<Begin Segment 1>

TI: Okay, so we're gonna start, and I always start with just telling where we are and the date. So today is Monday, March 19, 2012, and we're at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose. So we're in San Jose, and we're doing an interview with Larry, and I'm going to let you introduce yourself in a second. But Larry, let me ask the first question, can you tell me when and where you were born?

LP: Yeah, I was born... I don't know what the number is, but not the same number I just gave you. It's on the same property, but it was a different number.

TI: So on Clayton Road?

LP: Clayton Road.

TI: In San Jose. And tell me again the date that you were born?

LP: 11/4/22.

TI: So November 4, 1922.

LP: Six o'clock in the morning.

TI: So that makes you almost ninety years old, you're eighty-nine.

LP: That's right. I'll be ninety November 4th of this year.

TI: So again, as you walked in the door, I was expecting someone looking maybe a little bit older.

LP: Really?

TI: So you're in great shape. And so, Larry, tell me, when you were born, what was the name given to you when you were born.

LP: When they went down and recorded it -- at that time, your family didn't record your name, the doctor got this gal that worked with him to go down and record it. And all they did was put "boy" and of course my parents' name and stuff were on there, and the date of birth. And so my dad wanted to name me Lawrence and my mother wanted to name me Robert, so the doctor didn't put anything down because they had a disagreement about what my first name should be. And I wish she would have won because Lawrence has got too many letters and it's a hard name to write. I don't use it because at school, they started calling me Larry, and so now I write Larry because it's easier. I wish my last name was shorter, too.

TI: And so your father won out --

LP: He won out, yeah.

TI: Lawrence.

LP: Joe could have changed it because it wasn't registered. I could have had any name I wanted to, right?

TI: But then I notice that you have for your middle name...

LP: Robert.

TI: So they got both names in there. So Lawrence Robert Pacheco, good. And was there any significance to Lawrence? Why did your father choose Lawrence?

LP: I don't know. It's pretty much of an English name back in those days, but I don't know if that had any effect on it. I don't know.

TI: So before we go to your life, tell me about your father. What was your father's name?

LP: Manuel.

TI: And where was Manuel from, your father?

LP: M-A-N-U-E-L.

TI: And where did he grow up? Where was he from?

LP: He was born here.

TI: Okay, so also in San Jose.

LP: He was born on Sierra Road.

TI: And before your father, your grandparents on your father's side, where did they come from?

LP: I don't know. I think originally our ancestors were from the Azores Islands, but I never asked any questions about that, so I don't know. Both my grandmothers were born here. My grandfathers I think were born, I think they were born in the Azores Islands, but there are seven islands back there and I don't have a clue which one.

TI: Okay, good. But your mother, what was your mother's name?

LP: Mary.

TI: And same question, where was she born? Was she also born in San Jose?

LP: [Nods].

TI: Wow, so you're like a third generation San Josean, old-time family.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

TI: So tell me some of your earliest childhood memories growing up in San Jose. What can you remember... when you think about just a small kid...

LP: I can't remember any of that... the only thing I can remember to start out with, that my neighbor, Don Balcomb, he's the same age as I am, and he and I walked to school, which is a mile and a half, that morning by ourselves. Parents didn't take you to school back in those days. We walked to school and it was just the two of us, five years old.

TI: So like going to kindergarten, you were just walking?

LP: No kindergarten. First grade.

TI: First grade, okay.

LP: They didn't have kindergarten back then.

TI: So tell me about the house that you grew up in. When you were a kid, what was the house like?

LP: It was just a ranch house. If I'd have known that, I'd have brought you a picture of it. I don't know what to say about it, it's just all those houses up there, they were all ranches, acreage. And they had ranch houses on them, and barns, and that kind of stuff. That's all I can tell you about it. Just a ranch house, wooden ranch house.

TI: Like how many bedrooms did it have?

LP: Two bedrooms, a front room, and a kitchen. And then it had a second story, that was just one big room.

TI: And Larry, how many brothers and sisters did you have?

LP: Ten. No, I had two, one brother and one sister. [Laughs]

TI: [Laughs] You had me going there for a second. I said, wow, in a two bedroom ranch house...

LP: You were gonna say that page is not big enough.

TI: So I'm sorry, so you had a brother and a sister?

LP: My sister was next down... we're two and a half years apart. And she was second, which is his mother. And then my brother was two and a half years younger than her.

TI: And what was your sister's name?

LP: Agnes, which she also hated.

TI: And then your brother's name?

LP: Ed.

TI: Good, so you were the oldest brother. You were the oldest then.

LP: I'm the oldest one and I'm the only one that's here.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

TI: So you talked about earlier going to school. Tell me a little bit about school. What was your school like?

LP: School, Mt. Pleasant school started in Halls Valley, and they moved it down to Clayton Road, and they moved it again farther down Clayton Road, and then it burnt down, and then they built... which is the Moose Lodge today, in 1915, and that's where I started school. And it's still there. That's a big redwood building, and as strong as can be, it's still there. But Mt. Pleasant school now is over, I don't know, it's over near White Road and Clayton somewhere down there. So that's how many times Mt. Pleasant school has moved. They moved the building back in those days. That's pretty complicated.

TI: Well, when you think about the school, this is like about 1928, 1929, how many students were in each class? How many, like, classmates did you have?

LP: You know what, I'm not sure, because it varied. When I graduated, there was probably only about ten of us. But when I was in the first grade, there was more. There was probably twenty. That was probably average, average kids in the school.

TI: Now I'm curious, have you stayed in touch with any of your old classmates from elementary school?

LP: Yeah, we have a school reunion every year up at the drying shed on... where was that? So some of 'em still come there, the ones that can. It keeps getting less each year. A lot of 'em aren't making it.

TI: Now when you get together for these reunions, is there like a story or person that you guys talk about as a memory back in school?

