Densho Digital Archive - Art Ishida Interview (denshovh-iart

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MN: And how long were you in Chicago?

AI: Year and half until I got drafted.

MN: So once you got drafted what month was this, what year?

AI: I was drafted September.

MN: What year?

AI: 1946.

MN: So the war had already ended then?

AI: Yes.

MN: So when you heard the war had ended how did you feel?

AI: Relief.

MN: And so how did you feel when you got drafted?

AI: Well, I was expecting to be drafted anyways so sooner or later so that was fine with me. And same time I think it was three or four of us, our friends, they all got the notice. But the funny part is none of them passed the physical. So I was the only one that passed physical.

MN: Where did you do your basic training?

AI: New Jersey. Trenton, New Jersey. Since war was end, so the basic training was short, cut down to three months. Before was like during the war six months or something like that basic training but they cut down to three months. Then after basic is finished we all got shipped out to Korea.

MN: Now did you do basic training in a segregated unit or was it integrated?

AI: Integrated. In our company there was about a dozen Japanese Niseis was in there.

MN: How did the non-Japanese American soldiers treat you?

AI: You know I, in my company, in my platoon I had a guy, one guy from Hawaii and one young man from New York was sleeping next to my bunk, so we're a threesome there and they found that I wasn't speaking much of English and I told them that I can't speak and I want to learn. So they says, "Oh okay, we'll teach you how to talk," so they were real helpful to me. And what I did is instead of associating with the other Niseis, Japanese guys, if I do, then I'm going to end up talking Japanese so I kind of stayed away and I went with two guys and they really helped me. And I started learning more during the short time than going to the school. Especially one guy from Hawaii is being in Hawaii he knew all the Japanese so he was real friendly and real nice. The Hawaii guy was real nice, I mean the New York guy he was going university but he just somehow he stopped and he said he's going to go army then he's going to go back to school after discharge or maybe he want to get the GI bill or whatever the reason, so both of them was real grateful.

MN: Now on your free time what did you do? You had furloughs, right?

AI: Yeah, when I was in Korea I took my furlough and went to Japan to see my mother from there. In fact, I had ten day coming and when my furlough time was coming I was transfer to MI group which I was shipped to the South Korea, the Pusan, the southern tip of Korea. And then we went back, unit went back to Seoul again so I lost my furlough time about like what five days or something like that so my furlough got shortened but I went Japan anyway and I met my family there.

MN: Okay so we just skipped over it and went into Korea. Okay, so let's get into Korea. You got drafted in '46, you did three months of basic training and you were shipped to Korea. Did your troop ship stop in Hawaii or Japan at that time?

AI: No, troop ship went straight to the Korea, Inchon harbor.

MN: What was Inchon like at that time?

AI: Korea was, after the war and they're all torn and when you got off the ship -- well, in fact, we reached there in December 31st, '46, and we got off the ship January 1st, got on the train which had no windows, it's all blocked from the war and we got on that in the middle of winter and just freezing cold and we went to former Japanese cavalry unit station and I remember we got there, then it was, on the train we had no hot water, nothing. We ate the K-ration with cold water and went to this barrack and the barrack don't have a window, it's all broken and they served us a hot meal there. But we stand on the area where they used to wash horse and they kind of built a table and built it high enough that no chair, we had to stand and eat, outdoor, freezing. At least we had a hot meal. And we stayed there a few days and I was assigned to construction battalion and there was a place called Ascum city. I don't know why they call Ascum city but that's where I went.

MN: And were you still with the two hakujin people that were teaching you English?

AI: No, the one from the New York, I don't know where he went but the one from Hawaii somehow we got together, we went all the way through to the Korea to the construction battalion until I was reassigned to the MI. So we slept together, we got the same barrack, we slept together he was a real nice. Now I wonder what happened to him or where he is.