<Begin Segment 9>
TI: Let's now jump back to December 7, 1941, and describe for me what happened to you on that day and how you heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
SK: Yeah. Well, as I told you, I was working in Oahu.
TI: That's right. Let's talk a little bit about that first. You went to Oahu to work in the defense?
SK: Defense project.
TI: Tell me a little bit about that what you were doing.
SK: Well, I was hired as a carpenter helper. I was a carpenter with the plantation, but as far as building construction is concerned, I wasn't too, too much up on it, you see, so I said, "I can help as a carpenter." So they hired me as a carpenter helper (at) fifty cents an hour, you know? That was big money in those days. [Laughs] So anyway, we built those barracks, three-, four-story-high barracks, concrete. So what I did was help the carpenters strip the forms. Those days not those brick building, but poured concrete so you need forms, and those -- after this particular floor was completed -- we took off all the nails and carried the forms up to the next stage. So it was really a heavy job, very hard. The ply boards are soaked with water so this is the reason those 4 x 8 ply boards were real heavy, but we managed. We were young those days. We managed to take it up and the carpenters put it together and built it up.
TI: Was there a lot of construction before the war started for the Defense?
SK: Yes, yes. I guess America knew about the coming war so construction was good. It was good money, too, so this is the reason from working as a handyman with the brewer, sake brewer company, I took this chance in coming to Honolulu. Well, primarily it was to (...) go to school, one of the business schools over here. That's why I left (home) early summer, work through the summer, earn some money, and use that as tuition to go to school, business school.
TI: And what year was this?
SK: This was 1941.
TI: Okay, so right before the war started.
SK: That's right.
<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.