<Begin Segment 16>

TI: So when you... I'm just trying to get a sense of the feeling, because you were in a prisoner of war camp from 19-, early 1942?

BB: I got captured April the 8th, April 9, 1942.

TI: So '42, '43...

BB: Up until...

TI: ...'44, '45.

BB: I was there 'til October of, no, September of '45.

TI: Yeah, so almost, almost three-and-a-half years you were...

BB: Three years and eight months.

BB: Yeah. So when you finally found out that you were to be released, I mean, what was that like?

BB: Captain put us on this train, we went to Nagasaki, I got aboard the, the Chenango was a aircraft carrier. It had been standard oil tanker, a 29,000 ton, they converted it to a, to a medium-sized aircraft carrier. It was big. Well, when the kamikazes, it got hit three or four times by kamikazes, so the flight deck, the elevator from the holding deck for the hangar was bombed, was, a plane went right through the elevator. And one of 'em had hit the, the bridge, part of the bridge, and one of 'em had hit the tail of the darn thing. So when we got on board, they were still repairing it in Nagasaki, they were still welding, and they were just, they had finally refitted the hangar elevator, it worked finally. And so when I got on board, we were supposed to have cots and sleep on the hangar deck. Well, I got right next to the, to the bridge, to the island there, and I was laying on my cot and some fellow fall back, went by me and he says, "Hey, let me look at you." He looked at me and he says, "You're Braye, you're Earl Braye." I said, "Yes, I am." "You remember me?" I said, looked at him, "Vaguely." He says, "You and I worked at the bank together." We did; I ran the elevator in the Salinas Bank. So he was the chief. We went into the chief's quarters and I was fed like a king. I could have anything I wanted.

And this lasted a couple days because we went from, we boarded the Chenango in Nagasaki, went to Okinawa, and at Okinawa, why, the bay was too shallow for an aircraft carrier, so we had to disembark down a rope ladder -- I'd never been on a rope ladder in my life -- down that and then jumped onto an LCM below, and the navy guy told you when to jump. If you missed, we had twenty-foot waves and you'd be crushed against the ship. So anyway, I jumped and landed in the thing with a bunch of other fellows, and the LCM would only go so far and we had to wade the rest of the way, so you ended up wading about fifty yards onto the shore. And then they picked us up in trucks and took us to a center, an airfield center in Okinawa. There we were assigned to a plane...

TI: Before we go there, I'm trying to think. So in these days that you're free, what was the thing that stood out the most in terms of the thing that was just most pleasurable or satisfying about being free, and can you remember any thing, incident, person, food item that you just really think, "Wow, I'm free," and it hits you?

BB: "Finally we're going to get to do what we want, and to get a full meal."

TI: So it was around just getting a full...

BB: I think that's the first thing everybody thought, we'll finally get a regular meal instead of the stuff that they dropped to us.

TI: And when you were, especially in the chief's quarter where you could have anything you want, what did you want, what did you eat?

BB: I had a steak and some potatoes, and then they made any pudding I wanted. So I said, I said, "Oh, gonna have anything I want, I'd like to have some Jell-O." So I had a Jell-O pudding.

TI: That's good. Okay, so continue, I was just, I was curious. So you went... what was that? So you're now at another camp, or where are you now? Another base?

BB: I slept in the chief's quarters.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.