<Begin Segment 23>

KT: Yeah, and then they sent me to, they said they have an assignment for me, so they took me to the NYK Building. And I thought somebody's gonna be there, and it was only myself and one, one corporal (with a), Carbine, he's supposed to be my bodyguard. And they all left. I'm supposed to clean that building out because ATIS is coming up from Manila on the 18th, they said. I have to get that all clean, everything emptied out.

TI: So this was gonna be a building for the MIS? To, to, and...

KT: Yeah. Six story building, just paper all over. They had records all stacked in the hallway and everything. I had to move it all out.

TI: And just, to be thrown away? Or what happened to these papers?

KT: I don't know. It was up to them. The NYK probably stored 'em someplace, I don't know.

TI: Now, NYK, what kind of company or...

KT: Nihon Yusen Kaisha. It's a steamship company, Nippon Yusen Kaisha.

TI: So essentially the occupation force was taking over the building, so they had to leave, and so you took all their stuff out.

KT: Yeah.

TI: Now, did they have workers to help you? Or did you --

KT: Yeah, they had, gee, they had about two hundred people and a few trucks. Some of the trucks were really broken down, but they never had much food there. Getting 'em to work was another thing. We had a lot of bodies, but, but we got it done. We got everything cleaned. And the officer in charge told me to keep, "Any safe you can't pick up," he says, "leave. And any desk or table wider than your arms spread," he said, "leave. And the rest of the stuff, out." And the six, I think it was a six-four, we put in a mess hall. Then I left that, NYK, and they told me to report to the Daiichi Building where there was General MacArthur's headquarters, to the custodian's office. And I went there, and they weren't being, really cleaning. You can't blame 'em because they're tired and this and that, and no food, but the commandant called me in and said, "I'm gonna call the building manager and I want to really tear into him." So he said, "Use all the gutter language and cuss words you know." So I started in on him, and the colonel says, "Yeah, I think we're gettin' through to him." [Laughs] And then that guy that he chewed out, that happened to be one of the architects for the Daiichi Building.

TI: I'm curious, what were you chewing him out for? I mean, what was the...

KT: Because he's not getting the building clean.

TI: Like fast enough. It's going too slow.

KT: Fast enough, yeah.

TI: 'Cause this was gonna be headquarters, general headquarters.

KT: General MacArthur's headquarters.

TI: And so they...

KT: So the following night I said, "Nobody goes home." They said all the shosen, train, streetcar and stuff, everything was gonna stop at eight. I said, "I don't care. Nobody goes home." And that sort of rubbed them the wrong way, but I said, "You can't go home until we get this place clean." And then I talked to the mess sergeant, and mess sergeants in the army always had something to trade and he had, he said he had some 10 and 1 rations. It's... but he couldn't give me any 10 and 1, but he said, "I'll give you some K rations." K rations come in a little box like this [shows size], breakfast, lunch and supper, or dinner. And so he gave me a whole mess of those, and I give 'em out to the guys, and I opened 'em up and explained to 'em what's in there. There's a little hardtack, and there's a few cigarettes, and there's some, I think it was like a O Henry bar or Baby Ruth bar, can of plum pudding, and some powdered coffee and cocoa. It's a neat little package, a lot of food. And that made all the difference in the world.

TI: So now they were happy.

KT: Yeah, yeah. They really worked, and next night they come to volunteer. "If you can get us that keitai shokuryo," he says, "we'll work tonight too." And I said, "No, no. No, no, we got the work done." But that was really something. Later on, they said, "Hey, you could've got in trouble for that." [Laughs]

TI: But you had to get the work done.

KT: Yeah.

TI: You know, I'm curious, during, you were there kind of during that transition, and I'm curious if you ever heard any, like, stories or rumors about maybe possible treasures that the Japanese were hiding or anything like that. That, here they were, a conquering sort of force in all these different countries, and whether or not they ever were hiding any of that or any, like the Philippines or in Japan?

KT: No, I didn't hear any of that. I knew a guy named Kume, he was the, Kume was a, he authored a book of, encyclopedia of gems, and he became the appraiser in -- and at the Bank of Japan all these Japanese had donated treasures and stuff for the war effort, and he was the one that went there to appraise these, all sorts of pearls and diamonds and whatever. Yeah, but I never heard of anybody hiding anything.

TI: Or I'm wondering about the, more of the Japanese government. Here they were potentially stockpiling a lot of these treasures, especially after they conquer another country, if they, if they were...

KT: I don't know. They might've been, but I have no idea on that.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.