<Begin Segment 13>

TI: Now, when the earlier, sort of those earlier projects, when they were being talked about, how did you feel about that? Were you sort of apprehensive about possibly being sent into Japanese territory?

HH: Oh, yes, because by that time, we were sent down to Ceylon, which is now Sri Lanka, and we were waiting for, had continued training, same kind of training that we received at Catalina Island, which is to get in on a rubber raft for bombing, new type of bomb made out of clay, molded so that you could detonate it on any kind of shape, just put the clay-like thing and then put the activator, and use it as a bomb. It was a new kind of secret type of bomb that they used in Italy.

TI: So it sounds almost like plastic explosives, type of thing?

HH: Yes.

TI: So you were being trained to go behind lines, set explosives, and sort of disrupt the Japanese...

HH: Yes. That was some of the things, like sabotage type work. But the main purpose was not to do that, just because we had to go into areas like Java and eventually Borneo and those areas, and just pick up intelligence like letters, Japanese letters that soldiers might have. So just to sneak in behind the lines and pick up any kind of information, intelligence, and then leave on a submarine. See, that was what we were being trained by getting on a rubber raft and then eventually picked up by the submarine, and when we go over there, then we had to wait for the submarine to pick us up. This is the type of work that we were being trained.

TI: So the primary purpose was to really pick up surveillance. I mean, as much information as you could get behind enemy lines was your primary, but they also gave you this explosives training just in case...

HH: That was one of the reasons we were going to Catalina Island. And so a side kind of interesting thing about it is that we would have to be using these explosives deal and a rubber raft, so we would, I mean, I was able to take a little piece of this clay-like dynamite, and take a rubber raft, and as part of my training, I would go and detonate it and pick up the fish and everything that the rest of the crew wanted for sashimi, the raw fish. [Laughs] I was able to just pick up these stunned fish which were very abundant over there, because that was more of a fishing area, Catalina Island. And then also we were able to get lobsters and things, lobsters.

TI: So you'd use these explosives to stun the fish --

HH: This was part of my training. [Laughs]

TI: And then when the fish floated to the top, you would grab them and bring them back.

HH: Yes. And then I'll paddle back, and I was supposed to crawl through the cactus areas, and like at nighttime, I was supposed to crawl onto shore, and that was part of the training.

TI: All while you were carrying the fish, too?

HH: Yes, well, I had a little bag that I could... but I wasn't being watched or anything like that, because it's not that big an area. But we were in kind of a fenced-off area anyway. Avalon is a town on Catalina Island, and they had a dance hall and everything, and church and everything else, but we were off-limits except on Sunday if you wanted to go, but I never did go into, because you had to go over the hill, and we were near Avalon. It was like a youth camp, so it was an isolated area.

TI: That's a good story. [Laughs]

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.