<Begin Segment 4>

ME: So you got on the ship, and you were heading to the mainland. What was the, what was the boat ride like?

BY: Oh, for one thing, we were lucky we got the beautiful ship, the Lurline. And the ride was pretty smooth, although we were kinda cramped up in the ship. Going to the chow line was kinda, kinda, crowded. But all in all, I think it was pretty good.

ME: Did you get seasick?

BY: A little bit. Some of my friends were real bad. Yeah, they got sick as heck.

ME: So you hit the mainland in San Francisco?

BY: San Francisco, yeah.

ME: And then, eventually you made it to Shelby?

BY: Yeah, they put us in trains. We passed through the Midwest.

ME: Any stops along the way?

BY: Yeah. I remember stopping at Arkansas, Little Rock, I think. And the people were curious. They all came out, and they were friendly. Most of them were friendly. But it was our first chance to look at someone else besides our own troops.

ME: First time you saw mainlanders, right?

BY: Yeah. Yeah, right.

ME: What did they think of you?

BY: Well they, they're curious. They think of us as either prisoners or, or unwanted group of people -- gonna be shipped out someplace.

ME: When you arrived at Shelby, what were your first impressions?

BY: Well, I, I didn't expect too much because I heard lotta stories about Mississippi. But all in all, it was pretty good. They put us in barracks, and they divided all of us into, I don't know how they chose us, but in different groups to go to different outfit, like artillery, engineers, or I Company, K Company.

ME: And where were you chosen to go?

BY: I first went to the field artillery. Then later on, I don't know how, how, but we were transferred to the line company, I Company.

ME: Now, what did you think of the mainland boys that were there at Shelby?

BY: The kotonks? Well, we, we asked another team. We didn't expect much from them. But we became friendly. Very, very quickly.

ME: Was it rough at the beginning, though?

BY: Yeah. They were really nice to us. I don't know whether they, they knew that, they knew that we weren't gonna be there or what, but the cadres were mostly mainland people. The sergeants and people that were gonna train us. And they were really, really nice people. They became friend --

ME: Who were some of the mainland boys that you became friends with early on?

BY: Well, I landed in a hut. And my sergeant was George Suzuki, I think he's from California. And another person by the name of Kim Uchida. He's from Seattle. And, we became pretty good friends and then he introduced us to Shiro Kashino. And then they tried to help us, especially -- we were from Hawaii. We don't know the mainland too well. So when furlough time came around, for, time to go to furlough --

ME: Yeah.

BY: They try to encourage us to go to certain places to meet their girlfriends or their wives. And, I, that's how I got to meet Lou and some others people from Seattle.

ME: Did they ever take you to one of the internment camps?

BY: No, I didn't go. I had all the chance, though, but I didn't go. I met lot of them at the, at the dances they have on the posts --

ME: Oh.

BY: With, mainland girls.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.