LP: They probably do, I don't know. I don't know what they really talk about, they talk about everything, I guess, about what's going on around them and what happened last year and that kind of stuff.

TI: Because it's amazing, some of these people you've known for, like, eighty-five years.

LP: Well, I've known them since they were, like, six years old. And I still know some of 'em. In fact, I have, there's a couple of women that live, Betty Harris and Sarah Myers, both live on Clayton Road and they're both up there. I don't know, there's several. When I go there I see 'em, but I don't see 'em all the time. Maybe, a lot of 'em I only see at that reunion.

TI: I think it's just so, I guess so cool that you've known people for so long. I think in America we're such a transient society and people move around, and here you've had such deep roots in one place for so long and friends for so long.

LP: That's true. I read somewhere that the average family moves every seven years.

TI: So your experience is, in some ways, not --

LP: I'm still living on the same property that I was born on. In other words, I had built the home at the end of this ranch.

TI: Yeah, so that's not a common...

LP: No, it's not, not anymore. Probably used to be years back.

TI: So tell me a little bit about what your family did for a living. How did they make money?

LP: My dad raised apricots, prunes, he raised cattle, and he grew hay for dairies, primarily what he did for a living.

TI: Wow, so it sounds like a lot of property. How much acreage...

LP: Well, he didn't own a lot of property. He owned that ranch we're on, but he leased a lot of property. Back in those days, there was a lot of acreage out there that he could grow cattle on, and he raised a lot of hay that he sold to the dairies.

TI: And when he leased it, who would he lease it from?

LP: I can't tell you.

TI: Okay, so just some --

LP: I was just a kid.

TI: Okay, good. You know, I'm curious, as you're growing up, did you have any Japanese American friends?

LP: Yes. We had quite a few of 'em at Mt. Pleasant school. I can't remember all the names, the Yoshiokas, there was a family that lived on White Road. Mike and Roy Muratsumi, they had a shop here up in this area somewhere, but they grew up on, up in the White Road area and they used to farm, the family farmed vegetables, and so did the Yoshiokas. There was probably more of 'em, too, but I can't remember. Those are the ones that were in my classes that I was with.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

TI: So let's move now to high school. And so which high school did you go to?

LP: I went to San Jose Tech, and that was all boys. Not my favorite type of school.

TI: Now why an all-boys school? That's, again, something unusual. You don't see that many all-boys schools.

LP: Well, today, women are doing electrical work and all kinds. San Jose Tech taught you all the trades. And women back in those days weren't mechanics or carpenters or whatever, and now they are. But that's why we went to San Jose Tech, because when we got out of there, four to five years later, in most cases they could find you a job as an apprentice whatever, electrician or painter or whatever trades you work, you took up. And in my case it didn't happen because the war started and I went from San Jose Tech to Richmond Shipyard #2 and built ships up there for a little while 'til I got drafted.

TI: But before we go there, this is, again, you're from a different era. So when I went to school, the high schools had a, kind of, vo-tech as well as academic in the same school. But it sounds like when you were --

LP: They had a commercial part to it?

TI: Yeah, they had kind of like a commercial, in our public high school.

LP: Was that here in San Jose?

TI: No, this was up in Seattle, and much later. But I'm curious, so they actually had two different schools?

LP: San Jose High School was academic and they didn't have any kind of trades. But San Jose Tech, which was across the street from 'em, was all trades. You got your high school education, plus you spent so many periods in shop, teaching you how to do whatever. And that's the way that... I don't know why they still don't have a school like that. Because when we got out of there, we could go to a business and probably make our wages. Today, the guys, or even the ones that went to San Jose High School at the same time I did, when they get out of San Jose High School, they didn't have any background as far as a trade was concerned. I'm sure they could go on to college and become attorneys and lawyers and doctors and so on, but, and probably did. But that was the way it was then.

TI: And as part of that trade, did they have like an apprentice program? Did they have people, sort of, tradespeople come in to school and show you things?

LP: They knew about how many students, how many people that the valley could take up in each trade, about twenty of us at the time. People die, they retire or whatever, and they knew, and that's about how many they took, they taught that year. And then when you graduated, normally there was a place where you could go to work.

TI: Wow, that's fascinating.

LP: It was better than not having a job.

TI: Right, that's interesting.

LP: It was a good school.

TI: Now how did you... did you decide going into high school which track to go? Whether it's the trade school or the academic? Or did your parents decide?

LP: No, I went to a trade school because... well, I'll tell you what. When we were graduating from grammar school, which was eighth grade, we had someone come out there from the school department. I can't believe it today when I think about it, but they thought that we all should go to a... not go to an academic high school, we should go to a commercial. Why? We're from a bunch of farms? What was the reason?

TI: So all the boys in your class, they just said you should...

LP: Well, all the ones going on to high school, most of 'em went to a trade school.

TI: Yeah, it's interesting that they steered you that way.

LP: Well, it was a small school. I'm sure it wasn't that way all over the valley. The grammar school was a small school, so I don't know. Things have changed a lot.

TI: And what year did you graduate from high school?

LP: High School? '41.

TI: And so right before the war started.

LP: Uh-huh.

TI: Okay, and then you mentioned you went to the Richmond Shipyard #2. And how did you get that job? Was that something that --

LP: Richmond Shipyard?

TI: Yeah, was that waiting for you?

LP: Just went up there and asked for a job, and they hired me right that same day. Because I knew how to weld and stuff, and that was what they needed. Once they found out I was graduating from that particular type school, I fit right in with making ships.

TI: So I'm curious, was there a big effort, I mean, this was before the war had started for the United States. Was there still...

LP: Before the U.S. was in the war, I believe.

TI: Right.

LP: The U.S. might have been, they were just getting into the war about that time.

TI: Well, they were probably doing a lot to help Britain or, I mean, sort of in Europe the war was raging in 1941.

