<Begin Segment 52>

TI: Okay, so why don't you now describe what happened to your father after he left Tule Lake?

TA: Well, of course, Tamura was telling me about this train, how they were taken by the bus, loaded onto the train, the train ride, and how in the conversation, some of the conversation was, like, my father says, "Oh, now we're, we're going to Santa Fe, that's a good camp." I mean, there's, all the, the Isseis that were interned are there, from the, from the Bay Area. And he says that... and then Tachibana, who was there before and released on parole, he says, "Yeah, Santa Fe is a good place," and they, they're under the Geneva Convention and they abide by that, and they're treated good, and it'll be a nice place. It was a nice place. And Kenji Wada, he gave me details on what, when they got there, how they were processed. Strip-searched, looked at and questioned, and making out additional, filling out forms and things like that. And questioning them about the organization, which they seemed to already have. They had a whole roster of, of the members. And they knew that what each -- seemed to, he says, "It appeared that they knew what each and every one was doing." And they already had pre-, pre-prepared files with the Santa Fe numbers, internment numbers, and he was telling me that the numbers were all in sequence and that Tachibana had an odd number. They asked him and they said, oh, they used the old Santa Fe number, and it was an early number so his number was low, and their numbers were all in sequence.

TI: Going back to what Wada-san said, I mean, was it almost like, did he think that there might have been an informant within the group that, that gave the, the authorities information? I mean, someone had to give somebody all this information.

TA: Somebody did, yes. Somebody did. In fact, the, Tsuha gave to the administrative, the administrative police, a copy of the, the minutes of the inauguration with names. People were, Wada said he was highly pissed about that. And then they, they just had a feeling that, they knew all about, all about him, and yeah, he said probably some inu that, somebody within the organization that had enough information. And they, he suspected Tsuha, because Tsuha gave the, the inauguration ceremony of the program and names, and who was gonna speak and all, who was in certain positions. So he thought that he might have. And he said it later confirmed it, because when they went to, to Fort Stanton, the segregation, he isolated himself and never talked. In fact, at the end, he didn't go to Japan. So there was only sixteen that actually went to Japan. Because he, at Terminal Island, changed his mind and remained.

TI: Well, you mentioned Fort Stanton. How did they get from -- why did they go from Santa Fe to Fort Stanton?

TA: All right, what happened is that there was a riot. What it is is that first, there was a Higashi. Higashi was a troublemaker. And he was the president of the second group, because what they had is they, they've already named the predecessor: "In the event of an emergency, these are the people that are going to take our place," and Higashi had, was the member. And he was, he was Wakayama's right-hand man. And Wakayama selected him to be the president. But Higashi was a kind of an arrogant man, and he disobeyed a lot of the rules, and he wanted to continue to wear the Hokoku Dan emblems and things like that, that the, the OIC in Santa Fe told them not to. Says, "That's prohibited," but yet he, he denied the regulation, made this display, went to the hospital, then wanted the, went to non-visitor and demanded that he can see the patient, and then he was eventually thrown out of there. But anyhow, he got arrested, and then the, there was some trouble, and they figured that Tachibana was, was the troublemaker, and so they pulled him in. So now, well, Higashi was already pulled in, but now they pulled in Tachibana and the, the Tule Lake bunch sort of went over there to see what was going on. So as a result, that caused the riot, and a number of people got beat up and things, but it was a very short thing, but it was riot. And based on that, they started to conduct an investigation as to who instigated the riot, who was behind it, and Wada and also... Wada in particular, he felt that Wakayama squealed on him. And the reason for it is that Wakayama was not picked up. He was considered to be the leader and all that, but he, he was relocated, he was transferred to Crystal City of all places, one of the best places that you could go to. And so they didn't, they was wondering why Wakayama wasn't among the people, among the seventeen. And why did they get these names? Who knew that, like, Akashi and Matsuda and Shishido and all the... who'd know it? Because they were not actively participating. They more or less stayed in the background. And so they suspected Wakayama.

TI: So how many men were, were sort of pinpointed, or, or picked in terms of going to Fort Stanton?

TA: There were seventeen, and one of 'em was not even a Hoshidan member. I mean, he was just a cook, he was a gambler and a troublemaker, so the Santa Fe, the old Santa Fe people complained and told them to get, get him out of there. So the, they complied and threw him in the bunch.

<End Segment 52> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.