<Begin Segment 5>

MN: Since we're talking about getting into the war years, what do you remember doing on Sunday, December 7, 1941?

KY: On that day, my parents were having the minister over and they were having some kind of gathering for their friends. The sister who was still at home and me, were allowed not to participate in that. So she and I were in one of the bedrooms in the back listening to the radio when we heard about Pearl Harbor. And, of course, I don't think either of us knew where Pearl Harbor was or what had happened there.

MN: Did anyone you know get taken away by the FBI?

KY: Yes. There was a gentleman who lived below us who was Charlie Chaplin's chauffeur. And I understand that the FBI came and took him away Sunday night. When I went, before I went to school on Monday, my mother said that if anyone asked if I knew this gentleman, because they had the address from where he was taken in the newspaper, that I was to say no. But fortunately, no one asked me, so I didn't have to lie.

MN: What was it like at school on that Monday after Pearl Harbor?

KY: I don't remember it being any different than any other day. I think when you're nine years old, you're not affected by world events unless your parents tell you how you should behave.

MN: Now shortly after the war started, I think you shared that you were playing an arcade game at the Sunset Bowling Alley?

KY: Yes.

MN: Can you share with us that story?

KY: Well, it's a game where an airplane circles the inside of this game machine, and in each corner there are antiaircraft guns that shoot down the plane. And I was playing that, and I guess I was cheering for the airplanes, which I guess was a Japanese plane.

MN: Did anybody make any comments about you playing this game?

KY: No, not that I remember.

MN: And then can you share with us a little bit about the Sunset Bowling Alley?

KY: Well, at that time it was the largest bowling alley in the world. It's where Channel 5 KTLA is right now, on Bronson and Sunset, and it had fifty-two lanes.

MN: That's big. And I think before the war, all the pinsetters, were they all human?

KY: Oh, yes.

MN: That's a lot of work.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.