Densho Digital Archive - Tokio Hirotaka - Toshio Ito - Joe Matsuzawa Interview (denshovh-htokio

<Begin Segment 38>

AI: Because we left you in 1943, and you were just entering the service.

JM: Oh.

AI: So maybe we'll kinda, 'cause what we did was we kinda went through a little bit about where everybody was in the '40s, and then what happened after the war, you came back and stayed here. Now for you, maybe you could say a little bit about your service, and then how you ended up coming back?

JM: When Mr. Matsuoka was recruiting, why, he also recruited my family. And they also ended up in Chinook, Montana. And they stayed there for, I imagine a couple of years, because they were back in this area by '46. But...

AI: But you were still in the service?

JM: Yeah, I was, gotten in the service, and I went to Europe, all that. But Tok was tellin' about his family in Montana. He's kinda modest but, Mr. Matsuoka, at one time he ended up being the Montana State Farmer of the Month. That was a real credit to Tom and his, Mrs. Matsuoka. But it went from nothing to something like that, is real commendable. But, my family came back in I think in '46, and they went to a place in Woodinville. They stayed there for a while. But in the meantime, why, I'd come back from Europe. Well, when I got in the service, I took basic and, you know, training.

AI: Where was that, where was your training?

JM: This was in Camp Shelby, Mississippi. That was another place I... it's about like Pinedale only it's worse, because all the training we did was in the muggy, humid swamps. And there were chiggers there, and mosquito, and copperhead snakes, and we'd have to crawl around there. But I think physically it was tougher than combat. But anyway we, I was in Company E that time, and incidentally, that's same company as Daniel Inouye. I met him when, well, he was a young, young boy then, he was. The last time that he was here, 'bout two months ago -- Company E got together, and he came, and I got to talking to him and I asked him how old he was, when he was there. And he says, "Oh, I was about nineteen years old." 'Cause he hadn't hardly shaved yet, then. Well, we talked to him just like any other pal, fellow. But, we went overseas together, and... well, I managed to survive, seen some pretty rough moments, but I managed to survive, and we came back, I came back in '46, 1946.