYY-MM-DD] 1919 Feb 17 Location of Birth Seattle, Washington War or Conflict World War, 1939-1945 Branch of Service Army Entrance into Service Drafted or Volunteered Drafted Location of Basic Training Camp Grant, Illinois Camp Shelby, Mississippi Unit of Service 442nd Regimental Combat Team Campaigns/Battles Rome-Arno Campaign Index indicates an oral history item with an XML file indexed in OHMS. Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, part 5 of 7, June 26, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ikari, Norman: narrator Kawata, Ian: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher US Army Center of Military History: sponsor Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0068_05_Ikari Description An account of the resource Ikari talks more about being wounded during combat, getting shot in the legs and nearly losing consciousness before getting saved by the medics. He talks about his mentality when being shot in the line of fire and being taken to the aid station. Once there, he would be moved to a hospital, recovering from his wounds in a double cast. He talks about his brother visiting him, and then getting labeled as a permanent limited assignment (PLA), getting put into a medical assignment with the 15th Medical General Laboratory and then returning to the United States to work for an intelligence center, where they asked Nisei soldiers to dress up as Japanese soldiers and pretend to be the enemy. After this, he talks about the end of the war, getting discharged at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Subject The topic of the resource World War II--European Theater World War II--Medical care World War II--Military service--442nd Regimental Combat Team Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/m4v Extent The size or duration of the resource. 0:28:42 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 June 26 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia 15th Medical General Laboratory 522nd Field Artillery Battalion aid station atomic bomb bleeding out brother buddy system cast consciousness discharge fear Fort Bragg furlough healing hospital intelligence center Japanese uniforms Japanese weapons litter-bearer medic medical board mortars Naples North Carolina objective permanent limited assignment (PLA) points system Poston Concentration Camp replacement depot tactics veterinary section wounded in action (WIA) https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/063686776c39139bbe821e1ae7a3508c.xml 8e4d7b81349ba75a2897abbe473bcb50 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, June 26, 1999 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. URL http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/mp4/068-Ikari-Norman-4.m4v Date of Birth [YYYY-MM-DD] 1919 Feb 17 Location of Birth Seattle, Washington War or Conflict World War, 1939-1945 Branch of Service Army Entrance into Service Drafted or Volunteered Drafted Location of Basic Training Camp Grant, Illinois Camp Shelby, Mississippi Unit of Service 442nd Regimental Combat Team Campaigns/Battles Rome-Arno Campaign Index indicates an oral history item with an XML file indexed in OHMS. Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, part 4 of 7, June 26, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ikari, Norman: narrator Kawata, Ian: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher US Army Center of Military History: sponsor Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0068_04_Ikari Description An account of the resource Ikari continues talking about his basic training at Camp Shelby, joining E Company and preparing for their shipment overseas. They would ship out from Newport News aboard a liberty ship, gambling, playing cards and listening to music throughout the shipment. They would arrive in Naples, going through Bagnoli and to Civitavecchia where they would join up with the 100th Infantry. The first combat would be in Belvedere, getting shelled for the first time and fearing the German 88s. He talks about the process of getting to be in reserve, where they would be able to step away from the front line and get a break. After this, he talks about being wounded in action, getting hit in each leg. Subject The topic of the resource World War II--European Theater World War II--Military service--442nd Regimental Combat Team World War II--Military service--Travel Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/m4v Extent The size or duration of the resource. 0:28:43 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 June 26 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia 100th Infantry Battalion 2nd battalion 442nd Regimental Combat Team Anzio Bagnoli basic training Belvedere Camp Shelby Civitavecchia combat convoy E Company front line gambling German 88s German soldiers Invasion of Normandy liberty ship M1 Carbine music Naples Newport News point man preparation Presidential Unit Citation prisoner escort Prisoners of War (POWs) reserve Rome shelling special police (sp) wounded in action (WIA) https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/c889bdafc5215dd460c05a44deb6f7e6.xml 2c32f932d3a4fdd50f9ce5f40382d0ac Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, June 26, 1999 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. URL http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/mp4/068-Ikari-Norman-3.m4v Date of Birth [YYYY-MM-DD] 1919 Feb 17 Location of Birth Seattle, Washington War or Conflict World War, 1939-1945 Branch of Service Army Entrance into Service Drafted or Volunteered Drafted Location of Basic Training Camp Grant, Illinois Camp Shelby, Mississippi Unit of Service 442nd Regimental Combat Team Campaigns/Battles Rome-Arno Campaign Index indicates an oral history item with an XML file indexed in OHMS. Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, part 3 of 7, June 26, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ikari, Norman: narrator Kawata, Ian: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher US Army Center of Military History: sponsor Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0068_03_Ikari Description An account of the resource Ikari discusses where his family ended up after Executive Order 9066 was signed, sent to a mixture of Rohwer, Poston and Manzanar Concentration Camps. While visiting on leave, he would see the barbed wire in certain sections of the camp and the living conditions. Next, he talks about his basic training, first training as a medic and then being transferred to Camp Shelby, losing his rank and starting back at private. He talks about being in the South, and the friction between the Hawaiian and mainland soldiers, seeing many fights and arguments until the Hawaiian soldiers were taken to an American concentration camp to see circumstances the mainlanders were dealing with. Subject The topic of the resource Law and legislation--Executive Order 9066 Japanese Americans--World War II World War II--Military service--Basic training--Camp Shelby Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/m4v Extent The size or duration of the resource. 0:28:58 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 June 26 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia Arizona barbed wire Barracks bus Camp Shelby Colonel Pence Dan Inouye demotion discrimination Executive Order 9066 family Hattiesburg Hawaiian soldiers hospital infantry training Mainland soldiers maneuvers Manzanar Concentration Camp Medical Detachment mess hall Mississippi Pidgin English Poston Concentration Camp rank recruit detachment Rohwer Concentration Camp sake transfer https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/0892bd62f7a3a9e8180051460054b6bc.xml e6ab42178edce57f446592f551efde91 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, June 26, 1999 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. URL http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/mp4/068-Ikari-Norman-2.m4v Date of Birth [YYYY-MM-DD] 1919 Feb 17 Location of Birth Seattle, Washington War or Conflict World War, 1939-1945 Branch of Service Army Entrance into Service Drafted or Volunteered Drafted Location of Basic Training Camp Grant, Illinois Camp Shelby, Mississippi Unit of Service 442nd Regimental Combat Team Campaigns/Battles Rome-Arno Campaign Index indicates an oral history item with an XML file indexed in OHMS. Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, part 2 of 7, June 26, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ikari, Norman: narrator Kawata, Ian: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher US Army Center of Military History: sponsor Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0068_02_Ikari Description An account of the resource Ikari continues to talk about his work life before the war, getting his start in chick sexing and discussing the technique to learning whether a baby chick was a male or female at the hatchery. Next, he talks about being at Los Angeles City College when he first heard about the attacks on Pearl Harbor on the radio. He would see neighbors getting taken away by the FBI and around forty days after the bombings, he would be drafted into the Army. He talks about being inducted into the army, first going to Camp Grand to train at a medical replacement training center. He talks about the basic training, learning to be a medic and getting promoted all the way up to a T5 corporal in the process. He would then hear about the formation of the 442nd and decide that he wanted to volunteer for it. Subject The topic of the resource World War II--Pearl Harbor and aftermath World War II--Military service--Basic training Industry and employment Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/m4v Extent The size or duration of the resource. 0:28:07 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 June 26 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia 442nd Regimental Combat Team basic training Camp Grant chick sexing corporal discrimination draft board draft notice Drafted FBI Florida Ford Fort MacArthur hatchery Issei parents Los Angeles City College Major medical replacement training center medics Nisei soldiers Non-commissioned officer Pearl Harbor promotions Protestant radio technique volunteer https://ndajams.omeka.net/files/original/ea231baaed27c73771f4e152f6b3b26d.xml 4207ca714cf8ea8899bf332f565d15ff Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, June 26, 1999 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. URL http://www.goforbroke.org/oral_histories/mp4/068-Ikari-Norman-1.m4v Date of Birth [YYYY-MM-DD] 1919 Feb 17 Location of Birth Seattle, Washington War or Conflict World War, 1939-1945 Branch of Service Army Entrance into Service Drafted or Volunteered Drafted Location of Basic Training Camp Grant, Illinois Camp Shelby, Mississippi Unit of Service 442nd Regimental Combat Team Campaigns/Battles Rome-Arno Campaign Index indicates an oral history item with an XML file indexed in OHMS. Yes Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Norman Ikari oral history interview, part 1 of 7, June 26, 1999 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ikari, Norman: narrator Kawata, Ian: interviewer Go For Broke National Education Center: publisher US Army Center of Military History: sponsor Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Go For Broke National Education Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1999OH0068_01_Ikari Description An account of the resource Norman Ikari begins the interview talking about growing up in Seattle, Washington where he would fish often, and go to a baseball games with his father. Due to the Great Depression, his family would move down to Los Angeles, facing his first bout of discrimination, as they settles in Montebello. There, his father would open up another dry cleaning business while his mother remained a housewife, while Norman would attend high school and join the boy scouts. After this, he would begin working at the local fruit stand, as well as picking grapes and then getting involved in the chick sexing business. Subject The topic of the resource Industry and employment Social activities Race--Discrimination Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral Histories Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/m4v Extent The size or duration of the resource. 0:28:46 Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 June 26 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. Arlington, Virginia baseball Boy Scouts chick sexing discrimination dry cleaning family fishing friends fruit stand grapes Great Depression high school housewife Japan Japanese language school Los Angeles Montebello neighborhood population poultry Seattle Washington Yosemite National Park