LP: Yeah. But I'm not sure... well, I think the war started in the U.S. when they bombed...

TI: Pearl Harbor.

LP: Pearl Harbor. So whatever that date was, that's when the war started.

TI: So you graduated kind of in summer or early summer of '41, and then it was probably about a five months later that Pearl Harbor. So there's about...

LP: Okay, so that means that I was working in Richmond when Pearl Harbor happened.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

TI: Do you have any memories of Pearl Harbor day, December 7, 1941?

LP: Well, I was in Daly City on December 7th, that day when it happened, it came over the radio, visiting one of my sweeties. That's it. I was at her house.

TI: And so you heard it on the radio?

LP: It came over the radio.

TI: And do you recall any thoughts, what you thought this meant?

LP: Yeah. I was concerned about my age, I was gonna fit right in to whatever was going to happen, and I wasn't very happy about it.

TI: Oh, that you would have to end up in the military or the army.

LP: I knew it was coming because I wasn't very old, but I knew the war with Japan and Germany wasn't going to be over in a year or five minutes, it was going to go on for a while and I was right at that ripe age. I wasn't very happy about that because I didn't want to go to war.

TI: And so when you went to work that next day or next week, was there much talk about the war and what happened?

LP: No talk at all in the shipyard. I don't know why not, but there wasn't. All we did was build those liberty ships, and we built a lot of 'em.

TI: And so how long did you do that?

LP: What?

TI: In the shipyard, because eventually you went into the military service.

LP: I got drafted when I was there. I wouldn't enlist.

TI: And so when did they draft you, do you remember how quickly?

LP: I went to San Francisco for a physical and they took a look at you, and they do the same thing like when you go into a doctor's office. They weigh you and take your temperature and you're in. You're in the military after that.

TI: So a low bar in terms of how much health... so do you know when you joined the military? What year?

LP: I didn't join it, they drafted me.

TI: Or drafted.

LP: I guess '42. '42, I think.

TI: And then tell me a little bit, so after you're drafted and you go through the physical, then what happened?

LP: We went to Monterey to the Presidio, we were down there for a couple weeks, then we got shipped to Auburn, California, guard duty on the bridges and tunnels up there. From there we got transferred to Summit, and we pulled guard duty on all the bridges and tunnels on that mountain, on Highway 80.

TI: And when you're guarding, what were you guarding for?

LP: Somebody coming up there and blowing the bridge up.

TI: So you just stood watch over these...

LP: Eight hours a day, round the clock with a shotgun.

TI: And was there ever any...

LP: Nothing happened while we were there. They blew up one of the bridges after we left, because they had civilian guards up there.

TI: Oh, really?

LP: Up around 'Cisco or up in that area. The reason I know is because the Johnsons owned Kingville Lodge and we used to see 'em a lot. It was right next to, we were at Soda Springs Hotel, that's where we were stationed. Can you imagine being in the army and living in a hotel?

TI: Yeah, that sounds pretty good.

LP: Not bad, huh?

TI: It's beautiful country, right?

LP: Yeah. Well, anyway, we got to know the Johnsons real well. And so when Marge and I used to, when I got out of the service, and Marge and I used to go up to Reno, we'd always stop and visit with them. They had a couple of daughters that were my age, and they were the ones who were telling me about this blowing that bridge up.

TI: And so who blew up the bridge?

LP: Well, I don't know. She didn't know. It was right above their lodge, so that's why they knew it. It was right up the hill from them.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

TI: And then after that, where'd you go next?

LP: Well, you're talking about after I got out of the service?

TI: No, I'm sorry, still in the service. So you...

LP: Oh, okay. Well, when they had the riot at Tule Lake -- it wasn't really a riot, I don't know what the heck happened up there. Jim can tell you about that. They transferred us from Auburn to Tule Lake, stopped us... which I understand, I think I heard it from Jim, that they just did that to cause trouble because they were angry about what was going on and they just stirred up whatever, who knows? I don't know. But when I got there, there was nothing going on, it was over.

TI: Okay. Do you remember when they said, "Okay, you have to go to Tule Lake," what were you expecting? When you think about...

LP: Well, we thought there was a riot going on and we were gonna go up there to try to stop the riot. There was a riot, I kind of think it was like a controlled riot. And when we got there it was over. I'd never seen anything wrong up there. Everything... I pulled guard duty on those towers in the area and I never seen anything, nothing happened while I was there.

TI: And when you got there --

LP: But I didn't see Jim, but he was there.

TI: Yeah, Jim was there. When you got there, how much... what's the right word? How much interaction was there between the guards and the Japanese in the camps?

LP: Practically none. In fact, some of the Japanese girls used to come over to the towers where we're at to talk to us, and those guys tried to put a single wire fence about a hundred feet in so that they couldn't come and talk to us. I guess the military did it, I don't know.

TI: So why'd they do that?

LP: I still, to this day, I have no idea. There weren't, you know how that was, about getting the wrong information into the wrong hands. We were out there in the boonies, what information could we be doing? Those girls that we talked to were people we went to high school with. And so they'd come out there, they didn't have anything better to do either, and we'd visit with each other, or I was up on the tower and they were down on the ground. And then they stopped that when we left.

TI: So that's interesting. So did you actually someone that you went to school with or knew?

LP: I met one young fellow that I went to San Jose Tech with, and he lived in Berryessa. And I was pulling guard duty as they went to go on work details. And he went out, there was two lines, and he went out that line, and I called him and he looked back and he didn't recognize me because I was in a uniform and a helmet and he wasn't used to seeing me in that. And he kept right on going. I guess he figured, "What is he gonna do? What does he want me for?" especially knowing his name, you know. And then when I came back in I got him, then he realized. But I swore I was gonna go to Berryess and see him when I got out of the service, but guess what? Like everything else, never did get around to doing it. He's the only one I seen up there that I knew.

