Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Akira Otani Interview
Narrator: Akira Otani
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: March 3, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-oakira-01-0017

<Begin Segment 17>

TI: Okay, so after a while I mean I know the 442 they had three battalions, you know, first, second, third, but then they kept the 1st Battalion back, you know, back and they sent the 2nd and 3rd overseas?

AO: Well, what happened was... and I was in the 1st Battalion, and they didn't keep the whole battalion back but they kept the cadre, the so-called sergeants, you know, they call them cadre, but they kept a few of the sergeants back from headquarters, companies A B C D and say a company might have one, two, three, four, four sergeants per platoon and get three platoons, so maybe fifteen to twenty sergeants in the company. Those sergeants were held back so from A Company, B Company, C Company, D Company only the sergeants were held back and the rest of the men were dispersed, distributed between the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Battalion, anti-tank and artillery and so forth, you know, dispersed.

TI: And why were these sergeants, you know, kept back, why were you and the others --

AO: In order to train the incoming, future recruits that were coming in so they needed a core group to serve as sergeants or trainers to take care of training the new draftees and inductees or whatever you want to call it.

TI: Okay, so most of the men were then sent overseas. You and the other sergeants were, you know, stayed there for the, to help train.

AO: Correct.

TI: So how did you feel about being left behind?

AO: Well, actually there wasn't very much you could do because... have you ever been in the army?

TI: No.

AO: No, you see, you do what you're told and that's it, you're given orders and they're all written orders and they all stayed back and that's it. We couldn't do nothing, you know, so we didn't feel good naturally, you know, see all our friends leave and you're left behind. And so, no, we didn't feel good, we hated to see our... you wanted to leave together with the rest of your friends.

TI: Now was it about this time that you went to Fort Benning also or how long were you there before you went to Fort Benning?

AO: I think we stayed there for about three or four months, we must have trained three, about three different groups of inductees and in one of these groups I met her brother, one of her brothers. Of course at that time he was just one of the boys but I did remember him. So eventually when I got together with her, it's through having known her brother at one time. But I think we stayed there about three or four months and we took care of about three or four different groups coming in.

TI: And then they approached you about the Officer Candidate School?

AO: No, they don't approach, they just give you a written order and they tell you you go and you know.

TI: Oh, I always thought that was supposed to be a volunteer --

AO: No, they tell you to go and you've been selected and you go. But the strange part is that even though a bunch of went, they never put even two of us in the same company, it's always just you by yourself, you know, you're the only Nisei in each class over there as far as I know.

TI: And what was the thinking? Was the thinking that you would get officer training and then you would be then shipped to Europe?

AO: Correct, I think that was basic idea upon which this whole program was set up but it didn't turn out that way, you know, the way it turned out you know. Because we went and like I said, maybe about, in my class there were about three hundred, plus or minus three hundred candidates so to speak, of which about a hundred graduated and received their commissions. And those of us among the Niseis that we got our commissions, we were sent to Fort McClellan, Alabama. And there again we were sent there I guess to receive, well, we were supposed to get training to become platoon leaders, you know, to lead our men supposedly when we went overseas I guess. But actually what we were doing was we were again training recruits coming in both other nationalities... white troops as well as Nisei troops coming in.

TI: Now during this time did you ever have problems with someone calling you "Jap" or, because you're Japanese, looking down at you?

AO: Never.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.