<Begin Segment 15>

MN: While you were waiting for the court martial, what did you do in the stockade?

TN: Stockade?

MN: You were waiting for the court martial.

TN: Oh, yeah, stockade, we fixed the ditch and pick up the rock and all kinds of stuff, that's all. But we behaved very good, friends with the guards, you know.

MN: When did you have your court martial? What day?

TN: Court martial...

PM: April 1944.

TN: Yeah, '44.

MN: Were you tried as a group, or individual?

TN: [Laughs] What?

MN: Is it a group trial or individual trial?

TN: Individual, yes.

MN: What were you charged and convicted of?

TN: Disobeying.

MN: Did each soldier get the same sentence? Did each soldier get the same sentence? Would you like to answer that, Paul?

PM: Mr. Kataoka, he was sentenced to thirty years. You were sentenced to five years. Why do you think that they gave a different sentence to the different men?

TN: I think Taniguchi, Kataoka, then me. They're trying to scare the group, so they gave a heavy one, Taniguchi and Kataoka. That's what I thought.

MN: Did you have an interpreter for your court martial?

TN: Yes, yes. But I never used, I never trusted.

MN: Was it a Korean interpreter?

TN: No. I think Japanese.

MN: MIS, maybe?

TN: But I don't use. Well, he was sitting there, but I don't bother.

MN: And where were you sentenced to? Where were you supposed to do your prison time? When you were sentenced, when the judge sentenced you, you're gonna do prison time. Where are you gonna do your sentencing, your prison time for your punishment? Where were you sent to?

TN: Then after that, went to Fort Leavenworth.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.