TI: And what was his reaction when he saw you?

LP: Surprised.

TI: And was it kind of like a happy kind of thing?

LP: Oh, sure, sure. We went to San Jose Tech together. I asked him how come he wasn't in the military, and he said something to do with his parents had control or whatever, I can't remember the whole deal. He was smart by staying out. I wished I could have did that. At least he isn't going to get shot at while he was there.

TI: I'm guessing that you were one of the few guards who actually knew Japanese Americans before the war.

LP: Definitely. There was a lot of them here in the Bay Area.

TI: Yeah, so you knew Japanese Americans.

LP: That's right.

TI: But the other guards, did they know...

LP: A lot of 'em didn't know. And they came from who knows in the United States, and sure, this war is on and they start hating people they don't even know. But we didn't do anything to 'em. There was control. There was control. We had officers and noncommissioned officers, they didn't abuse the people there. Life was not nice there, but they didn't, the military didn't abuse 'em. In fact, we had very little contact with 'em. We were pulling guard duty on the towers around the outside, so we didn't have contact with the people who were in there.

TI: Now were any of the guards surprised that you knew Japanese before the war, that you had this friend?

LP: You know what, I never heard anybody really talk about it. But yes, I did, I knew quite a lot of 'em. And I don't know, the people that I went to school with and so on were all good people, they were just hardworking and they were good to be with.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

TI: Now, when you were at Tule Lake, what was your, like your daily routine? What would be, like a typical day?

LP: Pulling guard duty.

TI: So what does that... so you wake up in the morning...

LP: And they had me scheduled to go out on these towers and spend all day out there. It was pretty boring, but what can you do?

TI: And you're standing or sitting in a chair?

LP: Yeah, you could sit, or the towers had, you could walk around the outside, and there was a... I can't even remember what kind of guns we had. I think all we had was, there was no mounted guns in the tower like a machine gun or anything, there wasn't anything like that. There was just the gun that we'd carry to go up there, like maybe a Thompson submachine gun or something. But we wouldn't be using that out of the tower. Even if somebody tried to break through the fences, we still wouldn't have shot him, at least I wouldn't. Because all you have to do is call in and they would have come out there with a jeep. There was no reason to kill anybody or shoot anybody. I wouldn't do it, and I don't think anybody else would. We probably didn't even need a gun up there, just had a telephone.

TI: Because if someone, there was nothing for them to go, I mean, it's just pretty...

LP: It's boonies out there. Where you gonna go? They can't go, they couldn't go anywhere. And there was a lot of lights at night on the tower and stuff, so if somebody tried to climb over the fences, they could, you could see 'em. It was nothing like the prison camp that I was in in Germany, I'll guarantee you that. You couldn't get out of that.

TI: Yeah, we're gonna get there because I want to talk about that whole experience, too. Just a few more questions about Tule Lake. When I interview people like Jimi and other people who were at Tule Lake --

LP: They know a lot more about the inside than I do.

TI: Right. But they said there were times when the MPs, or the guards, every once in a while would come through, the military would come through and they would search all the area?

LP: Once while I was there. One time.

TI: Can you explain how that worked? What were you looking for?

LP: The first thing that happened before we went into the compound was you're going in with no money and nothing in your pockets, and you better be coming out with nothing in your pockets. That was from our officers. And when you're in the military, when they tell you that, you better do what they tell you, because if you don't you're gonna be in big trouble. We were looking for knives and guns. There were all kinds of things in those drawers. There was stacks of money in rolls, lot of valuable stuff that belonged to the people that lived there. But I didn't find any guns, they found a few knives. It took us one day to do it all. They took a lot of sake out of there that day and they put it in trailers along the fence in our compound. Some of those guys snuck over there at night and drank it, and boy, what a bunch of sick guys the next day. It was crazy.

TI: Any other stories about Tule Lake before we move on? Anything else that you remember?

LP: Before?

TI: Yeah, or during Tule Lake. Anything else that you could think about that you want to share?

LP: Not really. There wasn't much going on up there.

TI: Now when you were there, do you recall... Jimi told me about stories where early in the morning they would do their exercises?

LP: Well, the GIs do that, too.

TI: But they had the, they shaved their heads and they would do exercises. Did you see any of that? That might have been later on.

LP: Well, you know, I got transferred to the 106th Infantry in Indiana, and I wasn't there all the time. And I wasn't there when it started, and I wasn't there when it was over, but I was there somewhere in the middle. But no, I didn't see 'em do anything like that. I was never in a detail to do that.

TI: I think later on --

LP: He would know because he was in there.

TI: Right.

LP: I wasn't in anything like that.

TI: Now besides kind of the watching and things like this, did you guys ever have to deal with any, like, criminal activity? Like if someone, I don't know, any, like disturbances amongst the people in camp?

LP: The only thing I ever seen is they had a couple small compounds that were fenced in there and they had several big guys in there. And I don't know what they did, but sometimes we had to move 'em from one area to the other. But there was no contact or anything like that. These guys were really large, for Japanese they were huge. They were a lot bigger than Americans, too. And we knew that a lot of 'em were probably well-trained, and they'd tell you, "Stay away from 'em. You've got a gun," and so we did. Just moved 'em from one place to the other and that was it. But there was never any physical contact that I ever saw.

TI: Interesting, okay.

LP: The shaving their heads and stuff, it's possible, but I didn't see it.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

TI: So let's move on to, you said you were assigned to the 106th?

LP: I went to the 106th Infantry in Indiana, Camp Atterbury.

TI: Now, when you think about... let me ask one question before we go. In terms of, you're in the army, was being at Tule Lake doing guard duty, was that something that you wanted to do or did you want to go fight in the war?

