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TI: So let's go to December 7, 1941. Do you remember that day, or can you tell me what you did that day?

KT: I, one guy came, showed up and he said, "Hey, take me," he worked at Pacific National Lumber and he said he wanted a ride up there. And he said something about the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, so I said, "What?" And of course, then we got a paper and I read the paper, and it says something about there's gonna be, war's gonna be declared on Japan, etcetera, etcetera. So I gave him a ride up to this Pacific National 'cause he worked up there in that lumber. And I don't know, after that, we must've just worked for the railroad for another month or so and then they canned us all.

TI: All the Japanese workers.

KT: Yeah. That's the funny thing, they canned all the Niseis, but my dad kept working.

TI: Really? That would be, was he working for the railroad or for a contractor?

KT: No, for the railroad.

TI: For the railroad.

KT: Yeah, he was cleaning cars and things like that.

TI: That's, because I always thought they, they fired all the --

KT: I think maybe they were there such a long time they sort of...

TI: Or was it the nature of the work? I mean, if, were any of the Isseis left working the tracks or, like fixing the tracks? Or were they, like your dad was cleaning freight cars, I can see where they might say, "Well, someone could sabotage the ties or something that could cause a derailment or something." I was just curious if...

KT: I don't know. They, anyway, I guess they weren't sure what they were gonna do, and then about a month later they said, "We're gonna..." what did they call it? "We're running out of work." Which was an excuse, I guess.

TI: I want to go back to December 7, 1941. Do you recall, like, the reaction of your parents when they heard about the fact that the United States and Japan were gonna be at war?

KT: Well, they were mostly worried about Takeshi, the older brother, second brother.

TI: So tell me why they were worried about Takeshi.

KT: 'Cause he was drafted in November and he was stationed in Fort Warren, Wyoming, so he was drafted before the war started.

TI: Well, how about Satoshi?

KT: Yeah, Satoshi?

TI: Satoshi.

KT: Yeah, he was drafted February of '42. That was another kind of weird thing, because a lot of the Niseis were being given the convenience of the government discharge because of the war, because they were Japanese, but here my brother Satoshi is, February the 2nd he was drafted. And so we were discussing that and one guy said, "Yeah," says, "The Kent draft board, probably they had a quota to send, and guys saw all these hakujin names and said, 'Hey, here's a guy, let's send him.'" [Laughs] Yeah, so they sent Shadow, Satoshi.

TI: So I don't quite get that. Why would they, they thought that Satoshi's name looked...

KT: Because they, that would keep them from selecting one of the hakujin boys that they knew.

TI: But they, 'cause they, it was a numbers game. They had to send, like, so many.

KT: They had a quota to fill and they filled it with... so then we were wondering, all these guys, like at Fort Lewis they were given the convenience of government discharge, and here he was working in Seattle at the time, so he went down to the armory and they swore him in and they sent him to Arkansas, Camp Joseph Robinson, Arkansas.

TI: Now, during that time, were very many other Japanese being drafted at the same time Satoshi was?

KT: I don't know. I don't know.

TI: Yeah, it's kind of interesting because it's different in different locales, I guess depends on the local draft board.

KT: I didn't think they were taking any Japanese because they were releasing so many from the draft. But then I knew a Seattle boy, Junso, Junso Tsuchiya, now he volunteered when the war started and he was, they took him.

TI: 'Cause I've interviewed others who tried to volunteer and they were, they were...

KT: Yeah, they wouldn't take 'em.

TI: They wouldn't take 'em, yeah. So again, it's probably like a localized decision.

KT: Yeah, I was surprised that Junso was taken, which, the way I found this out was every time they would pay at Camp Savage, payroll, you'd go by rank, but the, Junso was a PFC and the first guy to get paid was Junso Tsuchiya.

TI: And you knew him, so you always said, "How come you get paid?" [Laughs]

KT: Yeah, and he said, "Because I'm regular army." And I said, "How is it you're regular army?" He said, "Because when the war started I volunteered and they, I enlisted," and he said, "They gave me the regular army serial number." So regular army was paid first, and then all these draftees.

TI: Interesting.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.