<Begin Segment 27>

AI: Well, I think I recall in an earlier conversation, that you had mentioned that you went to the Nuremberg trials. For a day?

KO: Yes, for one day.

AI: What was that like? What caused you to go? Why did you...?

KO: Well, they gave all the people stationed in Germany a chance to go to the trials one day, if they wanted to, which I took advantage of. So I saw Goebel and Himmler and all of those people on trial. We were quite a ways away from the trial itself. They had sections set up where they had little earpieces that you could put in to follow what was going on, because a lot of it was in German. And we spent, I don't know, three or four hours there. But, it's like most trials, a lot of boring stuff going on. But I thought that was kind of interesting that we were able to see those people who were involved with the German Army.

AI: Right. Well, gosh, it sounds like you had a number of interesting things that you went through while you were in the service. Anything else that you recall that happened, that stands out for you before you were ultimately discharged?

KO: Well, not really. Here again, we were involved in sports there, and I played on a team with other -- we weren't all Japanese you know, because the people working in that reinforcement depot were Japanese and Caucasians, and whatever else there happened to be. I think the other interesting experience that I had was when I left Germany, we, three of us got permission to take a jeep from Germany; I was the only Japanese, there was two other Caucasian fellows. And we took a jeep through Germany, and saw the Autobahn as it was blown up in places so we had to make side tours. And we had to spend a night in a German home, because it was a overnight trip. And I recall that we had a trailer full of supplies, including these K-rations that had cigarettes in 'em. And they said, "Why, here," the German people that we were staying with said, "Well, there's a place down this road here you can park your trailer, and we'll lock it up. But when we got to South -- where we, I think it was South Hampton we went back to to ship out, but anyway, they'd opened up all of the K-rations, taken all the cigarettes out of all these packages and had it all packed back neatly, to the point where we couldn't tell that they'd been touched. Cigarettes were a great barter item in, during the war years, and you could get anything you wanted if you had enough cigarettes.

AI: Just like money. Or maybe better than money.

KO: Yes, it was better than money. It was better than money.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.