<Begin Segment 14>

TU: Have you heard of (Sakakida)?

TI: Yes, I've heard about this one, but go ahead for the camera, go ahead and tell me about this.

TU: Well, as I recall the story, is when he was captured by the Japanese, he got tortured in the worst way. He gave a talk in Monterey before a big crowd, and every word he said, people were on pins and needles to listen. You could hear, in other words, a pin drop. He said, "I never talk about this even to my wife." And so he said, "I want to tell you for the first time what the torture procedures were," and he described all this torture methods that they used on him. And he swore to himself that, "Someday I'm gonna get revenge on these guys." And of course, fortunately, he lived through it, and the war ended, and he was privy to the list of prisoners of war, Japanese prisoners of war. And he saw the names of these guys who were torturing him, Kempeitai guys, there were two or three of 'em, the worst ones. And so he had the clout, "I want these guys to report to me," or words to that effect, that, "I'm helping the investigation of war crimes and would like to talk to these three guys." So the day comes and these three guys appear before (Sakakida). And at that time he had dark glasses on. He asked, "Do you recall the name (Sakakida)?" They said, "No." Then he took his dark glasses off and he says, "Now do you recognize me?" And they fell on their knees asking for forgiveness. I mean, they thought maybe they were going to get shot right there and then because of the things that they did to (Sakakida). But then he forgives them. So I asked (Sakakida) while he was still alive, "What made you do that?" It's compassion. He's a Buddhist by training, and he has this compassionate feeling. So he said, "When these guys fell on their knees to beg for forgiveness, all that anger seemed to have dissipated."

TI: Going into the meeting, did he have a sense of what he was going to do with these men?

TU: That we haven't, we're not given that information as far as his talk was concerned. But the thing of it is, he let them live, okay. All right, they're top notch Kempeitai personnel. Well, somewhere along the line, he gets an order from topside, "Want you to get some information, and I don't care how you get it, but get that information." Well, the only guys he could think of who might be able to get that information were these two or three guys. And by that time, these guys were willing to do anything for (Sakakida). So he gets that information, nobody asked where it came from. And that's something that he didn't want to talk about, because he could be court martialed for using enemy personnel to do what they did.

TI: Why would... they were prisoners, so I would think anything was fair game in terms of if he got confidential information, why would that be a court martial offense? I would think that's part of his...

TU: Well, he's using an enemy personnel to find this information, but he didn't want to tell the higher-ups how he got that information. And the higher-ups were saying, "I don't care how you get the information, just get the information."

TI: So he protected his sources.

TU: Exactly, exactly.

TI: And he kept this confidential up until much, much later.

TU: Yeah. So there you go, some of these things that we're talking about, the individual concerned thought better of not divulging that information until later. I can tell you another one about (Sakakida).

TI: Yeah, it's just riveting, go ahead.

TU: From Manila, where the war crimes trial were, he was ordered to take this Japanese officer to Tokyo for execution. While on the airplane ride into Tokyo, they talked, and family matters came up. And this officer, Japanese officer said, "I have a family in Tokyo, family with kids." And so (Sakakida)said, "Would you like to see them? I'll let you go and you can see them if you promise to be at this certain spot tomorrow morning where I can pick you up." You know, doing that kind of thing, if this guy escaped, tried to escape, (Sakakida's) in big trouble. But he knew the samurai code, that once a samurai makes a promise, he's going to carry out whatever the consequences may be. So sure enough, the next morning, this guy's there at the exact time specified, and (Sakakida) picks him up. And the kicker of it all is that people are suffering. During that time they're short of food and so on, especially families who are having a hard time. So what this woman did, this wife of this officer did was make about two or three nigiri with rice, hard to get rice, and this soldier presented it to (Sakakida), and that gesture really touched him, touched (Sakakida). And he turned around, walked a couple of steps away and had tears in his eyes. He was touched because they're willing to sacrifice their food to thank (Sakakida) for allowing this Japanese officer to meet with them one more time before he went to execution. (Sakakida) knew that he's going to be executed, but he gave him a chance to see the family for one last time. You talk about a special soldier, (Sakakida) was one of them.

TI: Well, for him to really understand, more than just being generous, but to be able to understand and trust...

TU: You've got to know the culture. That's one of the things we learn as interpreters and translators and interrogators that you've got to know the culture of the people you're dealing with, especially the Japanese soldier. How do you get them to divulge information that you want? It's not like Harry Fukuhara used to say, just putting words together to try to get information. You've got to go beyond that.

TI: But on the other hand, too, to balance it, some of these men probably did some horrible things. To be put to death, he had probably done something to have warranted that, so it's, I guess, balancing all that, too.

TU: Well, I have questions on that, because a lot of the war crimes trials, to my mind anyway, I could be way off base, they were vengeful... how would you say it?

TI: A revenge against the Japanese?

TU: Yeah, revenge. It's like, as I understand, the First World War, the German people really suffered because of the revenge policy that the Allies took. Well, in this case, revenge, the trials were tainted with revenge in mind. Well, kangaroo court is a good word for it. I'm not saying that happened to all the cases, but a lot of it is just that, taking out revenge on the Japanese people. Now, this fellow, I was going to say, in (Sakakida's) mind was a brilliant soldier, and it could have been that I was in his shoe when he was in my shoe. He respected this man, soldier, as a man who could be trusted and who could be used to help build Japan back up again. So (Sakakida) must have felt all that.

TI: That brings up an interesting point. So during the trials, many of the Nisei linguists were part of that, and if there was this feeling that perhaps some of these Japanese officers were not getting a fair shake, I mean, was there any attempt to do anything? I mean, couldn't there be anything done?

TU: Well, you know, there was a fellow named George Koshi from Seattle? Maybe you know him.

TI: Yeah, I know the name.

TU: Well, he was defending some of these Japanese soldiers on trial. And he has his ideas on it. But man of his position serving as a defendant of the accused, he can't say that it's a kangaroo court. It's just not ethical as a soldier. So it put the Nisei linguists who were trying to do some good in a very tight spot or tough spot.

TI: When the former MIS men get together, are there more stories like this that even you can't share? I mean, do you guys talk about things amongst yourselves that perhaps aren't shared with others?

TU: Well, the only reason I could share what I did because it's pretty much written in the book on (Sakakida). But this story about letting the officer go for a night, that's something.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.