<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So after Camp Ritchie, then, and this acting job, where'd you go next?

GN: Then by that... that's when the Japanese, VJ happened, Japan surrendered.

TI: Okay, so they dropped the atomic bomb.

GN: Yeah. Then before we can go out and put this play on, why, got broke up again. And I got sent to... I don't know how they did these things. I was with about four or five guys that got sent to Camp Holabird, this CIC camp.

TI: Yeah, so it's counterintelligence.

GN: Yeah, Counterintelligence Corps.

TI: Now they, lot of times they select people, because you probably took some aptitude tests or intelligence tests to figure out what you would be good at?

GN: I didn't have any college or anything of that sort. And they put me in that Counterintelligence Corps and we sit through a lecture, about two hours' lecture at a time with attorneys speaking the whole time. Then they expect us to learn something? [Laughs] Stupid.

TI: And so... and before I leave, you mentioned earlier, VJ Day. So the United States drops the bomb, an atomic bomb, on Hiroshima. Now, this is where your family was from, that area.

GN: Yes.

TI: Did you think about that, did you have concerns about your family in Japan and what happened to them?

GN: I did, but I knew they lived out in the country. So they were just far enough out in the country that they didn't... one of the relatives who was working in Hiroshima got killed, that's all I know. I don't know if any of them got hurt or not.

TI: Now, did they give you information about the power of this atomic bomb, and did you understand the magnitude of what happened?

GN: Oh, yeah, we knew all that. We'd seen pictures of it. And we landed in Tokyo about November, end of November 1945. So when we landed in Japan, the airplane kept circulating waiting for our clearance to land, and we saw a lot of it from the air.

TI: Like in Tokyo, the firebombing?

GN: Tokyo, yeah, Yokohama and all that.

TI: And so when you landed and saw Japan, I guess you were there when you were a little boy, but what did you see? What were your impressions of Japan at that point?

GN: Oh god, it was completely burnt. The only thing standing were the cement foundations, big smokestacks. And around the imperial moat, they saved some of the buildings right there. They didn't bomb right in, or burn the imperial palace.

TI: But pretty much everything else?

GN: Everything else was, yeah. The railroads were, trains were still running, some of them.

TI: So you get to Tokyo, November 1945.

GN: Yeah.

TI: So what did they have you do there?

GN: Go to some more school.

TI: Again, counterintelligence?

GN: Yeah, more classes.

TI: So what were they worried about? Counterintelligence... what were they... the war is over, so what kind of intelligence did they want you to do?

GN: I don't know what the people in Japan did. You know, we never talked about it. We never talked among ourselves. I didn't even know what my buddy next door, good buddy was doing, other than he was going off by himself and I was going off by myself. It was never the two of us together.

TI: Well, for you then, what did they have you do? You didn't know what your buddy was doing, what were you doing?

GN: I myself was, went across the 38th on a convoy, and trying to observe how many Russian soldiers there were in these villages.

TI: So is this in Korea?

GN: Yeah, Korea.

TI: So now you're in Korea, so you go below the 38th.

GN: I didn't do any counterintelligence work in Japan. I was in Korea. And the minute you get across the 38th border, the people are standing there, but not one word. You know, in Japan, they're always hollering at you or wanting candy or this and that. But in Korea, not a word. They just stand there and just look at you.

TI: And how did they, Koreans view you? Because having been occupied by the Japanese, I know a lot of Koreans didn't like the Japanese. How did they perceive Japanese Americans?

GN: They wanted to talk to us, because they can all speak Japanese. But they didn't dare speak to us in Japanese, and we couldn't speak Korean, so they said very little to us.

TI: So you had enough, your Japanese was good enough to be able to converse then?

GN: Converse, I can hold my own. But I couldn't read or write.

TI: So it sounds like the Koreans were okay with Japanese Americans, the Niseis, they were okay with you?

GN: Yeah, they were all right with us.

TI: So anything else in Korea, any other stories?

GN: No, not really. People in Japan and Korea was different. Even little kids would steal you blind. It got to a point where we find ourselves hating the kids. And they tried to reenlist us, and they offered us commissions. Not a commission, but a warrant, warrant officer rating.

TI: Because at this point, you were a master sergeant?

GN: I was a sergeant first class.

TI: Sergeant first class.

GN: Yeah, they were trying to recruit us for another year. But one of my buddies was a Hawaiian, he signed up and told them he wanted to be stationed in Japan, and a month and a half later, he was right back. [Laughs] I'm not falling for this.

TI: So they did enough to get him to reenlist.

GN: Yeah, I wanted nothing to do with it. Especially when you find yourself, all of us guys began to hate the, even the little kids. Couldn't get out of there quick enough.

TI: And this is before the Korean War started.

GN: Yes. We wrote up pages and pages of reports saying that the Russians and the North Koreans were building up. You could tell.

TI: So you knew this was probably going to, or the Korean War was going to happen.

GN: We were all predicting within five years there'd be another war, Korean War. That's one the reasons I did not want to stay in the reserve or anything like that.

TI: So then you returned back to the States, you were discharged.

GN: Yeah.

TI: And so where did they discharge you?

GN: They gave me a ten days' pass in Seattle where my family was, and so I got, they had what they called delay enroute, they gave me ten days in Seattle. And I got discharged in Chicago.

TI: So why'd you choose Chicago?

GN: Because I was, I wanted to stay, get discharged in Chicago and spend the winter there. I came back about Christmas time, and I didn't want to come back here in the middle of winter.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.