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TI: Going back, earlier you talked about how the civilian guards were going through and ransacking, did anything ever come of that? I mean, it sounds like the riot, the disturbance was more focused on this Korean incident. Was that, were they --

MT: Well, for individuals, but they, then they started going after the guards.

TI: Okay.

MT: The MPs came in, and then the MPs came in when the riot started, and a friend of mine was right at the fence, right where they were. Again, another funny incident he told me about, he said that they blew the whistle for assembly and the guys came running out in their T-shirts and shorts. They said, "Get your clothes on." They ran in, they put their clothes on came and the sergeant told 'em, they came back out, he says, "Where's your weapon?" Ran back in, got their weapon. [Laughs] 'Cause they could see that the riot's going on, and then they came in, and I was at that main thoroughfare, which was very big, next to the, one side was the stables and one side was the barracks, and they came in. And they came in and in front was a man with a BAR, Browning automatic rifle, a large automatic rifle, carrying that, and suddenly people started giggling and laughing. He had his fly wide open. He had forgotten to button his fly and he's walkin' down there. Everybody start laughing, he couldn't figure out what it was until finally somebody told him. [Laughs]

TI: But still, it was kind of like, I mean, a BAR is a very dangerous, lethal weapon.

MT: Oh yeah. We had no weapons.

TI: And people were, would still laugh at him even though he carried this weapon?

MT: Because he had his fly wide open. And it wasn't, it wasn't just open, it was wide open, so his shorts were showing. [Laughs] So that's why everybody started laughing. And I know that they came in with a tank. Maybe it was a weapons carrier, but they had an armored like that vehicle coming in and so forth, and so everybody calmed down and parted ways and let them come in. Now, afterwards I was in the, near the Santa Anita, the grandstand 'cause I heard some commotion going on, and what happened is I heard this MP yelling at, which I later found out was a guard, to get out of there. He was in the boys' room, men's room.

TI: So this is an MP yelling at civilian guards?

MT: Yelling at the civilian guard to get out of there. So he comes out, and told him to get moving and the guy didn't move fast enough. He had his bayonet; he put his bayonet on his buttocks and tore his pants. The guy then moved. He was kind of... and what people suspected was he was in the bathroom flushing the money away. Now it may not be, he maybe had to go to the bathroom 'cause he was so scared.

TI: You mean essentially getting rid of the evidence? I mean, that it's things that he had probably stolen and he was...

MT: Yeah. Oh yeah. That's what the rumor was. That, again, was the rumor.

TI: And that the MP guard was upset about that and that's why he was so harsh.

MT: Trying to get him out, get him out of there. Told him to get 'em all out of there. And so anyway, that wasn't, that was part of the incident that I witnessed.

TI: And what were the repercussions of this? I mean, did life at Santa Anita change after this?

MT: Well, there was, yeah, life did change, a bit. Recognition, people that were, that needed special care and so forth, and food, I think the food changed a little bit, got a little bit better. And I heard nothing more about inus or spies around. There were no more rumors about that. There was tension, of course, at that time, but people kind of calmed down and life became as it was. That's all I remember.

TI: But did the administration tighten security on people or make it harder? It sounds like they, they listened to the grievances of, of the...

MT: I was not involved with any of those things or even heard about that thing, and I don't remember, you know, they censored all our papers. It was the Santa Anita Pacemaker it was called, and I have a copy of that, one copy, one edition of that, but that's what it was and it was all censored, so it was, they didn't put anything in there that would be adverse to the administration. They changed the camp director. They removed him.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.