LP: No, I didn't want to go fight. I wasn't happy about being in Tule Lake, and I wasn't happy about what we had to do there. But I would have rather stayed there than go on to Indiana. I would have rather stayed up at the Summit. And even though we did have to pull a lot of hours of guard duty, but we had a good place to sleep, good food, couldn't beat it. The MPs were way better than the infantry.

TI: And so how did the army decide to move you?

LP: I don't know. All of a sudden on the bulletin board one day there's my name, and you're getting transferred, and that was it. Of course, they transferred mostly all the young guys, the guys that are like twenty, nineteen, twenty years old. And then we got transferred to the infantry.

TI: And so when you did that, was that additional training that you...

LP: Oh, yeah.

TI: So this was like infantry training. So tell me about that, so where did you train?

LP: When or where?

TI: Where.

LP: Right in Camp Atterbury. That's a huge military base there, a lot of acreage. That's a big place.

TI: And then after you were done training there, then where do you go?

LP: Then we got shipped to Europe.

TI: And where did you land in Europe?

LP: England or Scotland actually. And then we went over on the Apotenia, which probably was the largest ship in the world before the war, before the Queen Mary and Elizabeth, and it was almost the same size. And it went over by itself, no support.

TI: That's what I was gonna ask if you had, like I hear about these guys, sort of like armadas almost, just all these ships and destroyers...

LP: We went over alone.

TI: Now why was that? Because you guys were really valuable.

LP: Well, one reason is is that ship could go like forty-two knots, and the German subs could go only about twenty. But if a German ship knew where you were coming, they'd sit there with a submarine and sit there with the engines dead, and you could go right over the top of 'em and wouldn't even know it, and they'd come up and torpedo you. But we didn't get, nothing happened when I went over. Took seven days.

TI: Do you recall, did you guys zigzag a lot as you went across?

LP: Yeah, and they do kind of like a W all the way over. And I don't know what good that would do, but nothing happened.

TI: Any memories on that seven-day trip to Europe?

LP: One memory is we hit a storm over there, and this ship was like ten stories high, and the water was coming over the top of it. You couldn't be on the front half of the top deck, it'd wash you off the deck. That's the only excitement we had on the way over. The rest of it was just, that's it.

TI: But the ship is so large, though, it probably went...

LP: It was a big ship.

TI: So it probably was more stable than some of the other smaller ships that went across.

LP: Well, I don't know. I came back on a German ship after we were liberated from the prison camp, and I came back on a German liberty ship, it was a cruise ship. And we didn't hit any storms, and that thing actually rode better than that big ship.

TI: How interesting.

LP: We came back probably about fifteen or sixteen ships to build it coming back.

TI: Yeah, because you hear a lot of stories about seasick and all that, it was pretty rough.

LP: It was quiet.

TI: Okay, so you go to Scotland, and then what happens next?

LP: Then we went to England, and then we got, we got shipped across, I don't know what kind of ships we were on, but we went to France.

TI: And you say your... so most of your fellow soldiers at this point from Indiana? You said this is the Indiana 106th unit?

LP: You know, there was twenty thousand troops in that division and they were from everywhere, you know.

TI: Wow, so it was huge.

LP: But they didn't all go to the front lines, some of 'em were in reserve and I don't know exactly what the story is there.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Okay, so now you're in France, and then what happens?

LP: We went up into Belgium and to the front lines. When we got captured we were up about, at the Siegfried Line in Germany, and we were running low on ammunition and we sent our trucks back for ammo and they never came back. That's when the Germans broke through there, Battle of the Bulge. And that's where we were at. They came right through where we were at.

TI: And so they captured your whole unit?

LP: That's right. And one afternoon, I was in the 105 Howitzer Company, short barrel Howitzers, and one afternoon... the road was just like the Sierras, the Ardennes Forest. And the Germans brought everything they had and they come down into Belgium. We had a big gas supply and stuff down there, and I don't know why they made a push over that, but they couldn't go to the other side because the tanks were sitting over there. And anyway, this road came down, those two high ridges and a river running down the middle. The road came down like this, crossed the river, and went up the other side probably a mile and a half. And were just over the mountain, just over the hill from 'em and they didn't know we were there. And we had that road zeroed in with our 105s. Well, when the first tank hit the top over here, we put 750 rounds on 'em. There were a lot of Germans that didn't kill our Americans after that.

TI: Because you had this great position to see all this right there. In some ways they were...

LP: If you were up in the front observing you could see it, but the guys that were firing the gun like myself, you couldn't see it because it was over a little hill. But we kept changing, we'd go up and observe for a while and then set the guns in and go back and work on the guns. And took all afternoon, but boy, we put a lot of tanks and a lot of their artillery and stuff out of business that day.

TI: But then eventually you ran out --

LP: They'd have hung every one of us if they'd have known we did it.

TI: Because what happened was then you ran out of ammunition.

LP: That's right, that's why we got captured.

TI: And so could you literally see them coming?

LP: Yeah, we seen 'em coming down, they cross the river and went up the other side. And as they were going over the top, we had our guns zeroed in on that and these are big 105s. All the way down the road and all the way up the other side, boy, we destroyed that outfit.

TI: But then eventually when you ran out of ammunition, they could then just come --

LP: Well, they were stuck there for several days. They had to move all that equipment off the road. It was a mess, big mess. The Germans would have killed everybody involved if they could have, but they didn't know who did it. So that was the end of our war.

TI: Well, so when you ran out of ammunition, I guess one question, why didn't you just disperse or leave?

LP: Where are you gonna go? We were way up in the mountains up there, and you couldn't go with the trucks because there were still a lot of Germans up there. They were, that whole force was coming down over those mountains. And they just stopped us and we couldn't do anything. They had a lot of guns and a lot of bullets and we didn't have any. And they wouldn't mind killing you either, believe me.

TI: So how many men were with you when you surrendered?

