Densho Digital Archive - Isami Nakao - Kazuko Nakao Interview (denshovh-nisami

<Begin Segment 16>

DH: And the day of the evacuation, there was a special ferry at Eagledale to pick up the Japanese. How did you get to the ferry?

KN: The, well, like most places, the army truck came with soldiers, big convoy truck, and so that's how we were transported to the ferry. I don't know if anybody took their cars because how do you get it back home?

DH: So an army convoy truck pulled up in front of your house.

KN: Yes. Uh-huh. And then so our family and probably another family went on the truck because each family did not have a truck. They transported as many as they can on one trip.

IN: Well, a lot of friends took them over to Eagledale landing and so they had transportation one way or another.

DH: So then the army convoy trucks and some other people were driving to Eagledale and that's where everyone gathered and the soldiers. And then describe what that was like then getting onto the ferry, saying good-bye to your friends.

IN: Well, when we gathered at the Eagledale, the Army had hired the ferry for a special trip and a lot of school kids had skipped school to say good-bye to their friends. A lot of other people were there to bid us good-bye, and it was a kind of a very sad scene.

KN: Yeah. Friends were crying, Caucasian friends were hugging us all and crying. In fact, we had several friends, classmates come to the house before we got on the convoy truck, and they really felt bad, and they felt so helpless. They couldn't do anything for us except to say good-bye and gave us a big hug, and we couldn't even tell them were we were going 'cause we didn't know.

DH: This was March 1942 so school hadn't let out yet, then.

KN: No, not yet.

DH: And I had read that the baseball team, half the baseball team was evacuated so there were people in their letterman's jackets. And then describe now what it was like to then get on that ferry and see the island disappear behind you.

KN: That was a... I don't know, just a very weird, lonely feeling because having lived on the farm, we didn't go to Seattle very much or anyplace. And to pack and just leave your home, it was really hard to describe the feeling, just that sinking feeling of where are we going and what's going to happen.

IN: One of the things I heard later is that the elder Nakata family who was very prominent among the Japanese, the older gentleman went up to the upper deck, and when he had to leave this island -- he had lived here a good many years, just as long as my dad, and to have to leave, his son told me later that he had tears in his eyes when he had to leave. And not only the old gentleman, but the skipper of the ferry, he had tears in his eyes when he had to, 'cause he was -- in fact, her family leased the land from this skipper. That was his land and this Captain Wyatt had tears in his eyes when he saw what we had to go through.

KN: Because he knew Japanese quite well and so it was hard for him too, I'm sure, to be the skipper taking all these Japanese off the island.

DH: And you were just herded onto the ferry that way.

KN: Uh-huh, just herded on with soldiers here and there with their bayonets.

DH: How did you feel having everyone watch you that way?

IN: Well, especially when we got into Seattle, the train was waiting for us on Alaskan Way and on the overhead viaduct, people were lined up watching us, all kinds of people, and curiosity, friends, whatever. Some of them probably glad to see us leave, but yeah, it was a very trying time.