<Begin Segment 11>

BN: What was your reaction to the war ending, or news of the war ending?

NK: Well, that's one thing that was very... I was happy on one end and kind of sad on the other. I was happy to think of going to Japan and seeing my grandmother, sister, andlike on the vacation in 1935, I was there for one month, and so I felt that I had some kind of tie to the area. And not knowing the situation -- food and the economy and so forth in Japan -- I was kind of looking forward to going to Japan. Yet in the United States, all my friends were here except for the group that got on the same boat and went back to Japan. Otherwise, all my friends were in the United States, so it kind of made me happy on one end and kind of sad on the other.

BN: And you did have other friends... people who were going... also going?

NK: Yeah, there's many friends that were "no-nos" that went to Tule. And at Tule Lake, once they (got) the people that were "no-no" that wanted to go back to Japan, we got on the USS Gordon (and) were shipped to Japan. And then, the others, they were all "no-nos" that were in Tule Lake, they were... the war had ended and so they were released and they all kind of filtered their way back into life... and in most cases, into places where they were before the war. Except for a few people that might have gone to Colorado or Utah, inland states. I was not in the United States at that particular time, so I don't have too much details on that.

BN: Now, as far as your family intending to return to Japan, you said your father really wanted to go back. You were kind of looking forward to it. Was everyone else in the family kind of feeling the same way, or were any family members kind of opposed to going back?

NK: Well, I don't think that... we all didn't know how bad off the people, the citizens of Japan were in 1945. And then once they found out what the situation was, it just flipped your mind from one black to white. I myself never expected the situation being that bad. And it's hard to explain how much you should appreciate the little things like three meals a day. That was the basic that was taken away from you. You're just looking around for, "(Now) what can I eat next?" and there was nothing there to be had, and it was a very, very miserable existence.

BN: Can you tell me about the journey, the process of getting from Tule Lake to Uraga?

NK: Well, once they got notice that we're going to go back to Japan, and I remember that it was... we traveled by train to, I want to say Portland, but it was... gee, we were gathered together to put on the U.S. Army transport ship, USS Gordon, and came out to the Pacific Ocean from that area, and I remember it was like New Year's. It was either Christmas or New Year's, because I remember the sailors were celebrating and then we were miserable because as the ship pulled out into the ocean, the water was really, really rough, and everybody was getting sick. The sea was so rough that it felt like the boat was moving forward at a very low speed, and when the big swell would come, it would just take the front end of the ship and put it straight up in the air and come flopping down like a whale (does) when you see whale watchers on the beach nowadays... but it was very, very bad. What they had done was they put all the... they segregated the male and female, and it was not like family style. They just separated the male and female and that's how the boat got started out. That was one of the most miserable boat rides that I ever had.

BN: And then what happened when you landed?

NK: Well, we were told that the boat was going to go to Yokosuka, which is a Japanese naval base, but when we got to Japan, the USS Gordon pulled out on the backside of the land, a place called Uraga. And it was not a big town or anything. In fact, the only thing I remember about that is we were taken off the boat and put into either army or navy quarters when Japan was fighting. And that's where we sat, and as we were getting off the boat, everybody was... had an army blanket, and they were taking the army blankets that were on the ship and just throwing it on the dock and getting rid of it. (It's like) it's been contaminated by these Japanese people, so we'll get rid of those. I remember the navy guys taking those army blankets and just throwing them on the dock over there. And at the time, we were just thinking that, well, it's no big deal, we can get more on the other side there, and that was the feeling. But now you think about it, it wasn't that way. There wasn't any more on the other side of the hill, so it was a very cold winter, January, that we got off at Uraga, and it was very miserable. And that's the first taste of Japan that we got from the "no-no"... Tule Lake... and it got worse from there. It didn't get better.

BN: Did you stay at Uraga for a while or did you immediately...

NK: We stayed at Uraga. What they did was they had to process everybody that got off the ship, and they had trains going to various parts of Japan, and we had to... not "we," I say "we," but my father and mother and brother navigated the way through the system there. And I remember they hired a boxcar... railroad boxcar... which is, to my surprise... in Japan, those boxcars are, I would say, half the size of the boxcars in the United States. So when they say, "Oh, we got to get a boxcar," and here I'm thinking to myself, "My god, we only have a couple suitcase. What do they want with boxcar?" But that's what it was. It was a Japanese rail boxcar that we hired to carry most of our luggage from Uraga to Shiga-ken, which was probably a good eight hours train ride from Uraga town to Shiga-ken.

BN: So just to clarify, the group that's going, that came from Tule Lake, it's your parents, you and Kazuye, plus Minoru's family, too?

NK: Yeah, we all stayed together as a group. Because by then, my brother and sister-in-law had a baby boy. That was right before we got on the ship, not more than six months old.

BN: So there were seven of you.

NK: Yes, right. So the family is slowly growing.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.