<Begin Segment 14>

TI: So let's go back to your life now. You're, where we left you, you were in basic training in Little Rock Arkansas.

YU: Right, basic training, Little Rock, Arkansas.

TI: When you finish basic training, what happened next?

YU: Well, they didn't know what to do, so for about a month we were, we'd get up in the morning and have breakfast and clean the yard, pick up cigarette butts.

TI: These are the other Nisei soldiers?

YU: Yeah.

TI: Because the --

YU: The, there was fifteen of us.

TI: Because the white soldiers they sent off...

YU: They were in Australia on the battlefront.

TI: Well, at about this time, after you'd done basic training, the 100th Battalion was sort of, were they operational at that point? At Shelby, were they being trained?

YU: No, the 100th Battalion had just come in, but not then, but right after, about summertime.

TI: Okay. But when they, as you're trying to figure out what to do, there are plans for the 100th. Did they ever come talk to you about joining the 100th?

YU: No, the 100th was exclusive to Hawaii.

TI: Hawaii, okay. Or the 442, then, later on?

YU: The 442 was later on, but 1942 -- '42? '43, I think. No, '42, you're right. '42, about end of summer '42, there was, there was a recruiter that came around to recruit us.

TI: 'Cause at this point you're more experienced and you've been in the army for longer than the other Japanese Americans.

YU: Right, right.

TI: And so I'm guessing that they were thinking of you as cadre type of material.

YU: Right.

TI: So what was your reaction?

YU: Well, we were all, we would all sit in a place like this, barracks, we'd say, "Hey, we understand we're gonna get our stripes." "Yeah, they said you get as much as tech or staff, staff sergeant stripes." And guys would say, "Ah, what the hell. You can't trust these guys." There's all kinds of rumors would go by. They'd say, "Look what they did to us, our parents and everything. How can you trust 'em?" And so when the time came to volunteer, I mean to go to Shelby, Mississippi, hardly anybody volunteered to go.

TI: Now, why didn't they just order you guys? I would think, you're in the army --

YU: Well, they could've ordered us, but they wanted a volunteer cadre that was going to be really gung ho about it, because they weren't sure that it was gonna be successful. They didn't, and they didn't want to order just the, this group that they just took everything away from. They weren't sure what kind of, what kind of soldiers we would be. We probably, we probably would've been a good soldier because once we were in it we had to survive what we probably...

TI: Now, in hindsight, so the 442 became the most highly decorated unit for its size and length of service.

YU: Right.

TI: From your perspective, any regrets that you didn't go and serve in the 442?

YU: No, no, because friends I had all died.

TI: During the war, you mean? While fighting in Europe.

YU: Fighting in Europe. And it was sad, but those are the things that happened, and they were people that we knew, that said, "Okay, I'm gonna volunteer and go."

TI: So these were the guys who were in that barracks talking. Some of them went and some of them didn't make it.

YU: Right. But some of 'em didn't, knew we were not the best soldiers, you might say, so they didn't associate with us.

TI: Okay. So you were kind of with a group of the best, the best of the group, then, the ones who would always win the races kind of.

YU: Yeah, we were... but some of 'em, they were, they just didn't have that feeling that we did. They felt, "Oh, I'm gonna go." They were brought up in a, not too much of a Japanese community.

TI: Now, were you guys ever recruited for the MIS? Did they ever --

YU: Oh yeah.

TI: And what were your thoughts about the MIS?

YU: We thought, this is also frontline, and people, we would talk about it and says, "Oh, I don't know." There would be Kibei guys in there, he says, "That's dangerous. That's worse than the 442nd, the Shelby group." So they said, "If they want you, they'll come after you." But we were not. I guess they had enough MIS.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.