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TI: And so in addition to you, how many other Niseis were assigned to the 26th Division?

HN: Oh, at that time, there were about five or six. It was rather interesting interrogating.

TI: Yeah, so tell me what your role was. When you say you were an interrogator...

HN: Well, up in the front, we were interrogating and reading the captured documents about the interrogation of the prisoners who were, mostly they were wounded and they were all on the stretcher. Not to... we never caught a healthy... they were all emaciated and they were wounded, they were very sickly. So our job was to get the name, rank and serial numbers and everything else, the unit, battle of order, find out their commanding officer, this and this. Well, first, they were, naturally in their condition, they're not in a mood to talk, so they don't talk too much. But we give 'em cigarette, it's a natural thing to do because they don't have much amenities, so give 'em cigarette, or they get fed and they take their [inaudible]. Suddenly, they start talking, suddenly they're talking, interesting. And then they're grateful, express gratitude for taking care of them, feeding them. Yeah. In fact, even tears rolling down their eyes, gratitude of the treatment. One time one of the prisoners said, "Tsuuyaku-san," tsuuyaku is interpreter -- Mr. Tsuuyaku-san, hanashi ga arimasu. I said, "Okay." And he tells me that he can't understand the British officers' Nihongo. Because British has an accent. You gotta take, you got to get used to it, see. At first it's hard to understand. Even English, there's accent. But in Japanese, it makes it much more... but I got used to it, working with a British officer. Said, "Ano, hakujin no Nihongo wakarimasen." So Major Tar asked me, "What did he say?" I had to make up a story, you know, something. So that was the one humorous...

TI: So the British Japanese officer, he couldn't understand the Japanese...

HN: The prisoner couldn't understand. I understand their Japanese, yeah, I do. But British have an accent, so it's a little hard to, would think that native Japanese would have --

TI: But were the British officers, were they able to understand the Japanese prisoners?

HN: Oh, yeah.

TI: Okay.

HN: Oh, yeah, they could understand them, yeah.

TI: It was just the Japanese couldn't understand the --

HN: Of course not. Because they got the accent. British got an accent, yeah.

TI: Okay. So were there any, during this time period, what were some memorable things that happened during this time period when you were...

HN: Overseas?

TI: Overseas with the British 26th Division.

HN: Well, just being overseas was, you know, this is hindsight, but it was thinking about my parents and my... that was very difficult, that was very hard. I thought I was constantly worried about what's going to happen to my parents, where am I gonna... am I going to see them again? I wonder where they're going to be after the war, because no one knew what the situation was. So that was constantly on my mind. But my mind was, when the war ended, I was so happy, elated, I was so happy and elated to go home. "Now, I can go home and get together with my parents." End of the war, war is over, peace is... "Okay, great, I'm going home." So looking forward to going home. And the adjutant said, "Hiro, we want you to reenlist." Came back from Singapore back to New Delhi, midnight, come back, you're going to go home, got the points to go home, get discharged. Said, "Hiro, we want to enlist. We'll give you a commission." Said, "What? I'm going home. I'm going home to be a civilian." Next morning, same thing. "Hiro, we want you to enlist. We'll give you a commission." No, no, I'm going home. I was so happy. "Hiro, if you don't take it, we will give it to Arai." I said, "I don't care what you do, I'm going home." I was so happy, though, going home. Because my first concern was my parents, really. That's all that mattered. The army wanted to... after the war, the army wanted the Nisei to stay for obvious reasons.

TI: To help during the occupation?

HN: Occupation, yeah, occupation. Yeah, occupation, I mean. Military government. A lot of Nisei did that. But after that, I went back to school on the GI Bill which I'm very, very grateful...

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.