<Begin Segment 21>

MN: Well, after your trial, where did they take you? Did they take you --

HY: County jail, back to where we were.

MN: And how long were you in county jail before they moved you to prison?

HY: I don't remember. Maybe a month or two.

MN: At that time, did they tell you that you were going to the Santa Catalina prison camp in Tucson?

HY: No, no. I didn't know where we were gonna be sent to.

MN: Can you share with us how you were sent to Tucson? Were you handcuffed, were you on a truck?

HY: We were on the leg, leg iron and handcuffed with the partner, you know. Then, with the coach with the bars, there were one soldier in the front and one soldier in the back with a rifle.

MN: This is on a train?

HY: Yeah, this is on the train, yeah. One in front and one in back.

MN: How long did it take to get from Denver to Tucson?

HY: Gee, I don't know. I don't remember now, maybe ten, twelve hours, maybe. Slow, slow-moving. We went through all, what do you call it, through El Paso, Texas, came around.

MN: And all that time you were handcuffed and also leg irons?

HY: Yeah.

MN: With the same person? Was it Hiro? Was it Hiro that you were handcuffed to? Hiro Yamauchi?

HY: Yamauchi, yeah, Hiro.

MN: You were handcuffed to him?

HY: Yeah. Hiro Yamauchi.

MN: So they never took it off. So what happens if you had to go to the bathroom?

HY: Oh, we, we go together, yeah. He's sleeping, I had to wake him up if I wanted to go, you know. If he wants to go, he had to wake me up.

MN: So when did you get to Tucson?

HY: It was late at, late at night. It was dark already, it was about eight, nine o'clock. Then we got off the train, they put us on a truck with the canvas, you know, canvas truck, closed, enclosed, so we didn't know where it was going. Then the bumpy road up the mountains, you know, twenty miles up or whatever. Finally reached there, got us out, took the leg irons and handcuff, debrief, get debriefed, give us our bunk. It was late at night, yeah.

MN: You know, going up that, up to Santa Catalina, it's a pretty steep drive up there. Were you scared?

HY: [Shakes head] You can't see outside anyway, you know. They got it all closed up, canvas. We don't know where we're going, the thing was just rocking, you know, because road wasn't finished yet, and it was breaking rocks and smoothing it out and all that.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.