<Begin Segment 14>

TI: So what are some of the things you did to make the, your barracks more livable?

JT: Well, Block 42 is situated in such a way that on the west side, there was a big firebreak. There was no, no more building, we was on the west side. And the closest thing on the west side was the barbed wire fence and the guard towers. And there was a pile of lumber over there, lumberyard. And during the nighttime, you couldn't imagine all the traffic going over there, and they're bringing lumber back. I've seen it in the movies where the actor spots the spotlight coming and they all drop down to the ground. Well, over there, like I say, we had guard towers and they had these lights going back and forth. And every time the lights would come their direction, they'd stop and they'd lay on the ground. And just when the light passed, they'd get up and they were walking. And most people had lumber on... and they're using this lumber to build a porch or something that they want to put their, what they own, so they have more room inside the apartment and they wanted to make a little place to store something. And some of 'em was ingenious enough that they tied a long rope, and they tied the lumber with this long rope, and they'd walk. And then after they got so far, they'd pull the rope. But other people just put it on their shoulder and they carried it out. But we eventually built our porch, too. So after we got our porch built, it was nighttime, we'd just sit there and we could see lumber going by like you can't believe. And I'm sure the lumber pile that they had over there just diminished to nothing.

BT: Would you explain why it is that people were sneaking around stealing the lumber?

JT: Well, we couldn't get lumber if we asked for it. The only way to get lumber is to steal it. If we asked, put a petition in to get lumber, we would have never got it.

TI: Do you have a sense that it was kind of, almost accepted by the administration? Because they must have noticed that the lumber pile was going down. That the guards were there, they probably, even though people were going to the ground, they probably knew. If you knew all these people were coming, that they saw the same thing.

JT: Yeah. The lumber pile was on the opposite side of the guard tower. So you're inside, so the only thing that keeps you from going a little further to get on the highway is to get outside the camp. But I'm sure that they knew that all we wanted to do was not to escape, but to get lumber.

TI: That's a good story.

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