LP: Probably about a hundred.

TI: And while this was happening, what were you thinking? I mean, here you had killed a lot of Germans, took out a lot of tanks and artillery...

LP: Yeah, but the ones that we killed over there weren't the ones that captured us. They didn't know we did it.

TI: Okay, so it was like a, so you surrendered to like a different German unit.

LP: Yeah. Well, we moved out of there the minute we got, ran out of ammunition, and we got in our trucks and we moved out of there into another area and then that's when they came in with machine guns and stuff and we couldn't do anything. We had guns, but no ammunition. So that was the end of that story.

TI: Now, so it seems like kind of a... I guess the term "snafu," the fact that they couldn't get you more ammunition? I mean, to leave you guys there without ammunition, what happened?

LP: We got captured and we went back into Germany and almost starved to death.

TI: But then why didn't the Americans, why couldn't they give you... why didn't they plan better to give you more ammunition? I mean, what happened?

LP: Well, because it was very stormy up there at the time.

TI: So they couldn't air drop it?

LP: And the Americans didn't know the Germans were coming through there. They thought they were gonna go down through the lower area where a lot of our military was over there with tanks and stuff. So they knew that, and they decided to come over the mountains, over the Ardennes Forest. They came through there and the Americans didn't have a clue that they were coming through. And our planes couldn't spot 'em because you couldn't, on account of the clouds and stuff. The clouds were right on the ground up there in the mountains. And so our air force couldn't help to know what was going on.

TI: But then weren't you guys in, like, radio contact with headquarters or something?

LP: Oh, yeah. By then it was too late. They were on their way down with tons of guns and ammunition. In fact, that was the last, that was the biggest major battle in the war and it was the last major battle.

TI: And you were right there.

LP: All you ever got for that was some stars.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

TI: And so you and about a hundred other men were captured?

LP: Oh, there was more than that in the whole area. And the group I was in was about a hundred guys, but there was a lot more 106th Infantry, but we were scattered over like a twenty-mile front.

TI: Now when you were captured, were you worried for your life when that happened?

LP: Was I worried about my life? You bet I was worried about my life every minute I was up there. They wouldn't mind killing you. We killed them and they killed you back. That's what war's all about, there's got to be a better way.

TI: So when you surrendered, how did they treat you? What happened next?

LP: Well, we marched back towards Germany for three days and three nights. And then they put us in boxcars, and when we went back to... Bad Orb was the name of the little town we were in in Germany. And we were in, like, three big warehouses up there in the mountains and the snow. That's where the prison camp was at.

TI: And what were they, kind of the living conditions? In a warehouse, what was that like?

LP: A warehouse. It had one forty-watt light up in the middle of a building that was about a hundred feet long. And bunkbeds, no mattress, straw. Your toilets were ditches that they dug outside, that was it. Ten months over there, or about ten months.

TI: And in that warehouse, were they all Americans or different Allied...

LP: Well, in the area where I was at Americans, but there was another one next to us that were Polish or some other race, I don't know what they were. But they were all Americans where I was at. Probably all 106th Infantry, I'm not sure.

TI: And so you said ten months you were there.

LP: Something like that.

TI: But it was a long time.

LP: From the latter part of '44 into the middle of '45.

TI: Now once you were captured and in this prisoner of war camp, at that point, did you ever fear for your life, when you were there?

LP: Yeah, when you weigh 160 pounds when you go there and you weigh 96 when you get out of there, I guess you fear for your life. You think you're gonna starve to death. And there's guys that died right alongside of me. They just didn't wake up the next morning. They died of hunger. They'd be laying there and everybody's getting up, and they wouldn't get up. We lost a few of 'em, not a lot of 'em. But everybody was, the bigger guys were worse, I guess it took more food. It was worse for them. We got one canteen cup half full of potato soup, and two slices of black German bread once a day. That was at eleven o'clock every day and that was it. People say you can't live on potatoes alone, but that's not true.

TI: And what did you do the rest of the day? So eleven o'clock you were fed...

LP: Nothing. Nothing. It would have nice if we could have had enough to eat and went out and did something like the Americans did with the German prisoners. Like when I came back I pulled guard duty on the German prisoners at Vandenberg. Well, they go out on work details. They're working the laundry and all around. But they got fed regular meals and they wore our clothes. So it was not good being there, but it was nothing like what we had to put up with.

TI: So when you say do "nothing," what's that like?

LP: Nothing.

TI: You mean you just sit there?

LP: No books, nothing. And their prison was, they had about a twenty foot high barbed wire fence, and then they had about twenty feet beyond that and another one, and then everything in the middle was barbed wire. I don't know how the hell they ever put it all in there. But if you wanted to escape from that, you were going to have to cut through twenty feet of barbed wire rolled. And we didn't have any pliers or anything, couldn't have did it. And besides, if you went out there up in those mountains, how long could you last without any food? We were stuck.

TI: And in terms of organization within the camp, were there, was there like a hierarchy? Was there like some prisoners who were in more control or anything like that?

LP: There was one German guard that would come through there, and I can't believe this guy carried a rifle with him. He's in there with all these people that... why would you carry a gun in a place like that? I mean, we could have taken the gun away from him without any trouble at all, but why would you carry a gun? But they did not -- in our camps here, if we went into the compounds where the German prisoners were, we didn't carry a gun. I don't know. I guess wars are crazy.

TI: When you were in Europe, at any point, did you ever hear about the Japanese American soldiers?

LP: No.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

TI: And so after ten months, the war ends in Europe. And so tell me how they...

LP: We were out of there before the war was over. The 44th Division came through there and liberated us.

TI: Oh, so they liberated you, okay. And tell me your thinking, your thoughts, when you were being liberated. And you're nearly starving to death...

LP: I'm glad to get the hell out of here, that's what my thoughts were.

