<Begin Segment 18>

SS: Harvey, how did you spend the war? Where were you, where were you stationed?

HW: After graduating from MIS school in Savage, Minnesota, then I was shipped to General MacArthur's headquarters in Brisbane, Australia, along with thirty-nine others. It was called the Allied Translator and Interpreter (Section), and it was a (section) that was working for -- I should say, we had, we had Chinese. We had Australians, New Zealanders, Greeks -- it was a conglomerate group there at MacArthur's headquarters, which was designated Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA).

SS: What would your assignment be?

HW: Well, my assignment started out there. When I first got there I went into general translation, and then pretty soon they grabbed me and because I had gotten a hold of some technical documents, and -- by mistake -- and they found out that I could do the technical work. So they put me into a Technical and Tactical Air Translation Team, which was being headed by George Goda at the time. And then, soon after that they kicked him upstairs so then they made me the captain of the Technical and Tactical Air Translation Team. And we also took care of not only air matters, but the things having to do with tanks and other mechanical devices that the Japanese army was using.

SS: How did you feel about the work you were doing?

HW: Well, it was very interesting because it was getting close to what I liked -- air. And besides that, I had a small team of people and, we took care of those documents.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1996 Densho. All Rights Reserved.