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Transcription below by: Greg W (2010)
Edited transcription by: Joseph Werhan (intern)
Please report errors to: info@tellingstories.org

Road to the 442

What feelings did you have while getting your diploma while being interned?

Really it didn't mean much. We were in camp. We were people that were—you just couldn't get out. I can still remember how much it meant for us to sign up just to go out topping beets. We got on and they had regular trains set up for us to go. The beet compan—C&H—had their men there to take us up to Montana. They would furnish our food and all that. We were just like the braceros of today. I thin that with bracero—they made a little improvement—but at one time they just brought them in and they were laborers. Just the idea of getting out of camp was a real good experience. It felt so good. But then when we got there the farmer was about ten miles away from a large city and we couldn't go to the city—he would take us in. We went one night to a theatre in Conrad, Minnesota. They ushered us up to the second floor. When it was over they turned on the lights and we realized all of us beet workers were all on the second floor. None of us sat downstairs

What show did you see?

I don't even remember, I really don't. Somebody wanted to sit in the main lobby—on the main floor and they ushered us all up. We didn't realize that until after the movie was over. A few of them that worked for some other farmers there were able to go. They walked through the city and they tried to go to some of the restaurants and they said, "No, we don't serve you people here." They had signs like that, but that's the way things were. Things are different now.

You wrote a lot of articles about life in camp to send out, what sort of news did you get from outside the camp?

We didn't get much of the outside paper. We didn't know. All you'd have is a lot of rumors. Some of the people who were more pro-Japanese probably within that the Japanese were winning. It was just a day to day affair. Then they came in for a recruitment of the 442. Actually before, they wanted people who couldn't speak Japanese. They were going to train you to speak Japanese. They were signing people up for that. When you signed up for that—usually the ones that volunteered at the beginning—they snuck them out at night because their parents. The parents were really panned a little bit for letting their son go in and become interpreters and interrogators. Then they had the drawing for the 4-4-2.

I didn't join the 4-4-2 then. I found out later actually among the Japanese-Americans they had really three choices: either you join the 442, you join the MIS, or you object to going into service at all. But when you had the draft, everybody got drafted—whether you were Japanese or not—whether you were in camp or out. I got my draft notice when I was in Chicago. Then I decided I wanted to go into 442. Maybe because I was going to school—I was going DePaul University—they figured I could learn the language so they took me into MIS.

Exactly when is this?

After I went out from camp when I was up in Minidioka?

Do you know what year it was?

Probably about '42, '44 rather because in '44 I got my notice and then I thought—well you have to go in for physical and all that. Then they will ask you where you want to go and I said I want to go join the 442. Meanwhile, the 442 was having all the casualties. Anyway, they had me already assigned to go to Fort Snelling, to the Japanese language school in Fort Snelling.

They chose you to do that?

Yes.

How did they chose you? What about you made them want you?

I guess they had checked my background and they found that I was going to school. I was going to DePaul then. They figured maybe I could learn, and they knew my background. My folks were all Japanese.

So you go to Fort Snelling, how did they train you?

They had— I would say—one of the best schools over there. You had not only your basic Japanese—military Japanese, military psychology and geography—because they were planning the invasion of Japan. The main thing is the Japanese psychology of the troops so that when you interrogate them you know what you should ask. Actually it turned out that the troops were just as human. I can't believe all the atrocities that the Japanese army did because they were of course—when I entered the war was over—so their backs were broken already. I could not believe that they were so bad. We were told their regimentation was much stricter than what we had in the U.S. Army.

How much time did you spend training?

I think about a year.

Wow, seems like a long time.

Yes, it is. They cut it short because they were planning the invasion of Japan and they had us go over seas.