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

<Begin Segment 4>

TI: Louise, for you and Kash, were there times the two of you felt, "Boy, this is really going to be really hard," and gave up hope?

LK: Well, when Senator Inouye's office came back and said, sent us a copy of the letter saying that the records were burnt and there's no way of researching anything without the records, that was kind of a final decision from them. So we kind of said, "Oh well, we tried," you know. So then I remember in 1993 when we were here for the 50th reunion, Sadaichi kept saying, "You know, we've got to keep trying," and, "I'm talking to Patsy Mink..." So I think he hadn't given up, so we, I felt that we shouldn't give up. But my husband, you know, was always on the side, "Oh, no hope, who cares?" But when the records did appear, and it kind of... we had no forewarning. We received a letter from her saying that, "She had gotten the records, and they're enclosing what records they could salvage." And those were the records that were copies of the originals, but had singed edges. They were in fact in the fire. So that's when we first read the court-martial order, which my husband had never seen. And it said that there was a copy given to the defendant, but he had never received a copy of that. And that kind of, kind of got his bristle in his back. But to say that he was guilty, and he had pleaded guilty, and he was charged with all this, and he just felt that... just kind of gave him some ammunition, kind of. "Oh, now we got the records, maybe we better, maybe we better pursue it." That's when he was more positive.

BT: I think he was kind of aggravated. He read the charges.

LK: Yes.

BT: Then everything kind of fell into place.

LK: Yes.

BT: See, there was two charges against him. One said that, "You can't take Hayashi away." And you know, Hayashi is the one that died in battle. And Kash said, "How can an MP officer look at ten, twelve Buddhaheads, and remember a specific one, much less a name?" And the other charge was he was disrespectful, he was drunk and disrespectful toward a superior officer. And again, that's what we were in Southern France for, to relax. We were allowed to go to the bars. And you know, so I think when Kash read that, he kind of got angry. And then I think he said, "I guess he would like to pursue the thing to a logical end."