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TI: You said that you had the history of the 442 and collecting all these documents. What -- why were you doing that? What made you so interested in the 442?

BT: My friend Richard Yamamoto, Sus Yamamoto, is in Washington, D.C., retrieving the records for the 442 archive, for the Sons and Daughters' archives. Every now and then he would send me something that was interesting, on his own. And then he would direct me to some of the records that he was sending over for me to take a look at. And if it was interesting enough, I would make a copy now and then. And I finally amassed a sort of a small library about the 442, based on the archival materials. Yeah, but without Sus, I, we wouldn't have these materials.

TI: And what were some of the things you did with your archival materials? Did you use that for certain little projects or things that you wrote, or -- what did you use this archive for?

BT: Oh, let's see. Well, one of the example I can cite is for this Varsity Victory Volunteer project. These were the ROTC students that got a bum deal. Eventually they opened the door for the 442. And the university, at the urging of the legislature, decided to honor them on the campus. And the VVV asked me to take the lead in that, so I started gathering information about the VVV, more so about those seven that died during the war. And for this, I had to go to the archive materials -- when they died, how they died.

TI: Uh huh. So you were viewed as someone who had a lot information, who could sort of help with all these projects or...?

BT: Yeah. If I can help on anything pertaining to the 442, I'm more than eager to help.

TI: In the case -- going back to the Kashino case, what documents from Washington, D.C., or Sus Yamamoto, were the most valuable in helping the case?

BT: Okay. As far as Kashino's case go now, a special court-martial, after a certain period of time, the record of trial or the trial record (whatever they call it) is destroyed. The only thing that remains is the decision of the court-martial. This is attached to the soldier's record. So, all Kashino retrieved was the special court-martial orders. This was the charges against him and the decision. Now what I did -- go to the record to fill in between those things.

TI: So you got the actual case materials? I mean the...?

BT: Okay. I went to the record and I found out the date they were picked up. The... there was account -- description of who was picked up, where they were picked up. I also had to rely on the record to find out where the unit was stationed at different times.

TI: So these were, this was all information that you could fill in to help present a package to the military for another review?

BT: That's right.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.