<Begin Segment 12>

SF: So you worked on the Milwaukee for how long? And then...

TS: Oh, roughly, oh, from April to November. Then the snows came, so they laid off the whole gang, and came back to Seattle. And then I went out to the Great Northern.

SF: And the Great Northern was, again, a racially segregated unit?

TS: Basically, yeah. It was, this was out of the same contracting hall. It was a Japanese foreman and all the supervisory people were Nis -- Issei. But then, there was a few Filipinos and Mexicans in the work force.

SF: And so you were working on the Great Northern in what? 1941?

TS: One, yeah, from November '41, right before the war started.

SF: What happened when Pearl Harbor...?

TS: Well, the gang I was on was on the move from north of Wenatchee going towards the coast, north of Everett. And when we went into Wenatchee and somewhere, we were waiting for a train or something. Well, somehow, somebody came and gave us the news about the war starting, that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

SF: How did you react to that?

TS: I really don't know. I don't really -- well, kinda expect it in a ways 'cause some of the Isseis said, "There's a war gonna start." And that was back months ago because, I guess the U.S. shut off gas supply or something in the Orient? So Japan couldn't get any gas. And then some of the Isseis -- or oil. Why then, the Isseis said, "Well, that's gonna start a war." But, we didn't think anything of it. That was way above our, you know. All we want, to work.

SF: So you guys didn't think much about political things...

TS: No.

SF: ...in those days? Yeah.

TS: Just survival.

SF: So what happened after that in terms of your -- where you could work and...?

TS: Well, then what happened is that, like I say, we were on our way west towards the coast. So they stopped us at a point called Skykomish, which is up on Stevens Pass there. And we spent a couple days there working. And then they sent us to the coastline where we spent, I don't know, week or some days there. And then we came back to Everett. And when that happened, why they -- there were two other gangs that had Japanese, people of Japanese ancestry on. And they combined and put all the Japanese into the gang that I was on, the Harry Nambu's gang. And then put all the whites and Mexicans, Filipinos into the other two gangs. And then they shipped the gangs with all the people of Japanese ancestry, and moved them back up north of Wenatchee, north of Wenatchee, yeah. And fortunately, that was outta the, the zone on the Coast where you'd be evacuated.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.