Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Toshikazu "Tosh" Okamoto Interview II
Narrator: Toshikazu "Tosh" Okamoto
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: June 11, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-otoshikazu-02-0014

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TI: Well, during this time, this is after the war, what was the 442, what were your duties there?

TO: Guard duty. We were guarding these German prisoners that was kind of like a joke. There was a compound -- K Company was assigned to be guarding a quartermaster depot and an ordinance depot where they kept all the trucks and stuff, near an area called Tumbelo. And one night I was assigned to guard duty, go up in the towers for this German prisoner compound. And all the old-timers said, "Well, you just take your sleeping bag and go to sleep up there," because these Germans, during the daytime, they're driving their trucks, delivering supplies all over the area with no American GIs with them. And they'd come to our barracks or our tents -- not barracks, tents, six-man tents. And they'd clean the tents for us, they'd clean our shoes, polish our shoes, clean our rifles. And the guys had no, felt there's no reason why we should even be guarding those guys, you know. So anyway, I took my sleeping bag and the Sergeant of the Guard caught me sleeping and so he turned me in. And my sergeant really got upset. "God," he said, "everybody else does it, why are you picking on this guy?" "Well, I felt this guy's a replacement, he needs something." [Laughs] So anyway, I had to go see the first sergeant and the captain, and they were both very grim about all that stuff, but nothing was ever done. And the sergeant happened to live here in Seattle, the guy that turned me in. And the guy that was my sergeant happened to be Kunio Sasaki, my platoon sergeant, that he grew up in the Kent valley, and I knew him quite well. But he was really, really upset with us, the guy that turned me in. [Laughs]

TI: So after the war, when you come back to Seattle, do you guys ever talk about it, or about the sleeping bag incident?

TO: Once in a while.

TI: Okay.

TO: But that was a common thing, everybody did it. But I guess because I was a rookie or whatever, new guy, the sergeants felt that I shouldn't be doing that anyway. And then, from there, my platoon was assigned to go to Pisa to guard a laundry. There was a big laundry facility, Italian laundry facility that the army had taken over. And so we were supposed to be guarding that laundry, which was kind of a joke, too, but it was good duty for us. We were in the town of Pisa and we can see, walking distance to Pisa tower and all that stuff. While we were Tumbelo, that was kind of away from Leghorn. But Pisa, we were right, right in the middle of town.

TI: So you were, so while you were in the service, you got this... oh, what's the right word? Kind of this great visit to Europe.

TO: Oh, wonderful, wonderful. My sergeant, Mukai, I heard he passed away after, not too long ago. But anyway, he was going to college and he, for some reason, he had a real interest in the history of Italy. So he knew a lot about it, his time, his schedule was the same as mine. So we'd go to Florence and he'd point out this and taught me a lot about -- you know, he did some studying, too, of course. I didn't know anything about any of that stuff. And so it was a wonderful, wonderful time for me. Really, it was a really a wonderful time, just like a vacation.

TI: Wow, for a kid who grew up in these, sort of, woods of Renton to be in some of these major, sort of art and cultural centers of Europe is pretty amazing.

TO: Oh, it was amazing. Believe me, it was really a wonderful time. Especially now that I look back on it, more so. At that time it was, "Well, that's great," you know, but now that I look back on it, what a wonderful experience that was for me.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.