Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Hiro Nishimura Interview
Narrator: Hiro Nishimura
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: April 28, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-nhiro-01-0018

<Begin Segment 18>

TI: So tell me about some of the people who ran the camp. Like John Aiso...

HN: Yeah, he was the director.

TI: What was he like?

HN: Super, amazing, that's the word. My first reaction was, "This guy is super." He was really brilliant. I think he amazed everybody. He even amazed the War Department because he was a civilian, right? You know that. Because during the graduation, the War Department's chief of intelligence, MIS, Military Intelligence Service, came to the graduation. You know the story.

TI: No, tell me the story.

HN: General Strong, I think that was his name, he came to the, from the War Department, the chief of the MIS. He saw Aiso addressing -- because he was the superintendent, director of the... addressing the graduates, all the soldiers. There were hakujin students, too. And the story goes, after the ceremony, he told Colonel Rasmussen, superintendent of the school, said, "What's a civilian ordering the soldiers?" You don't have civilians ordering the soldiers. Well, army didn't give a commission to the Nisei. That's why he was a civilian.

TI: And so after that, the --

HN: He became a major, he got a commission.

TI: Because the general was so impressed with him and felt that they needed to...

HN: Yeah, he was very, very impressionable. Everybody, I'm sure of that. I was impressed, yes, very, very highly.

TI: Any other people that you were impressed with who ran the school?

HN: Well, there was one... no, not necessarily. Aiso was the whole show. Of course, the commander, superintendent of the school was Danish, of Danish ancestry.

TI: And that was Rasmussen?

HN: Rasmussen, yeah. Kai Rasmussen. But other than that...

TI: Okay. Well, maybe not so much people but any other strong memories or memorable events from this period at Camp Savage?

HN: Yeah, there was one Nisei woman there, one Nisei woman, Mitzi Matsui, Tak Matsui's -- I don't know if you know her -- Tak Matsui. But Mitzi was a secretary to an adjutant. Oh, I had two Hawaii, I had two Hawaii sergeants in my barrack. I can't forget. In my barrack, I was the only Northwestern... I was the only Northwestern, okay, and the two barrack sergeants were two Hawaiians from the 100th Infantry. The rest were all Californian, I was the only Seattle, only one from the Northwest. Very unusual experience. [Laughs]

TI: Was there something you remembered?

HN: Humorous, yeah.

TI: What would that be?

HN: Humorous. Well, since I went there at midnight, and the next morning I went to the mess hall to have my breakfast, and there was a guy across from me, he cinched the butter. That's an army term. When you say "cinch," there was a plate of food, or bread or butter. If you take the last one, it's empty, right? When you do that, you cinched... the word that you took the last, you should go up to the mess sergeant and get another, fill it up and bring it back. And this guy cinched the butter, and I said, "Hey," I said, "you cinched the butter." He said, "What?" I said, "You cinched the butter." I didn't know he was a recruit. "Hey, what do you mean, Kotonk?" You know, that's the first time I heard the word Kotonk. "Hey, you wanna get fresh, Kotonk, you wanna come out there and fight." Fight? What do I have to fight about? Well, anyway, I got up and got my butter. [Laughs] Then I went to canteen, I can't ever forget it. I was having a Coke with Poison Kato, I don't know if you know the family. He was in my... I was in basic training with him, so I knew him. Then this guy comes up to me and says, "Hey, Kotonk, you want to come out and fight?" What's there to fight about? This is all new experience for me. I don't know about Hawaiian soldiers. I heard about it later. "You want to come out and fight?" Well, anyway, so I ignored it. The next thing, my Hawaiian barrack sergeant, Miyazaki from 100th Infantry... this guy that's been talking to me is a recruit, see. Naturally he doesn't know about the military rules about cinching butter. He said, "Hiro, you know what? They were gonna gang up and beat you up. 'There's a fresh Kotonk from Seattle, gonna beat him up.'" All the Hawaiians got together. They liked to gamble, so they all go to one barrack and they're gambling. And so word got out that there's a fresh Kotonk Nishimura, fresh Kotonk. So Miyazaki, being a buck sergeant, 100th Infantry, told the guy, "You leave Nishimura alone. Leave Nishimura alone. He's in my barrack." If he didn't do that, they would have beaten me up. Stories that happened, you heard lot of stories about Hawaiians ganging up. So that's a humorous story. [Laughs] That's a humorous story.

TI: So it sounds like the sergeant saved you from getting into a fight.

HN: Yeah, that's right, that's right. I would have got beat up.

TI: That's a good story.

HN: But that's the only...

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.