<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So why don't you describe? So you said you were with a group that went to Klamath Falls. Why don't you describe what you found and where you went in Klamath Falls. Describe that.

JT: Well, when we got on the truck at Tule Lake at Block 42, the, it was a Dodge cargo truck, I think, there was more than one truck because we had, I think all together, we had about thirty people. And part of it went, half of it went one way and half went the other direction, so there was probably at least fifteen people, and I don't think they could have got fifteen people on one truck. So I think there was at least two trucks. And we had no guard. We had the truck driver, and I don't remember a soldier sitting in the front with a truck driver. We got up to (Klamath Falls), and the truck driver backed the truck up, right up against the door. We couldn't, the only way he could go is to get off the back end of the truck and go in the jail.

TI: So this is at Klamath Falls.

JT: This is Klamath Falls. And so we got off the truck and we walked into the building. At that time, we knew it was someplace they're gonna leave us, but we didn't know it was a jail yet until we got inside. Once we got inside, well, we saw it was a jail, and we could see bars and stuff like that. I don't remember being processed. I don't know... evidently they asked us our name, and we didn't sign in. Just one person did all the writing, and we told them our name, and we had to spell it out, we spelled it out for him so he could write it.

TI: Going back, so you gave your name there. Back when the soldiers sort of separated the group, did they identify you by name? Did they, like, know which ones had not signed the questionnaire at that point?

JT: No, I don't think the soldiers knew who signed and who didn't sign. All he went by was the fact that this man, or this person was young enough to be drafted. I don't know how they separated the person that signed, you know, before. Maybe they weren't in the mess hall, I don't know, that evening.

TI: Because at some point they had to, because you mentioned I think earlier that maybe some men did actually sign, they might have signed yes or no, but they actually went through and signed it. So at some point they separated that, those men from the ones who did not sign it?

JT: Well, all I know is at one point the people that did sign, I know one family that did sign. They had a son and daughter, mother and father was very fluent in English. They were looked at as inu, if you know was inu is, the stoolpigeon. And maybe for that reason, they weren't in the mess hall.

TI: Okay, so why don't we go back. So you're now in the jail, they're processing you, you give your name, so what happens next?

JT: Well, we was in the jail for, I think it was six or seven days. We can look out the window, we can see people walking in the street, and we talk to these guys. They look up and talk back, and I don't think they recognized we were Japanese. They wouldn't, you know, we'd say hello and, "What are you doing down there? Come on up and visit us," and stuff like that.

BT: Would you describe what the jail looked like?

JT: This is one room, it's got double deck beds, we're a bunch of young guys in the same room with nothing to do. And we got fed twice a day, breakfast and dinner, no lunch. I learned how to play bridge. And then there was one person in our, in our group, it probably affected him more than anybody else. He started to withdraw from the crowd, and eventually ended up with a nervous breakdown. I understand he's all right today, but he did have a nervous breakdown. Maybe the stress was too much for him.

BT: Did anybody come up there and explain to you why you were there?

JT: Well, we weren't charged with anything, so there was nobody there that could explain to us why we're here, other than the fact we knew that our group didn't sign these particular papers. And if, like I say, if we were charged with something and we had a trial and we were found guilty, that's fine. Punish us. But there's no charges, no hearing, no trial, no anything. It's just moving us from one place to another place to another place. And I don't think we ever took this very seriously. This is something that's just going on.

TI: So when, in that room with the other men, did you ever discuss about what might happen next? Did you guys ever think about that and discuss what was happening and what might happen next?

JT: No, we never gave it a thought. Like I said, we just thought... we were right and they were wrong, "they" meaning the government was wrong. They couldn't do this to us. And no matter where it went, we would win. So we really never give that serious thought what might happen to us if we kept on going. But I don't think, at least I didn't think that the charge, there was no charge other than the fact that they says, "You guys didn't sign."

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.