TI: So how did they, how do you recover from that? Do they bring you to hospitals with special food, or what happened next?

LP: We were liberated by the 44th Division, they put us in trucks and they hauled us down to what the Germans called a airport, which was just a street, no buildings or anything. Lot of planes, destroyed planes laying around. They had a fire going, and they had showers. And so you go up to the fire, you take all your clothes off and you throw it in the fire. Then you get in the shower and they've got a guy there with a watch, and he's watching you to see how long you were gonna scrub. And then at the end of it they had a guy with powder to spray in your hair because we had lice. And that was it. Then we got on, couple days later we got on a, I think it was a C-47 or something, a thirty-passenger military plane, and they flew us from there back to France, Camp Lucky Strike, France. Because right there was the channel between England and France. It was actually a city, a tent city. That's how big it was. And that's where we got... well, we had clean clothes, so we were pretty much there until we got shipped back to the U.S. by ship. We stopped in England, from France to England and then we got on this other ship. I can't remember exactly how we traveled from France to England on the way back. I think it was... I can't remember it.

TI: But I'm surprised that when you returned to the United States that you weren't discharged. That they...

LP: I was gaining a pound a day. By the time I got back to the States, I weighed 140.

TI: Weighed 140 pounds. But the military --

LP: That was about a month and a half.

TI: But the military didn't discharge you at this point?

LP: Well, we went down to Santa Barbara and we had a hotel there. And we were there for a whole month, and we had our wives or whatever with us. We spent a month there. All kinds of food, music, really luxury, you know.

TI: So this is like special treatment for prisoners of war to help them...

LP: Right, right. And then from there, we got transferred to a hospital near Santa Barbara there somewhere and I spent a month there, didn't do nothing. Then I got transferred to Vandenberg, and that's where I spent the rest of my... I was transferred back into a Military Police unit. I was in three Military Police units, one in Auburn, one in Tule Lake, and one in Vandenberg. And that was the easiest military life I had all the way through was Vandenberg. That was, I had a Class A pass and I had to, I could be off post anytime that I wasn't on duty, and I was on duty four hours every other day. Plenty of food to eat. We had German cooks, by the way, which were way better than the American cooks. I hate to say that, but that's the way it was. And we finally got discharged.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

TI: And after your discharge, do you come back to San Jose?

LP: Yeah.

TI: How did the war change you? When you think about, graduating from high school in San Jose, and then several years later coming back to San Jose after the war, how did...

LP: I went to work for a new car dealership and their body shop as an apprentice body man.

TI: No, but in terms as you as a person, were you changed? Do you think you changed very much? That if someone saw you before the war...

LP: It was over, and let's go on to our life ahead of us. Let's go to work, raise our families or whatever you do. It never bothered me at all. I know I read and see a lot this stuff about these guys that are over there now, and Vietnam, and I don't know. I don't know what... I went through probably as much as most of 'em, but it didn't affect me mentally.

TI: Yeah, that's what I wanted to ask. Because they talk a lot about Post Traumatic Stress syndrome, and here you were in a situation where, heavy fighting, you thought you might get killed, you're a prisoner of war, so that was pretty stressful.

LP: We were there to do a job and we did it. And that was it as far as I was concerned. It didn't bother me at all. After I got out of there, I was fine. I see this and I read it in the paper all the time. It's pretty bad, they're killing each other, huh? How about this guy that just shot... something goes wrong up there. Is it a different war than we fought?

TI: Well, that's what I was asking. Did you see other, maybe other soldiers go through that that you would watch? Like maybe in the prison camp in Germany...

LP: No problems. I don't know. I don't know what's going on now, but nothing happened then.

TI: Okay. So now back in San Jose, I'm just curious, did you see any of your Japanese American friends after the war? I was just curious --

LP: Yeah, Jim. [Laughs]

TI: Did you ever share, did you tell them that you were a guard at Tule Lake, at one of the camps?

LP: He's the one that told Channel 11, "I know a guy that was pulling guard duty up there." [Laughs] They were looking for someone that was in the military. They had all kinds of Japanese Americans that they could talk to and so on, but for some reason or other they couldn't come up with GIs. Because the GIs over there were from all over the United States. They leave and there's no... I don't know if they could trail 'em or track 'em or what, but he's the one that said, "Well, know a guy," so that's how come they came up here. Because I didn't have a clue about what they were doing, and then they come up here and started talking to me about it. That's how that started.

TI: No, because it is, I don't know, I think you're maybe the third GI that we've interviewed, guard. I've interviewed hundreds --

LP: There's two other guys here in the valley?

TI: No, there's one up in Portland I interviewed, and someplace else, I can't remember.

LP: There's not that many that pulled guard duty there evidently. There was close to, what, couple thousand soldiers up there? I don't think there was that many. Maybe... but I didn't see that many.

TI: Now, when Japanese Americans find out that you were a guard, what kind of reaction did you get from them? Like from Jimi and others, did they...

LP: You mean afterwards?

TI: Yeah, afterwards.

LP: We were still the same as we always were before. I wasn't pulling guard duty because I wanted to, and they weren't in prison camp because they wanted to be there either. So it was a mutual thing. I never thought anything about it. You had to do it when I was there. There was never any being mad or mean at each other.

TI: Okay, good. So here's my final question I have written, and there might be some others, but I found out that you're a supporter of this museum, the Japanese American Museum of San Jose. Why is it important for you to support this museum?

LP: You really want to know?

TI: Yeah.

LP: No, I don't have a big reason like you'd think. This guy Tim who, you know, he takes care of a lot of my assets. And I have had times where it was either Uncle Sam or donate it. So I'm not really a nice guy, I just... I donate, but he said that this was a good place to invest in. And it was either these people or Uncle Sam, and Uncle Sam will just start another damn war. I won't give 'em an extra dime for what they do.

TI: But you could donate to other nonprofits, it doesn't have to be this one.

