Densho Digital Archive - Louise Kashino - Sadaichi Kubota - Bill Thompson Interview (denshovh-klouise

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TI: What were some other important turning points of the case? I mean we, Matsuda admitting what he did. But there was another key turning point with the MP officer. Why don't you talk a little bit about that, and the importance of that?

BT: Finding the MP officer, locating him... well, at the beginning we didn't how to locate him. But after we had the Army Board of Corrections for Military Records restore Kash's stripes and rescind his fines, and they mentioned that the conviction still stands, only the judge advocate general... and when we looked at it, we said, if we can locate the MP officer and prove the points that what Chaplain Yamada has said, that he had requested charges be dropped, in other words, he didn't press the charges. So what I did was go to our veterans' -- State Veterans Office because he was in the army. You know, Puerto Rico was just like Hawaii, a territory. So I figured that they would be listed under the Veterans' Administration.

And this is funny. About two or three weeks later, the fellow in charge at the state office called me and said, "You know, we made connection with the VA office in Puerto Rico and San Juan. They talk in Spanish. We didn't know what to do." [Laughs] They said, "Don't worry, Bill, we'll follow up." So I waited. And nothing happened. And in the meantime, I had gone to a I Company meeting. Sadaichi had asked me to appear before the I Company chapter boys. So I had the special court-martial orders, and I read it to the boys. And said, "You know this guy, Suro, we want to find him. I'm trying to find Suro." And I gave, I think Clarence a copy of what we're trying to do, a letter that we had written to Dan Inouye.

And about a week or so later, Clarence happened to be at the banker's convention, and the name Suro was in his mind. And talking to this Puerto Rican banker, he just mentioned what we're trying to do, and the banker says, "That's my friend." That led us to Suro. Now in the meantime, after Clarence made contact with the banker, and he did go to Puerto Rico. He did meet with Suro. Now, Suro had a very severe hip operation, I think. He was a retired colonel, so probably older than us. And when Clarence came back, Clarence became ill for about two months or so. Well, I didn't know he was ill. But since nothing had come to me from Clarence, I thought I'd try another avenue, the Puerto Rican officer was part of the Puerto Rican National Guard. So I went to our general, National Guard general, here, and I asked them to locate Suro for me, since it was a National Guard outfit. I got about... two or three weeks later, I got a call from a major in the National Guard, "Oh, Bill, the general got your request, and we looked into it. We made phone call. We were given a phone number to call. I hate to tell you, we called the number, we got the operator of the electric company." [Laughs] And then, by then Clarence had written to Suro, so we got Suro's letter.

But I had also gone to, we have, in Hawaii, you always have these different associations, Hiroshima-ken and what-not. This, they had a Puerto Rican community here, there was one of the leaders that I asked, you know, that what we're trying to do, and she had a copy of the Puerto Rican, well, San Juan phone book. And she said, "There's only one George Suro listed," and she gave me the number. I didn't know the area code, but by then, like I say, Clarence had made contact with Suro, so I didn't follow up on that.

SK: But that's one of the, another crucial point that, it was in our favor, when Clarence Taba met with that Puerto Rican banker. Because it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, looking for Lieutenant Suro. Oh, we looked all over. Bill, as he say, he was researching all over to find that person. But he was unsuccessful until Clarence met that banker from Puerto Rico. And Clarence went to Puerto Rico on business, and he met Suro. And Suro assured Clarence that he will do his best to help Kash. So I said that was one of the crucial point that, it was in our favor.

BT: I think that's the time when Kash was, sent a letter, both of you were on the phone. But I see him smiling.

LK: Yeah. At that point, his spirits really rose, as his optimism, thinking that, "Well, maybe this will happen." But it, between November when Clarence Taba first met that banker and then June, when we got the affidavit from George Suro, it was, you know, several months there. And didn't hear, and they didn't want to push George Suro, because he was not in good health at the time, and he said it would take him a while. So we kept saying, "Well, maybe he's not going to do it," or this and that. But we didn't want to push him too hard or anything, so we just had to be patient and wait for it to happen. So, um... but at that point, he was, felt that we had all the evidence we needed. And so he felt quite good about it. And I think when he passed away in June, he kind of knew that this would all fall in place. When we received the letter back on June 13th, I mailed that, his last appeal. I think it was about August or so, we received back a letter saying that they still could not change the record, because a court-martial, once it's on record they cannot purge it.