<Begin Segment 30>

LK: But Lieutenant Kubota knew that Chaplain Yamada, who was the chaplain of the unit, had discussed with this MP officer and he knew that he had asked that they not be charged. And so he related that to Mr. Kubota and so he felt that he, they should have never gone through with the trial like that. So I think this was why Mr. Kubota has pursued this whole thing. And he wrote an affidavit and had an affidavit from several other people who were there, and he also had an affidavit from one of the men who had been also put in the stockade.

And then they found this guy after fifty years. They find this fellow who was the cause of the fight and they, he, he didn't want to be involved at all. He said that he, it's fifty years later, and he doesn't want to be living those memories again and he didn't want to be writing an affidavit, but after four hours of talking with him, they finally broke him down and he said that he would cooperate to get this case going. So they felt that that was key evidence. So they submitted that, with among other evidence, and they submitted it to the army and it took about two or three months for them to respond. And when they came back with it, after they, they had a review of it, he said that the review board had approved his request for, to rescind some of the charges. And so they gave him back his sergeant, staff sergeant ranking, and a portion of the, his pay that was withheld. Although my husband thinks that he didn't ever get any pay while he was in the stockades, they said that they were going to reimburse him $28 a month. [Laughs] And so that was what he was awarded, but they said they couldn't do anything about the court-martial.

So Lieutenant Kubota still felt that they had to make one more effort to remove that court-martial from his record. And my husband just felt like well, you know, he got his staff sergeant back, although it doesn't mean that much. He felt, well, it can be on his marker on his grave, you know. He felt that that was enough. But Lieutenant Kubota just pursued it and they said that, "You know, if we could only find that officer, you know, that was hit." But he was from Puerto Rico, by now he must be in his eighties and chances of finding him was like a needle in haystack. And some of the other people who were involved with this court-martial order, like the officer who had signed it, well they, they tried to find him and he was in ill health after... we got, they got letters back different from the address that they had and, I mean, sent back, no longer here or this and that. He said he was in bad health and he couldn't remember that certain case. And then another colonel that was involved with Shiro at the time, he said that he can't remember because -- he remembers Shiro, but he doesn't remember the incident because of his... he's starting to get Alzheimer or something so anyhow, it was, it's pretty discouraging and who could blame anybody, it's fifty years later, you know.

AI: That's right.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.