<Begin Segment 19>

BY: So let's go back to Salt Lake City. So you're living there. Were there a lot of other Japanese American families in Salt Lake City at that time?

MK: Yeah. There were a lot of Japanese. In fact, the church, the Buddhist church and the Christian church were across the street from each other in Japantown.

BY: And, of course, there were a lot of Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, also in Utah, right? Salt Lake City?

MK: Yeah.

BY: Did you have any contact with hakujin or white people in Salt Lake City that you can remember?

MK: Oh, no. I hung out with the Japanese at the school and after school with them. I remember I played on the basketball team that the Japanese had.

BY: Okay. And then now, and it's during this time that your brother, tell me about your brother. So he was in the army, and when you first moved to Salt Lake City, did you know where he was and what was happening?

MK: Yeah. In fact, after he had to report back to Fort Lewis, they moved him inland because (of what) was happening. And I think he went to Oklahoma first, and he was doing janitorial kind of work (in the army). And then they shipped him to Camp Shelby in Mississippi. And I remember (...) he used to write often because he couldn't write in Japanese, it took so long. So he would write to me and I'd explain to my parents of what's happening, the best way I could. And I remember him saying, "Oh gosh, now I understand I'll be training the Hawaiian boys, they're coming." And he said, "I understand they're rowdy."

BY: So this was the 100th Battalion.

MK: Yeah.

BY: Okay, all right.

MK: Yeah, so I remember (...) he wrote telling me that. So I knew he was involved (in the formation of the 442nd Battalion).

BY: Now, did he ever have leave where he could come to either Minidoka or Salt Lake City to visit you during that time?

MK: (Yes), he did come, and we have a picture of it. And I don't know when it was, but he did come while we were there. And my sisters who went to Washington are in that picture.

BY: Oh, so they came...

MK: So I don't know if... yeah, but he couldn't have come when... I don't know when he came, but he did come. [Narr. note: Or Amy and Miyo had not gone to live in Washington, D.C., yet because Dorothy is not in the picture.]

BY: To Salt Lake City?

MK: Uh-huh, to visit. And he also went to Minidoka to visit his friends (...). Yeah, I remember he went to camp.

BY: So when he visited in Salt Lake City, that must have been the last time you saw him, then, right?

MK: Yeah.

BY: Okay. So then tell about, do you know what happened to him and how your family found out all of that? I know it's really hard to talk about.

MK: Yeah. Well, I remember that, oh, my father had not only a dry cleaners, he also bought a little restaurant with a u-shaped seating. It seated about twelve people. He had no restaurant experience, but he bought it and he hired...

BY: Somebody to cook and somebody to run the restaurant?

MK: Yeah, he didn't cook or anything, he just owned it. And there was an office (with the restaurant)... that's when we found out he got killed (in France). I found out later, he participated in the release of the Texas battalion.

BY: Oh, the Lost Battalion? Okay.

MK: He took part of that, and then on the next mission he passed away, he got shot. And I met the soldier who was with him, and when he got shot, they were in the, whatever they dig up.

BY: Trench?

MK: Yeah, trench. And I met him on the big reunion they had in Hawaii, and they introduced me to him because they invited me to the company get-together. And he told me he died instantly, he was beside him. And they said a bullet ricocheted from a tree and hit him right in the neck. So he said he probably didn't know what hit him, he was just gone.

BY: That's so hard.

MK: Yeah.

BY: So your father was in the restaurant when he found out about this?

MK: Yeah, I guess. I came back from school and the waitress was Japanese, lady that we knew, and she told me he had passed (away) and that my father had taken it real hard.

BY: How about your mom? Do you know where she was at the time?

MK: Oh, she was with him.

BY: At the restaurant?

MK: Yeah. They were in the office. I don't know what they were... at least after school we were together.

BY: That must have been a really hard time for your family.

MK: Uh-huh.

BY: Did they have a service for him anything?

MK: Yeah, they did have in Salt Lake, and his friends from Minidoka came for the service. They had a regular service, a memorial service. And I have pictures of who came and stuff.

BY: So this is in, sometime in 1944? '43-'44?

MK: Yeah, '44. He was killed in November. November (7th).

BY: And your sisters who were not in Salt Lake City, did they come home at that point, then?

MK: [Nods].

BY: That's hard.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.