<Begin Segment 22>

MN: So now, shortly after your parents moved with their friends in Downey the military showed up on your farm. What were they doing there?

TY: I'd be surprised, the military with trucks, they brought searchlights, they brought aircraft, aircraft machine guns or whatever it was, machine guns, searchlights, tracer, what do you call it, tracer bullet guns or whatever it was. Anyway, it was all big equipment, they placed it on my dad's farm and I guess, I don't know, I really don't know what the reason was, but I guess they bivouacked our, they said "Japs are comin'," so they brought the equipment over and one night I guess the "Japs" did come. I don't know. They fired the gun, searchlight going back and forth looking for the airplane and the guns are shooting, the tracer bullets are flying, and it was kind of like fireworks, kind of fun to watch. But we couldn't get out of the house. They told us to pull the blinds down so that the light won't shine outside, so we just turned the lights off and went outside to watch. And then just tracer bullets flying and flying, and the searchlight going back and forth, and where's the airplane? We don't see no airplane or nothing, so I guess it was a bivouac or something. I don't know. And the milkman would deliver milk the next morning. "Hey, did you guys see something? Did you guys an airplane flying there?" "I don't think so, just saw tracer bullets flying. Don't seem like it hit anything." He said, "Hell, there was nothing flying there, was it?" I said, "I don't see, didn't see anything." [Laughs] So even, even the town people watched it, I guess. It was kind of fun to watch.

MN: Although the newspaper did write a story called "The Battle of Los Angeles on February 24, 1942," and it just reported that this unidentified aircraft was a lost weather balloon. I think that's what they were shooting at.

TY: I really don't know because they didn't tell us what they were shooting at. They didn't tell us nothing. "Japs gonna come, so get ready." I don't know what they were shooting at. Maybe that was what it was.

MN: Did they ever ask for your permission to put the equipment onto your farmland?

TY: No. They just brought it in. They thought they owned the place, you know?

MN: So how did that make you feel?

TY: I mean, it didn't feel, it didn't make it feel good, them trampling on our ranch. They'd drive a truck over the, over the crops and in the field. They thought they owned the place and then they just done that, for what, you know? They didn't even ask us whether they could bring the equipment here or not. They brought it in, so what do you do?

MN: What happened to your crops? Did you lose a lot of crop?

TY: Well, they didn't, they didn't destroy that much, but they destroyed what, wherever they placed the equipment. But my dad's crop was taken over by some Chinese produce man, promised that he'll take care of the crop and harvest the crop and send my dad the money, so then my dad said okay, he'll do that for us, he'll appreciate it.

MN: This is when you were gonna move out.

TY: Yeah.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.