Densho Digital Archive - Henry Miyatake Interview II (denshovh-mhenry-02-0025)

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HM: But I had a bunch of circumstances where my brother really laid down the ground work and provided the reputation that I took advantage of. And in most cases I was never able to live up to the level of expectation that my brother had generated. This was both in the CIC as well as later on.

TI: He must have been quite an individual.

HM: Well he, he, trained me very well.

TI: How did he change? When he came back in '47, back to Seattle. How did he change when you, when you started doing things with him again?

HM: Well he was looking out for a more permanent career. So he was looking for civil service as a main route. And at that point he had passed the... Well he had all the federal communication licenses that I was seeking at that point. And he told me, "Well, why don't you get a radiotelegraph, radiotelephone license and then you can work at a radio station or you can work at merchant marine as radio operator." So I thought that would be a good route to go. Well I got those licenses, but the American Communications Association wouldn't allow, wouldn't allow me to go into the union. First of all I was not a veteran, and I was under 21 years of age. So that, they would restrict me from running a radio station unless I was under the station manager. And there were a number of things that interfered with my being able to go into the merchant marine. And in fact, the fact that we were Japanese Americans, that kind of eliminated a number of jobs. So at that point after I got those federal communication ham license and all this kind of stuff, I decided well, and my brother suggestion he says, "Well, why don't you take the civil service exam for FAA." At that time it was called Civil Aeronautics Administration, but it's FAA now. And so anyway, he told me what to study. He says, "Here's the things that they're looking for. Here is the systems that you need to know about." He gave me all the information that I needed, that would give me the opportunity to look at that civil service exam without much trouble. And I guess I scored fairly well because in 1948 after I went through this education process on my own and my brother's coaching I got, I passed the civil service test and they gave me a title IX job in Alaska.

TI: And so from there you went up to Alaska to...

FM: Well my brother came down from Alaska.

TI: Oh, I see.

FM: He was with the FAA at that time. And then we drove our vehicle up the Alcan Highway, which was kind of a rough trip. This is 1948 so the roads were really in bad shape, 2,600 miles on gravel road.