<Begin Segment 22>

TI: And so after, after you finished training at Camp Savage, then what happened?

TK: Oh, then I got sent to Camp... oh, the secret, we called in Signal Corps Intelligence.

TI: So this is Vint, the Vint Hill? That place?

TK: Warrenton, Virginia, is where we were sent.

TI: Okay.

TK: See, at Warrenton, Virginia, was the camp battalion, other Caucasian soldiers, then we were just one small unit there, fifty of us.

TI: Okay, so I've done quite a bit of reading about the Military Intelligence Service.

TK: Good, uh-huh.

TI: And your unit usually isn't mentioned. I mean, it's...

TK: Like I mentioned to you, we were secret first, and you couldn't even talk to your wife or girlfriend or any friends, of what you were doing if you went to town. Then we were classified as secret-secret, 'cause I guess they realized the importance of our unit. Then we became secret-secret-secret, and they just wiped us off the books.

TI: So in other words, you were so secret that no one was even supposed to know that you existed.

TK: No, we didn't exist at all. [Laughs]

TI: Because I know the MIS, it took years before people learned about that, because the whole unit was secret.

TK: It was.

TI: But your unit inside the MIS was a couple levels even more secret than that.

TK: It was, yeah.

TI: So explain why. What did you guys do?

TK: Well, we were -- when I say "we," I think it was the WACs. They were intercepting these messages. See, it's all in romaji, so A-E-I-O-U, well, the WACs could take that down. Those messages were like telegrams, like this size, and we would get that every day, maybe fifty a day, and we would translate those.

TI: Back up a little bit. The WACs, how did they get this information?

TK: That's... I don't know how they got that. We often wondered, (were) there microphones under Japan or how? I don't know. We don't know.

TI: But you would, but you would somehow get these short messages...

TK: Yeah, you know (like) Western Union telegrams? Same kind.

TI: And this would all be romaji.

TK: Romaji, mixed up, yeah. All mixed up.

TI: And then from that, they would come to your group and you would then...

TK: Yeah. Ours was only one group, I think. The Navy must have had theirs, the Navy Intelligence, Marine Corps Intelligence, they must have been getting the same. But we were getting, I don't know how they selected what we were getting.

TI: And generally who was being recorded? Who were these messages from, what kind of communication was it?

TK: It was hard to say, because some were from business to business, some were private, whatever Japan was sending out. But those that were useful to the military, us, like I said, they found out we were, they were shipping uranium from Japan. And I don't know how --

TI: Shipping, I'm sorry, uranium to Japan? Not from...

TK: From, I think, to or from, I don't know. But these ships were carrying uranium, so from us, (the message) would to go Washington, D.C. and go to (our) submarines, "sink that ship" or something.

TI: Okay, let me make sure I understand. So it sounds like, so in some of the communication that you were translating, there was information about uranium shipments.

TK: There was a code word in there, I guess, that triggered it.

TI: And after you guys sort of translated this, this information was then sent to Washington, which then took this information and sent it to this submarine fleet.

TK: Yes. It was coordinated with all the other messages (going) into Washington, D.C., and it formed a picture, I guess. They could tell that a ship was coming or going to and from Japan, or to the Philippines if needed.

TI: That was, it was carrying uranium?

TK: Or something, yeah.

TI: And then you said it was communicated to the submarines? Because what would the submarines do?

TK: They would shoot 'em down, I mean, torpedo them.

TI: So because of your communication, they were able to target the ship...

TK: They would target, yeah.

TI: ...the ship that had uranium, so that could be the...

TK: You see, the admiral, Yamaguchi, he was shot down near the Philippines? Well, that was done by the, another group. Somebody broke another Yamaguchi code, I guess they called it. That wasn't us.

TI: But kind of a similar type of unit.

TK: Similar, yeah.

TI: But going back, this one is pretty significant. Because uranium would be used to make an atomic bomb.

TK: Well, apparently in the translations that we did, there must have been some keyword in there that said, must have been uranium. Because this general came to talk to our, major, and told us about it, which was later.

TI: Because during this time period, both Japan and Germany had their own atomic bomb programs.

TK: The Nazis had their...

TI: In addition to the Manhattan Project.

TK: That's right, it's about the same time. Nazi Germany and Japan were about the same level of improvements, I guess.

TI: And so why this would be significant, and maybe top-top secret was that if you stopped the uranium supply to Japan...

TK: That's right.

TI: ...that would damage their program.

TK: Uh-huh, yeah.

TI: Well, that makes sense, why it would be so secret. They didn't want anyone to know that. And so when you're in this unit, so you're top-top-top secret, you're in Virginia. When you're off-duty, what kind of things did you and the others do?

TK: Well, we had friends there, girlfriends. [Laughs] Because a lot of Nisei girls that moved to Washington, D.C. for their work, so there were a lot of friends there. In fact, Niseis were already in that area, too. We'd go to USOs and movies.

TI: And so when they would ask you, and see you, says, "So, Tom, what are you doing here?" What would you tell them?

TK: We had to be careful what we said.

TI: And you just said, "Well, work for the..."

TK: We were stationed at Warrenton, Virginia. [Laughs]

TI: And about how long were you stationed there?

TK: I think that was about two years. I think it was two years.

TI: And besides the, finding about the uranium, any more interesting stories that you can remember?

TK: One message we remember was... it wasn't me that translated, but the, one person that was sending it to this other person said, "Say that again?" So they sent a second message. So we knew what they were saying. But that was funny. Even then, they didn't know what they were sending to each other.

TI: So, I'm not... so they wanted the message sent again.

TK: "Repeat, please repeat," it said.

TI: And what was the message?

TK: I don't remember. I didn't take that message.

TI: But you would see those kind of things.

TK: See, there was fifty of us, so we had all kinds of... you know the Hawaiian, the GIs? They knew more Japanese than we did over here. I guess they went more school or something.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.