<Begin Segment 27>

TI: Well, and you mentioned earlier, luckily in terms of avoiding this bloody battle, the war came to an end. Do you remember what it was like when you heard the war was over?

TU: Okay, we're still at the Santa Ana racetrack, and some guys had a radio. And said, "Hey, the emperor's going to speak pretty soon," so we all gathered around the radio. And the emperor's voice came on very soft, very soft-speaking emperor. And he read the, I guess he must have read the surrender document, telling the imperial army to quit fighting, "lay down your arms," words to that effect, I imagine. I didn't understand what he was talking about. He's talking about this thing in this very, very complicated Japanese language.

TI: Yeah, my understanding is that he spoke in a very formal Japanese.

TU: Yeah, formal.

TI: That was very difficult, that probably even the common Japanese wouldn't understand.

TU: Yeah. So the fear was that some of the emperor's message may not have gotten to every soldier, Japanese soldier. There were some guys still fighting after that, because they didn't get the message.

TI: Or especially if you're in a jungle or someplace.

TU: There you go, yeah.

TI: And so the emperor's message, and Japan surrenders. So what's your role at this point? What happens next?

TU: Okay. We're still being ready to go into Japan. MacArthur went into Tokyo Bay and signed the surrender papers in September 3rd, I think, of 1945. And earlier, some of the advance troops went in, I think, the Eleventh Cavalry, went into Tokyo earlier and set the stage for MacArthur to arrive. He came in sometime before September 3rd, and then September 3rd on the battleship Missouri. The Japanese delegation boarded the ship and signed the surrender papers. And there were two or three Nikkei interpreters there witnessing. They didn't take part in the interpretation, but they were there to witness it. And among them was Tom Sakamoto.

TI: Who's still around, who's still alive.

TU: Yeah, he's still around.

TI: And to witness, why a Nisei linguist to witness? I'm not sure why...

TU: Well, he was one of the privileged guys. He was one of the better interpreters. I guess the deck of that Missouri could hold just so many, and they must have had some kind of a arrangement where they chose people to witness. Or I don't know if they were witnessing, maybe it didn't make any difference if he was there on board.

TI: Okay. And eventually you got to Tokyo also.

TU: Yeah, now we got into Tokyo October 1. October 1 we were in Tokyo, yeah.

TI: And what was your role in Tokyo? So October 1, 1945.

TU: Yeah, before that, we sailed into Yokohama. And then by truck we went to Tokyo October 1. And what was our role? We were still with the engineers, and as soon as we got settled, we were to report in to the office of the Chief Engineers Headquarters in a section called Utility Section. And of course our job was to renovate some of the concrete building that remained standing with all the bombings, and our job was to renovate these buildings for occupation purposes.

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.