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TI: So you were, you were, like, around sixteen years old?

JM: Yeah, I was seventeen.

TI: Seventeen years old. So you're, and that was a typical age in terms of starting?

JM: Yeah.

TI: So tell me first about your initial training. So you're now in, I guess you're in the navy, but, but sort of targeted for the air force?

JM: Well, that was the navy air force I was in

TI: Okay, the navy air force. So tell me about your training. What happened?

JM: Number one, I had problem of the language, the way they speak, like from up, well on the Kyushu island I would understand a lot of Japanese, but if they come from different places the dialogue and everything was a little bit different. And, but there was one fellow that we go together and he would always help me out. "He's saying this. He's saying that." So I would do whatever he tells me. And it took me around four months before I got used to that kind of language and take training, but during the training I was, I loved it. No matter what they said, I just enjoyed everything.'

TI: So tell me, what are some of the activities in your training?

JM: At first, before, they'll give you a rifle, take it apart and put it back together in so many minutes and thing like that. And then from there on they'll gradually kind of work up, and then before you start takin' classes for flying you got to take another exam, too, to go through that, and I passed that, too, right away. And if you flunked you won't be able to fly a plane. You'd be the mechanic part, so you have one grade down. But I passed that, too, and everything.

TI: At the, at the pilot level, did they have different levels there, too? I mean, some were kamikaze, but were others, like, trained to be fighter pilots in terms of --

JM: Oh yeah, yeah. There was a lot of pilots there, yes. Well, the kamikaze pilot is when America went to the Philippines and that's where this, that general that, written in Japanese, he taught, he's the one that teach the kamikaze pilot, so that was a time, so you hit, fly that Zero and then go down with the plane, with a two hundred fifty pound bomb.

TI: But was that, like, a special group within the pilots or did all pilots...

JM: All the pilots that passed the training, yeah. And in my case, too, I got trained like that, but we didn't have enough planes, and even if we did have the planes, no gas and everything like that. It was tough. So after that we, they start training us human bomb. We carry a bomb, big bomb like that and if you see the enemy come with a tank you have to go under there yourself and blow up the tank.

TI: How would you carry the bomb? What, what was...

JM: Well, if you're hiding with, if the tank is rolling, if they see you, you're on the side and you got, it's around this long, and soon as they go by you, you got to go under there and put that bomb under the tractor, the thing there, blow up that, what do you call that?

SF: The tread?

JM: Tread, yeah.

TI: And so it was just like a, just a regular bomb that you would just carry?

JM: Yeah, something like that. And it's around this long, so you carry it like this.

TI: So they were training the pilots this also, so your group?

JM: Yeah.

TI: Okay. So what were you thinking when you're, they were training you?

JM: Well, that time, to me, I wasn't thinking of nothing else because as I was leaving, the train pulling out, my mother, she come running to me and as the train is moving she said, "Jimmie, Jimmie, Jimmie," and she says, "I don't want you to come back alive." She says, "If you're gonna go," says, "you got to fight for Japan, so I want your ashes to be at the Yasukuni Jinja. And you speak English, but," says, "no, never be a POW either, and if you get hurt or something, can't, you got to suicide, take suicide." That was the last word I heard from my mother.

SF: How did you feel about that when you, when she...

JM: Well, I was still seventeen, eighteen, something like that, I figured it's for the country, 'cause we all looked upon the Hirohito that time.

SF: Did the rest of your unit know that you were an American?

JM: No, not, hardly anybody knew.

SF: And it was just in your interest not to tell them?

JM: Well, I didn't even mention it. Yeah, just one, my instructor, he's the only one that knew it. And then as we were going to Kagoshima, 'cause from Kagoshima we had to catch a boat and go to Okinawa, and that was the real suicide thing because there's no plane at all, so when we were gettin' ready to go there I said, well, this could be the end of us and everything, so we got, in Fukuoka Air Base we all got together and they were gonna be ready to pull out on the train, commander comes out and says, "Does anybody in this group speak English or understand English?" And this guy behind me, says, he pointed at me and says, "He's American-born." So he, so then he comes to me and says, "Do you speak English?" I told him yes. "Okay, you stay here with us, but the rest, they got to go."

TI: Now, if your, if that person didn't point you out, would you have said anything?

JM: Yeah, I would've said something, too, that I'm, I could, I speak English. I would've said that, too, myself, but he's the one that went like that to me.

TI: Okay. I want to backtrack a little bit. I want to talk about your training, your flight training. So if they didn't have much gasoline and things like that, how did they train you to be a pilot?

JM: Training pilot, you have a few gas. It's not a full tank, but just to fly, take off and then land and do some diving practice and thing like that, but that's all. I mean, you couldn't, you couldn't maneuver around too much.

TI: And do you recall, maybe, how many flight hours you had?

JM: I've had, how many flight hours? I think it was twenty-some hours I had flight hours, so I knew, and I, if I did have a plane, that I would be a goner, too.

TI: But enough to, to be able to fly, to take off, land and...

JM: No. Only one way ticket.

TI: But they, at least they taught you how to land. Did they teach you how to land?

JM: Oh yeah, oh yeah. [Laughs]

TI: [Laughs] I was gonna say... okay.

SF: So did you train with the zero or...

JM: Yeah, yeah, zero. But it was a two-seater. The instructor would sit behind, behind me and I would sit in the front, and then from there...

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.