LP: Yeah, I do, I know. But he's the one that told me what they were doing. And he explained to me about your organization. He's actually the guy you want to pin a star on.

TI: Okay. So is there anything else that you want to talk about in terms of World War II that comes to mind that maybe I didn't ask about?

LP: I don't know. I think what I ought to do is I ought to bring you that book that Beth wrote. We went, it took four months to write that book, and her and I spent a lot of time in [inaudible], and she had her computer and we were getting all this information and she wrote this book. It's not very, it's not a very big book. You can read it all in one day. And it's got a lot of information about... she put it into words a lot better than I could because she could write somewhat. And she took all this information and made it so it's interesting to read. But it was agreed that we wouldn't put anything in there that was not a fact. When we started, it had to be facts. But she took it, and I don't know, maybe you want to read it.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So let's go back to when you were in the German prison camp, so World War II, and while you were there, I guess you saw something really interesting.

LP: We heard this noise coming, and it's all sounded like... well, you wouldn't know, but when a bomb, when they let go of a bomb on a plane and it's coming down, it whistles. It makes a whining noise. Well, we heard this coming, but we were up in the mountains. And we heard it coming and we went out to see what the heck it was. And then these three German fighter planes came over and they had big German cross on the side of 'em and no propellers. We had never heard of a jet. We'd never heard of anything... we couldn't figure out how these damn planes could fly without a propeller. So that's the story he's trying to tell you.

TI: And were the jets going faster than --

LP: No, they were going slower. They were three, and they were kind of alongside of each other, and they were just, I think they were new and they were just out testing 'em. They weren't trying to fight with anybody, they'd just fly 'em around getting used to 'em, I suppose. When we seen these three planes coming right over the top of us... and that's another thing. A German plane, fighter plane comes through there and two Americans were behind him, they were trying to get him. And they let two bursts go right in the prison camp where we're at and killed forty of our guys.

TI: So these were American --

LP: American planes that were firing on a German fighter plane. And I don't think the American pilots knew that we were there because we were in the mountains and trees and they were real low. And this German might have known and came over the prison camp intentionally, I don't know. But anyway, they fired and they killed forty guys, forty of our prisoners. Those guys that fired on us probably never know it ever happened.

TI: That's tragic.

LP: So maybe we didn't need that part of the story.

TI: No, that's actually a powerful story.

LP: And then they put 'em all on a wagon they had there, and they were stacked like cords of wood. I came around a building and there's all these guys laying dead on this wagon. I just happened to be in the right place. And one more thing. I went through all this, and I come back with a little scar on my knee, that's all I got. See that scar? That's all I got.

TI: And how'd you get that scar?

LP: I jumped through a barbed wire fence down a bank, and they were shooting at me, and I jumped, dove over a bank and I went through a barbed fence and the barbed wire cut me. They wanted to give me a...

TI: A Purple Heart?

LP: A Purple Heart for that up here at Vandenberg -- not Vandenberg, Camp Beale, and I said, "You don't give Purple Hearts for barbed wire fence cutting you." They would have gave it to me if I would have accepted it, but that's how the guys got Purple Hearts that were with me, guys that got wounded. I didn't think that you should get a Purple Heart for a barbed wire fence.

TI: That's a good story, too.

LP: I got enough stars up there, though, from battle, but not from being wounded. I didn't get, I was lucky.

TI: So during that battle where there's that valley, that's when you got stars for that action?

LP: It was for the Ardennes Forest, Battle of the Bulge, the whole battle. I didn't know that, I really didn't know what you were gonna do or I could have brought... it's in a showcase, I have it in a...

<End Segment 13> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

TI: So which awards did you get?

LP: There's a list of 'em, eight of 'em.

TI: So tell me which ones you --

LP: I can't tell you, I don't know. I could have brought it with me, I have a list of it.

TI: What's the highest one?

LP: The highest one is the Gold Star. It's the fourth highest that they gave out during World War II. In other words, there's three stars that are higher than the one I got.

TI: So you had, what, the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross...

LP: We had those, but this one is because of the battle.

TI: Okay. And for what action did you, what did you do to get that star?

LP: Actually, we were both, I was in the 105 Howitzer and I was also in a rifle company up there. We were fighting for our lives up there. It wasn't like normally you'd be in the 105 and that's all you'd do is be right behind the guys that were on the ground. But we had to do both because we were fighting for our life. We were trying to keep those guys off of us. So it was a little different than what we were trained for.

TI: Good. Any other...

Off camera: Yeah, there was one more thing. When you came back when you were pulling guard duty, didn't one of the German soldiers make you an airplane, you've got at the house?

TI: So this in Vanderberg?

LP: Yeah, right.

TI: Okay, so let's go to Vanderberg, you're guard duty, German prisoners of war...

LP: They've gone in and out, we used to talk to each other all the time. Most of 'em spoke English, and they were about the same age as I was, about twenty. And this one gave me this plane that he had made. He started making it in Colorado and then he finished it in California, and I still have it at home. I have it in a plastic, fiberglass cage that it's in, a box. And I still have it, and I wish I somehow could have had that guy's name, I'd like to take a picture of it today and mail it to him.

TI: So why did he give it to you?

LP: I don't know.

TI: It sounds like it was a lot of work...

LP: I don't know. I was the sergeant on the main gate there. And I don't know, just talked to him. We got along fine. They were, they liked the United States, they didn't want to go back. They said, "Our homes are destroyed, our families are dead back there, and we don't really have anything to go back for." And they liked it here because it was easy. It was easy for them. I don't know how he did this; it's a Stuka, dive bomber, German dive bomber he made. And he decided that he wanted to give it to me, and so I took it. I still have it.

TI: That's a good story, too. Anything else? Well, so Larry, thank you so much for the interview.

LP: You're welcome.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.