<Begin Segment 24>

MA: So you went to Camp Shelby then. Was that 1944 when you went to basic training?

GM: Yeah, early '44.

MA: How were you feeling when you kind of left camp for basic training in Mississippi?

GM: Oh, I was happy. [Laughs] It was, it was like going on a vacation, yeah. Getting out of one place and going into something new, I was really gung-ho for this. Of course, now, when I got into Shelby, I kind of regretted in time because it wasn't that easy.

MA: Were there already a bunch of Nisei already at Camp Shelby when you arrived?

GM: Oh, yeah. See, the original bunch of 442nd had gone overseas, but they left enough cadres and trainers and everything behind at Camp Shelby to take the new group in.

MA: So you were training to be replacements for the people already in Europe?

GM: Well, we're, they knew where we were going, that's one thing. We're training 442nd, yeah, so these guys were training us for that.

MA: What are your thoughts on -- I mean, you were in Mississippi as a Japanese American. What were your thoughts, I guess, witnessing the kind of, you know, racial dynamics down in the South?

GM: Well, in the camp or outside of camp?

MA: I guess both.

GM: Well, in the camp, there were some pretty bad remarks made at us in camp. And one of 'em was they brought in some soldiers from Attu islands in Alaska, and they bivouacked, or they had the barracks across the street from us. And they didn't know too much about the 442nd or us, and they were taunting us.

MA: Were these, sorry, were these white soldiers?

GM: All white soldiers, yeah. And they were taunting us across the street. This is funny, because we didn't like it. And finally, they decided that... some of the guys decided that we'll get everybody in the last barrack there across the street with their guns and bayonets. And they got into this barrack and they said, "Don't hurt anybody, but we'll make a banzai charge with bayonets at them." And what happened was they yelled like mad and made the charge, "Yaaaaah," you know, like what they call a typical Japanese soldier -- [laughs] -- and chased them out of there, and they took off. And it was only, the only worst part of this whole thing was at the time that it happened, the general of the fort was coming by on his jeep, and ordered, they quarantined both sides. They quarantined us in our barracks for two days, two or three days, and quarantined the other side, and moved them to the other end of the camp and says, and gave 'em orders, "Don't fool around with these guys," of course, they found out by then anyway. But we had a big laugh out of that. But those are the funny things that happened. It's nothing to get mad about, it's just that we used our bluff and see what kind of a brave soldiers they were. And they just took off when they saw everybody coming at them with bayonets. You don't want to see anybody coming at you with a big old bayonet. I sure, I know what I would do, I'd be running. But that was one incident inside camp.

We had our personal fights among ourselves, mostly between the Hawaiians and the mainland people because of the... if I was a Hawaiian talking pidgin, and the guy that you're talking to looks at you as if you don't understand, there'd be a little conflict there, and they think that they're making fun of them. And so there was that conflict, but not too much because they got pretty used to that, and we got used to their speech, and they talked better English later and we talked better pidgin. Usually mostly pidgin. And then when we went out of the camp, this is where we saw, I saw, walking down the streets of Hattiesburg, I was surprised to see a white man could walk down the streets of Hattiesburg, and all the black people move aside for him. Clear case of prejudice, discrimination. Anyway, that was the way of life for them over there. But the strangest part was when we'd walk down the street, the Japanese walked down the street, the blacks moved aside for us, and that was hard to understand. Because here it was, the Japanese soldiers that were being prejudiced against, and here was blacks that were in the same position, and they were moving aside for us, like we were white.

MA: What was your, kind of, reaction when they moved aside? I mean, did you ever kind of talk to them about that?

GM: No. We, in my opinion, we just took it as, "Hey, these guys are moving aside for us, let 'em move aside." Yeah. But you, it wasn't there that I realized the seriousness of that condition, it's something that, thinking about it, that is, that wasn't right.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.