<Begin Segment 29>

TI: And so I'm gonna jump ahead now, because one of your grandchildren, so this is more recently, Jonathan, I want to have you tell the story of, of... because you more recently started talking about your kamikaze experience.

JM: Yeah.

TI: So tell me the story of how Jonathan kind of prompted you to, to do this.

JM: I think it was three, well, it'd be pretty close to four years now, but whenever they come to our place and he would come in and I'd be in the office doing a lot of paperwork because I was doing the landscaping already, and then so when they came over one day, James -- well, my younger son is James, too -- him and Jonathan came in, and as they left the office he says, "Hey, Dad." And I said, "What do you want, Jonathan?" He says, "You know, Grandpa, he's got a Japanese plane on his desk every time" -- well that was his third time, I think, he's seen that -- he says, "How come that Japanese plane is on his desk?" And that time James called me right away and said, "Hey, Dad, you know, Jonathan asked me about the plane," so I told that to my wife, too, and I said, my wife says, you know, we should get together with the family and tell what I went through during the war. And so when Jonathan asked that, too, we told James, I said, "You know that zero plane? I think I'll tell the truth to Jonathon, that was zero plane that Grandpa was during the war." It was a model plane, but he just wanted to know why he had that plane. And so we got together and then after that we, the family got together, said, "We should tell this to all our families, the kids and all," so that's how it started. And then I said, " Jonathan, you want that plane?" He said, "Oh yeah, I do." He's still got it in his bedroom.

TI: And so before that, how much did your kids know about...

JM: Didn't know, they didn't know too much about.

TI: But maybe just a little bit about --

JM: Just a little, yeah.

TI: And so this was really the first time that you had really told the full story.

JM: Told, yeah.

TI: And what was the reaction of your kids, your grandkids?

JM: Well, they asked me a few questions, but that time, I guess they weren't that interested in military and thing like that, so, but they asked me...

TI: But they understood what a kamikaze pilot was?

JM: Yeah, yeah. Because my license plate, too, I think the first one I had was, it was "kamikaze." [Laughs]

SF: Oh really? [Laughs]

TI: So, so going back to Jonathan, so he's curious, he asked, so if he asked, "Grandpa," so, "Grandpa, what do you think about Japan using kamikaze pilots?" or, "What do you think about being one?" how would you respond to him?

JM: Well he didn't ask me that, but I would respond to him if he asked me that question, that I was, I had to go to the military in Japan because that time Japan, if you didn't volunteer or get drafted, that you'd be one of the Japanese thing, and since I was born in America that I had to do that. And he said, "Did you go to the war?" I says, "Well, I haven't seen the action of war, but I went to the war." And he says, "Oh, I see. I see." And after that he hasn't asked me any questions, because the plane, that was the only thing that was gettin' in his mind, is the plane, how did he, how did I get hold of it?

TI: But as he gets older, I'm thinking as he gets, maybe, more in high school, I'm wondering if he'll start thinking so, so as he understands that more and says, "So Grandpa, what do you..." I mean, again, the question of, "But Grandpa, you were gonna give your life, sort of, and what do you think about that now?" I guess, again, talking to your grandson now approaching, perhaps, military age, what would you tell him about that?

JM: Yeah. Well, it was, well, I told him about that. I says, about military, I says, in fact we were Americans in Japan, too, but the FBIs were always on our tail and everything, so even though I went to high school I didn't care whether I passed or not. Every test I took and wanted to be a pilot, well, I passed everything, so that was the way I joined the Japanese navy, I mean, the kamikaze training over there. And he says, "Were you afraid?" And I says, "No, I wasn't afraid then because I was young, too, and that time it was that I had to fight for the Japanese emperor."

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.