<Begin Segment 19>

TI: Well, so you mentioned sea stories, so after you graduate from high school, what did you do?

JK: I joined the navy. [Interruption] So I shot a letter to my mother and said, "Dear Mom, you have to sign for me because I'm underage." And I explained to her that if I joined the navy I can go to college. Two years in the navy gets you four years of college, so that was, that was good news for her that I was thinking of going to college.

TI: Now, why the navy? Most Niseis joined the army and not the navy. Why navy?

JK: Okay, the way I understand it was, remember I told you about this couple that was, the husband was a chef at Broadmoor Hotel? The wife of that couple had a kid brother, and as I understood it, on January of 1946 the navy lifted the ban of Japanese Americans belonging to the navy, so he joined the navy, he went to boot camp, came back, and I just happened to meet him casually. I says, "What are you doing?" He said, "Well, I joined the navy, man. Go see the world." So I said, "I tell you, that sounds good to me." So that's how I ended up going to the navy.

TI: And was there any, I guess, recruitment of you to join, like the Military Intelligence Service?

JK: No.

TI: 'Cause at this point they were looking for Niseis because of the occupation. They really wanted people who were bilingual to help with that. But there was no --

JK: No. And of course, I flunked Nihon gakko, so I had none of that, so no, I just said, "Hey, I'll just join the navy and act like I know what I'm doing."

TI: So you join the navy, and at that time, the navy, there were many in the navy that were very anti Japanese, especially after Pearl Harbor and, and the World War II.

JK: Oh yeah, yeah.

TI: In the navy, did you have, did you come up with anti Japanese sort of feelings?

JK: Not so much anti Japanese, but anti peasant class. When I got out of boot camp, then they assign you to duty, so I'm in this line and so then everybody's in the line and I'm with all my buddies that we're in boot camp with. And so come to me and, "Okay, we're gonna put you aboard da da da, destroyer da da da, and you're gonna be a steward." And I said, "What's a steward?" And they said, "Well, you'll do duty in the kitchen, KP, and then you'll be a waiter in the officers' ward." And I said, "I didn't join the navy to be no coolie in the damn kitchen or serve people." He says, "Okay, smartass, we'll make you a deck ape." And I says, "I don't," I said, "What's a deck ape?" "Well, you'll find out." And so I became a deck ape. Now, what a deck ape is, like in the marines if you're a grunt, or if you're in the army, you do everything that nobody else will do, okay? Aboard ship, you load the ammunition, you load all the food -- on your shoulders, by the way -- you get up at five every morning, you scrub the deck. You do all the menial chores that no other person will do. It's the lowest level of servitude.

TI: So in some ways, being a steward would've been a lot easier than --

JK: Are you kidding? I would've gotten in the front of the chow line. In fact, and later on I used to laugh, I said, "You guys eat better than we are." No, no, I said, "Hell with that." But obviously I was just typecast, right? I'm Asian, so I go in the... and even to the, in the [inaudible] era. In fact, while I was in the navy, I mean, like two years I was aboard a ship, no blacks. I take it back; we had maybe five or six, and the rest were all Filipino, doing all the chores. And then when I went to a dry dock in Boston, I had one black and that's all. The rest were all, one black and one Asian [points to self] and the rest were all Caucasian. So yeah, pretty much so, pretty much so, the navy was pretty much all white.

TI: And given that kind of segregation, how would you characterize, maybe the others, in terms of their view on race? I mean, here they're around, essentially, just whites, versus the army, there tend to be perhaps more variety, more diversity.

JK: Yeah.

TI: So again, did they, did the navy, then, kind of think of themselves as maybe better than the army because of that? Or did you ever have those kinds of --

JK: You know, I don't know that they, I was conscious, 'cause I noticed, even like aboard ship, the officers, they just saw a little bit of latent talent in me. They gave me an opportunity to advance. And then ultimately I ended up going to radiomen's school and I became a radioman, skills, with some skill sets, so I got better duty than just being a deck ape. So yeah, I moved up from my servant class. [Laughs]

TI: So where were you stationed after you finished all your training?

JK: Well, I was in boot camp in San Diego. They shipped me, our ship was in the Mediterranean fleet, so we got transported across country by rail to Brooklyn, got on an army transport, went across the Atlantic for ten days, and we landed in Leghorn, Italy. It's called Livorno, but that's where the Leaning Tower of Pisa is, Pisa, and that was a big debarkation center for the army, 'cause we were on army transport. And took a train down Italy to Naples, and that's where our, the ship, I was aboard a light cruiser, USS Fargo, and that's where the Mediterranean fleet was headquartered, in Naples.

TI: I'm curious, I mean, so you mentioned these places and they are similar, or the same places that many of the 442 guys also either fought or visited, did, were you aware of the 442 and what they had done?

JK: It's funny you should mention that. Yeah, I was aware of what they did, and then I took a tour, our ship, we ended up in Trieste, way at the, I don't know what sea that is, but anyway, Yugoslavia, right up on the eastern side of Italy, and so I took a tour of Switzerland and I went by train through Milan and then up to Switzerland and stuff. And I always remember going into all the honkytonks and bars in Switzerland, and they always liked Japanese guys. Said, "Oh, I like you guys." I felt like I was living in a kingdom. They all remembered the Nisei soldiers.

TI: Okay, from the 442 because they were up there.

JK: Through northern Italy.

TI: A lot of, what, R&R, or they were there fighting? I can't --

JK: No, they were all on R&R in Switzerland. So yeah, so and even like in Genoa, Italy, in all the places around there, so I felt somewhat like a celebrity. They hadn't seen any Asians for a long time.

TI: How about the navy guys, were they aware of the, of what the 442 had done? I know when I talk to other army guys who were stationed in Europe, I mean, they kind of knew what the 442 was and how they fought. Did the navy guys know?

JK: No, I don't think so. I don't know. No, I don't think so. No, there was not very much said. The navy guys, pretty much they're just living in their own zone, I thought.

TI: Okay. So any other stories about the navy you want to mention before we move on?

JK: No, just the usual stuff. You know, sailors go to the bar, right? [Laughs] Every... cultural things. Maybe there's one that I think, I laugh, my brother joined the army -- he was living in Boulder after he... and then he was stationed in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and so I went to visit him when we came back to Brooklyn Navy Yard, and I always do remember go visit at Fort Belvoir and he's in the enlisted men's center, he's throwing beers down, and I'd been at sea for six months so I never had any fresh milk, so I'm guzzling milk and he was very embarrassed by that, I'd asked for some milk instead of booze.

TI: [Laughs] What happened to his kid brother?

JK: That's right, what happened? Went down the toilet in the navy.

TI: [Laughs] Quit drinking and now drinking milk.

JK: I'm down to drinking milk, for god's sake.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.