<Begin Segment 17>

MN: Okay, Nomiyama-san, one more time. You're talking about, right now, Fort McClellan stockade, where the black prisoners were going to help you?

TN: Yes.

MN: Oh, I thought he said Fort McClellan, Alabama.

PM: No, when we had our break, I asked Dad about where the name DB came from. Was it the Fort McClellan Disciplinary Barracks or the Fort Leavenworth. But when we broke off, we were definitely talking about Fort Leavenworth, and there were no black prisoners that I think protected each other in Fort McClellan was my understanding. I think that was all Leavenworth. I think that's what he was talking about in his memoirs, so maybe you better be careful asking --

TN: McClellan and Leavenworth was...

MN: Different.

TN: Way different.

MN: So let me ask you, let me ask... Fort McClellan, were there black soldiers?

TN: Yeah.

MN: Were the black soldiers gonna help you? No, right?

TN: Black and white and Japanese in McClellan.

MN: Were you friendly?

TN: I feel that something going racially, you know, struggle. But we all depend on the black people.

MN: At Fort McClellan, black soldiers. Not prisoners, black soldiers.

TN: Black soldier, yeah.

MN: I'm going to go to Leavenworth, okay? We're at Leavenworth now, okay?

TN: Leavenworth.

MN: Let's talk about Leavenworth, okay. So Leavenworth also had black prisoners.

TN: No, it's all mingled. I think it was... but it seemed like they spent, I'm not sure...

MN: So you had no trouble at Leavenworth?

TN: Leavenworth, no.

MN: You said you were, when you had to do rock quarry duty at Leavenworth?

TN: Leavenworth?

MN: Yeah, you had to do rock quarry, you know, breaking the rock?

TN: Yes.

MN: Yes. Who was your partner? Your partner? You were handcuffed to another Nisei soldier.

TN: You mean work? Yes, I went to, one day, with rock quarry with Sakuma. He's thirty years' sentence, I have a five years'. They put five and thirty years, and sent to mountain, rock busting duty. But I'm feeling, they were trying to see how we'd behave.

MN: And one prisoner tried to escape?

TN: No.

MN: No.

TN: But one time, road is so icy, slippery in the hill, and start spinning. And we were hanging on the truck, and a lot of prisoner trying to talk about the escape in the mountain. But the jeep, all over with the machine gun, you know, good thing they don't run, I thought.

MN: You had five year sentence.

TN: Five.

MN: How many years were you at Leavenworth?

TN: Maybe one year, little over.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.