<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So after you finished the training, where did you go from there?

FF: Oh, in August of... the war ended, not the war ended, but the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on the... what is it? The 12th of August or something and on the 15th of August, Japan surrendered. So we finished out our term, which was really about in September and then I was sent to Japan. And I was sent to Kyushu, the southern island. And I was first sent to a place called Kawatana, and then I was stationed on an island in the Sasebo Harbor that was involved with repatriation. We were repatriating Chinese prisoners or forced labor that was forced to work in the mines in northern Kyushu and sending them home. And on the return trip, bringing back civilians and soldiers that were stranded in northern China and probably parts of Manchuria. Although Manchuria at the time, eventually became occupied by the Soviets. And you know what happened to them, they were just detained really interminably. I mean, they were hauled off to the Soviet Union complete with all the heavy industries equipment and everything. The Soviets hauled them off to Russia. Those people didn't get back to Japan for many, many years.

TI: What was your role at this repatriation center? Were you able to use your Japanese language skills?

FF: Yeah, but that was really -- I always wondered what the MIS guys did. Most MIS guys, of course, during the war it was pretty much classified operations, so they never said. But I guess it was in 1967 or so, Harrington came out with that book and I was kinda mildly surprised, really, that, these MIS guys were doing wonderful things, really. It just seems like, it's hard to imagine how they could've conducted the war without these few guys. But so, but these were a few guys and I didn't know what the rest of these people did. And judging from my experience, I really wondered if they did really anything very useful to the war effort. Because I was at this place, I had this language capability and whatnot, and I can't say that I ever utilized it. I was put in charge of the local facilities like the mess hall and the bath, and the administration building where we processed these people. And I had nothing to do with... I had to do with facilities and not with people at all. I was with the group, the group of guys I was with, were doing similar kinds of jobs. So our role insofar as being a linguist, it was non-existent.

TI: What branch of service were you with?

FF: I was, I was in the army. But, I was on detached service to the 2nd Marine Division. So we were a group of ten army guys with the Artillery Battery of the 2nd Marine Division. Our company commander was a rather famous guy, he was a football player named Muha.

TI: And how long was your tour in Japan?

FF: Well, I went from there to Kumamoto, where I was with military government. And my total tour in Japan was about eleven months, ten or eleven months. When I was in -- one of the, I don't know, did you know a Junks Kurose? Okay. Now Junks, when I first went to Chicago, he was one of the first guys that I saw working at, at this one mail order house. He was working in the shipping room and I was working elsewhere. But he was the guy that took me under his wing and kind of took care, looked after me while I was in Chicago. And I kind of lost contact with him but when I went down to Fort Blanding, Camp Blanding for training, he came down there and looked me up again. And then I moved up to Fort Snelling and by gosh, a few months later he came up. And then I went to Kumamoto and I didn't think, I never in the world would have thought that I would see him there but by gosh he showed up there.

TI: Was he in the military also?

FF: Yeah. As a matter of fact, one of the guys in my company in Kumamoto said, "Hey, there's a guy from the Criminal Investigation Division looking for you." Now God, I mean, are they nailing guys for selling packs of cigarettes? But heck, I mean, it was Junks Kurose. He came around. Yeah, he and I used to have a lot of fun. The ironic thing about that was that I used to work with military government and our main duty was really to get the infrastructure and stuff running again in Kumamoto. And one of the things that had to be done was to clear out all this rubble from the bombings, and so we had labor crews that came in to do this. And in charge of the labor crews were all these yakuza. So all of my friends were yakuza, and here was Junks Kurose, who was in the Criminal Investigation Division and his best friends became yakuza. It was kind of funny to me. [Laughs]

TI: That's good.

FF: Yeah, but he and I, we really used to have a lot of fun in Kumamoto.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.