<Begin Segment 22>

TI: Okay, so Virgil, we're gonna start the third segment. And where we ended was just when you got new orders. So here you were a flight instructor training cadets, and now you got this order transferring you as a private to an infantry unit. So let's, let's pick it up there.

VW: Okay. Well, I know that the contractor was, had a friend, Senator Brooks from Illinois. And he said Senator Brooks owes him a little bit, a favor. And so he asked Senator Brooks to find out what was going on and keep me in the Air Corps. And Senator Brooks came back, in about a week or two, and saying that there was nothing he could do about it. And I believe that Senator Brooks was correct when he said that, because they weren't gonna budge up there in the, in D.C. And so then ten days, ten days, I was cleaning hoods up above a hot stove in Fort Custer in, near Battle Creek, Michigan. And for two days I cleaned hoods up above stoves, and that was just KP duty that they just gave me to do. And then the corporal or somebody, somebody found out I was a pilot, I suppose my record showed it. And so the corporal said I'm not gonna, evidently, he didn't send me to KP duty anymore, and so he wanted to talk about flying. And so we spent the, we stayed in the barracks and talked about flying for a long time. And then I got ordered to go to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. And we didn't know anything about it. Knew nothing about what Regimental Combat Team even meant. I wasn't sure. And in fact, the corporal thought maybe it might be flying in combat. He didn't know.

So I reported and headed for Mississippi from Michigan. And it was in Camp Shelby, Mississippi, is where I had to go. And I got on the bus after the train ride down south. I got on the bus to go to the camp from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and I noticed that the, all the black people were sitting in the back, and I wondered about that. But I sat down and we, and then when we got to the camp, I stepped off the bus, and I looked, looked around, and I saw GIs around there, but they're all Asian. And I thought, "This is strange." And I didn't know that there (were) any Japanese Americans in Camp Shelby, Mississippi. I had heard something about them being in McCoy... in Wisconsin.

TI: Probably Minneapolis. There's an MIS...

VW: Well, there was also a training camp in...

TI: Wisconsin, that's right.

VW: Yeah, in Wisconsin. But I never knew anything about it being in Mississippi. But that's where the big area was, of the Japanese Americans. And I'm sure they looked at me and wondered what I was doing there, and I'm in uniform, private, walking toward the Company F. And I walked in the office and the sergeant, First Sergeant was in there. And he looked up at me and he says, "Yes sir, what can I do for you?" And I said, "Well, I'm supposed to report here." And he, he thought I was in the wrong outfit. And after a period of time, I don't know whether he talked a lot about it to the officer in charge, Lieutenant Aiken, or whether he didn't, but evidently he decided that yes, I guess I am in the right outfit. So he gave me whatever materials I'm supposed to have and told me what barracks to go to. So I went there and put my stuff in the footlocker, and I had a bed, a cot, a cot, and so I didn't know anything. I felt so strange because I was with people that I'd never been with before.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.