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TI: Well, let me ask this question, maybe you can remember this. So December 7, 1941, where were you when that happened?

CH: I was at home.

TI: Okay, what were you doing then?

CH: The reason I was at home, of course, by that time, the stories were getting, you know, that it was getting bad, looked like there was going to be a war, my parents called me home from San Francisco. So I just took everything, I think toward the end I was staying with the Moriyama family. She's the girl that I told you I made friends with, and she got married to one of the... one of the officers in the Japanese Pavilion and went on to New York and went to Japan. In those days, they shipped all the Japanese diplomats on a ship from New York, because the Pacific was being mined by the Japanese and everything, so they went from New York and they went all the way around the world.

TI: So this is after the war had started?

CH: Yeah, after the war...

TI: They gathered the diplomats and then they --

CH: Yeah, they shipped all the... and the Japanese from the San Francisco area, too, all the diplomats on a ship.

TI: But let's go back again to Sunday, December 7th. I want to go back to your story. So you were back home, you said?

CH: Oh, yeah. by that time I was home.

TI: But what was your, how did you hear it? Do you remember how you heard about the bombing?

CH: Uh-huh. I was still in San Francisco, and I was staying with the Moriyama family. It was Sunday morning, ten o'clock, and we were having breakfast and just sitting around, and they didn't go to church. They were elderly, and they don't... I think they were churchgoers, but they didn't go to church that Sunday. And I was having coffee, and then on the radio it said that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor at ten o'clock in the morning. And, you know, of course we were surprised, so I looked out the window and there were policemen, San Francisco policemen in every corner of Japantown.

TI: Well, so very quickly the police were out there.

CH: Oh, yeah. Even before it was announced, they were already there. So the FBI must have had some inkling. And in every corner there was a policeman. And then I looked at Sutter Street, and police cars were going by all the time. They were just circling around, making sure there wasn't anything going on, I guess.

TI: Now, were there very many Japanese or Japanese Americans walking around?

CH: No, uh-uh. By that time, they told us all to stay home. I mean, they told people to stay home anyway, but when they, especially around Japantown, they just told everybody... and later on in the afternoon, I walked out, and I just saw a few of the stores were open, but not all of 'em, Japanese stores.

TI: And so what were you thinking? You said you were surprised.

CH: Well, yeah. Well, it was a surprise to be able to... I mean, I think everybody was surprised to have them bomb Pearl Harbor, I mean, it was a shock.

TI: Now, do you remember any conversations you had with the Moriyamas? You said you were there with them.

CH: Well, yeah. They were worried, too, because their daughter was married to a diplomat, and they had already gone on the ship. By that time I think they were on a ship to Japan. Yeah, they were worried about her.

TI: You said, so as things started getting more tense, that's when you went back?

CH: I went back home. My parents told me to come home because on the Carquinez Bridge, at that time was a toll bridge. I don't know, is it still a toll bridge?

TI: Which bridge?

CH: Carquinez? Past Oakland, Vacaville?

TI: Yeah, I think it is still a toll bridge.

CH: But anyway, it was a toll bridge, you had to stop and pay. Well, they looked at us, my brother came and picked me up, and I had all my school things, like typewriter and all my schoolbooks and things like that, and my clothes. And so they stopped us, and then we had to pay, and then they looked at us and said, "Where are you going?" "Going to Rocklin, California." "And what are you going to do there?" I mean, all kinds of questions like that. Said, "Pull over to the station." So after we crossed the bridge, we had to go into the station. And then they again asked us, these other separate men asked what we were doing in San Francisco, you know, act like we were spies. Well, that's what they were looking for.

TI: And who was asking these questions? Was it a police officer?

CH: Yeah, well, they had a uniform on. On the bridge they had a police... I guess all bridges or all, where they could, yeah, uniform. Policemen, I think.

TI: And so he asked these questions.

CH: Uh-huh. Like we were spies or something.

TI: "What were you doing?" "How long were you there?"

CH: Yeah, and want to know everything. So after a while they said, "Okay, well, go." Of course, Jay, my brother, he's just an old farmer. [Laughs] And then they asked him all those question, he says farming, that's all he did. He didn't go into any kind of politics or anything. Yeah, we were... that was the only time that was kind of scary. Other than that...

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.