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AI: Well, now in the, as the, got to the later 1930s, 1938, 1939, I was wondering, were you and your family members very much aware of the war in Europe or in Asia? Some, as I understand, some families would be reading Japanese newspapers or possibly hear Japanese radio about news of the Japanese armies in China or Manchuria. Did you hear much of that news?

PB: Well, Dad took the Japanese newspaper, but we didn't really talk much about war or anything like that. We just went along and worked. At that, prior to the war, I was working up at Nikko Low. And of course, I was aware of it more because of the Japanese people that I came in contact with, like the kaisha people. There was Yusen-kaisha, and the Yokohama Specie Bank, and the Mitsubishi and all of those had representatives here in Seattle. And one by one, they were returning to Japan, because the war situation. But being young, I just never gave a real thought about it, too much about it. But, 'course, when we heard, as it got worse and worse, then my mother said, "Well, you better come home," because in case war started, we wanted to be together. We didn't want to be all separated all over the place.

AI: So you had been living in Seattle for a while?

PB: Yes.

AI: And working at the Nikko Low restaurant?

PB: I was living in the Panama Hotel. [Laughs]

AI: And so when your mother said that, and she mentioned the possibility of war with Japan, what went through your head?

PB: I don't think I took war that seriously. I thought about it, we were home, and my brother and our neighbor -- Ed Primley was his name -- they were very close, and they were talking about joining the national guard, and that was when the draft was coming up, and my brother was saying his number was coming up, so he might as well join the national guard. But I checked later, and they said that I was wrong, but I was sure that Ed and my brother Hank both wanted to go into the national guard, and they would not take my brother. They took Ed, because I know Ed went into the national guard, then my brother said, "Well, I might as well join the army then," so he volunteered for the army. So he went into the army.

AI: So, so Hank was in the U.S. army before...

PB: Before war started.

AI: ...before the U.S. joined the war.

PB: He was stationed at Fort Lewis, and he began to have difficulty -- well, he had trouble with migraine headaches. He got terrible migraine headaches, and he was, he said he had to train the misfits, and he said, "If you don't think that was a pain," because everybody had left feet. They couldn't keep in step. But later on, he was assigned as a cook, 'cause he likes to cook. But finally, his migraine got so bad that he had to be hospitalized, and eventually got discharged because of his migraine.

AI: So was he discharged, then, before December 7, 1941? Had he come back home by then?

PB: Yes, I think he was home already.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.