Densho Digital Archive - George Yamada Interview (denshovh-ygeorge

<Begin Segment 28>

MA: So you, then after you, after the war ended, you said that you went from Fort Snelling to Presidio?

GY: Presidio.

MA: In California?

GY: Yeah, thirty days. I was there for thirty days, and I didn't do anything. Since I was already on separation mode, my first sergeant and I went fishing in Monterey Bay, and we caught a bunch of cod, codfish, huge, big codfish, and we bartered with a Chinese restaurant, "You could keep the fish for a free dinner," and we got a free dinner out of it. They got the fish. So, yeah, in Monterey it was a beautiful area. They had the Seventeen Mile Drive, I understand it's closed now, but we used to rent a motor scooter. And being in uniform, went around Monterey and even found out where John Wayne lived in that area.

MA: Your childhood hero.

GY: Yeah, yeah. And he had his boat in the -- I never saw his boat, but he had a big yacht down there. But it was interesting. While in Minneapolis, the guy that I was inducted with, Tom Haji, anyway, Tom and I were inducted together, we shook each other's hand upon our passing, and getting sworn into the U.S. military. When I went up to pick up my date at this hostel, the gal that opened the door was crying. Well, anyway, when I entered, everybody was crying, actual tears. So I asked this girl, she's from Seattle and I asked her, "What's this, why is everybody crying?" And one of the girls, her name is... Hiro Haji. And oh yeah, I know her, I knew her in Spokane. But anyway, she'd received a telegram her brother was killed in action. And boy, that hit me like a brick. Tom and I were in the military, you know, we were good friends. After evacuation he came into Spokane, he was going to college, I knew his folks real well, knew his sister, out of two girls, I knew one of 'em anyway, and that's what the crying session was about.

MA: So your friend Tom Haji had been killed?

GY: Yeah, and boy, I, I just wanted to go out and just, just cry. But anyway, we went out, just went to a park, my date and I, we just sat on the grass and just, you might say I moped around, just sat there. I was really stunned. I'm still stunned by his loss. Sure, I lost a lot of good friends, killed in action, but somehow or another Tom and I were very, very close. But I found it very -- not strange, but to find out about his death through his sister who received the telegram when I happened to be at this hostel at the same time that she received the telegram. Tom came to see me before he went overseas.

MA: He visited you in Minneapolis?

GY: Yeah, Minneapolis, yeah. Came into my barracks, and a matter of fact, another time, a telegram came in, I didn't give it a thought. A guy named Ben Saiki, he's a good friend of mine, he lives in, south of Seattle right now. But when Ben came in, I says, "Ben, there's a telegram for you." So I had posted that telegram on the bulletin board, and he got the telegram and it was, it was about his brother Toll, T-O-double L, Toll that was killed in action in Europe. And that was another good friend of mine; we attended Washington State together, and he volunteered for 442. And he was also killed, and we went to his memorial service, funeral service in Chicago, Ben and I. But those were one of the few instances where he, our friends were killed in action. There were much more, of course, but just those two that were kind of close.