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

<Begin Segment 6>

DM: Mr. Kubota, when you mentioned the meeting with Mr. Matsuda, that really was a turning point in this case, wasn't it?

SK: I believe so, because he admitted to the scuffle.

DM: Right. It was a breakthrough for the case.

SK: This is what I believe, yes. And too, as Bill said, Reverend Yamada knew that Matsuda was the person involved, primarily, so the Reverend talked to him, "You know that, and we know that you were the cause of this thing. And why don't you admit to this fact, and get the others off the hook?" -- the three other guys. But he wouldn't budge. He didn't budge. And this is all what Reverend Yamada is telling me. So this I remember very well. And this was a key point too, I believe, that we had targeted the particular person, you see. So this is the reason we saw Matsuda. And the code, as you say, we never snitched on anybody. And I believe that's what happened, too, with your father, Matsumura and Hayashi. Those three said, "No. They didn't do anything." But they never pointed their fingers at Matsuda, you see?

DM: I think all of the people involved dealt with this in their own way. My dad tended to downplay it. How do you perceive that Mr. Matsuda has dealt with that court-martial? Because as many times as we've been to Hawaii, we had never met him. I mean has he been involved in the veterans' group?

BT: I think, from what I understand, Matsuda was feeling no pain. This was a bar/dance hall. Everybody was relaxing. And then the MP officer stopped him, and he just brushed past the MP officer. And then when the MP officer approached him, I guess something triggered the scuffle. I don't think Matsuda remembers exactly. He admits, "Yes, he started that," but the exact sequence of that, I don't think he could truthfully say what happened, because he was feeling no pain.

LK: But when Dad read James Matsuda's affidavit, he said that was, he didn't realize that he had actually had a gun in his rib from the MP. And so it was, you know for him, also it was revealing as to how the incident started. All he knew was that all of a sudden, there was a scuffle and he got involved into it. And so, and so many things happened so fast, apparently. That's why when nobody said, admitted, when they got taken in the next day, he said that when nobody... when he... I guess they knew it was Matsuda, but then he said, "Since he didn't speak up," he says, "why I was the, he was the leader of the group." So he says, "Well, somebody had to take the rap." So he said he did. And so that's why he got the worst of it, right? He got put into solitary confinement.

SK: That's right.

LK: So he just didn't really know exactly what happened. And he said, he said in later years, things happened so fast, he can't really pinpoint the sequence.