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gky: Can you talk of [Japanese] Admiral [Teijiro] Toyoda after the war?

KA: Right.

gky: Can you help us understand how the war could have made this man into, could have made him do such brutal things?

KA: Well, one thing I'll say about Admiral Toyoda, very much of a gentleman; very intellectual, you know, intelligent. I know when we were trying him, he was being tried for mistreating the prisoners of war. But, you know, after interrogating with the lawyer, questioning him about his action and everything else, I truly believe that he had never been a part of that. In fact, he was exonerated of all charges. He said one thing. He said that there was a prisoner of war someplace in northern Japan, and he heard something to the effect that there might be a case of mistreatment, and he said he looked into it right away and he warned the people that there better not be any mistreatment of prisoners. Because this gentleman -- I say gentleman now and I say it then, too, but he was in the navy. He's been to the United States and he was partly educated in the U.S., you know, in the ways things were done. So I truly believe that the people in the navy were more worldly than the army people. They knew something about foreign countries. I think [Japanese Naval Marshal General Isoroku] Yamamoto [Commander-in-Chief of Japan's Combined Fleet during World War II] was the same way. That's why he said that they made a big mistake when they first attacked the U.S. I think they knew what our capabilities were; they knew something about the foreign countries, the way democracy worked and stuff like that. They weren't dumbbells. They were bright people. So I think they really truly believed that the war that they were going into was a waste. They had an idea if they didn't somehow got the U.S. to seek for peace right away, they had a bad time ahead of them. And I truly believe that Admiral Toyoda was one of those guys. In fact, he told our, the lawyer, his name was Deutch, Jesse Deutch, I remember he's from New York. He told him, after we were ready to try him, he says, "Admiral, once this trial was over, is over, let's go out and have a celebration." Because he was that confident that this guy would never be convicted of any crime.

gky: You were working for the war translation division?

KA: I was working for the prosecution section of a Class A trial at that time.

gky: But you only did it three months before you were discharged?

KA: No, no, no. This was after the war. After the war.

gky: This was after -- you were a civilian?

KA: Yes.

gky: Oh, okay.

KA: See, I came back as a civilian employee in 1946, around September, and I worked with ATIS for about six months or so. I had a little problem with somebody in the translation area. And I knew I wasn't a good translator, but I hated to have somebody accuse the whole team of Niseis of slacking on their job. He could say that to me, but he can't say that to the rest of the team because I figured they were very capable, and he blamed the rest of the guys and I wasn't going to take that. So when I heard that he made that statement, and when he judged our, when he made the evaluation, he blamed all the rest of the team members for the poor performance of his operation. I said I wasn't going to take that from no one. So I went up to see the personnel officer, telling them that I wasn't going to take this kind of thing. I didn't go through war for this kind of thing, and if he didn't do anything about it, I was going to go, you know, leave. And this man's name was Andy Anderson. I never met him before. He said, "Ken, I'll find you another job. Be patient and I'll get you someplace else." And that's the way I ended up with the [Japanese General Hideki] Tojo trial in the defense section. I didn't do anything there either, but I ended up with war crimes after that.

gky: With the Tojo trial, what exactly did you do?

KA: Well, we were sort of responsible for the translation of the Japanese translators. We overlooked and tried to smooth out the English translation that they were making. And I wasn't very good at that. [Laughs]

gky: Can you think of anything else you want to add? Anything else you want to say?

KA: No, all I can say is that the Japanese prisoners, you know, they weren't trained with the military training that we have, saying all you have to give if you're a prisoner of war, name, rank and serial number, you know. They weren't trained for that. And once they found that we were human, we treated them like human beings, they were very easy to interrogate. In fact, anything you asked, I'd say that they gave it to us very willingly. Maybe the only thing they might have hid, or falsified, was probably their names. That I, you know, I kind of expected that. In fact, these four that we decided to keep with us did use names that were, you know, not their true names at all. The only thing I would like to say, as an MIS-er, I wish the Japanese, former Japanese prisoners, would acknowledge the fact that the Niseis did really help them out, you know. Not so much that we got valuable information from them, but that through the Niseis I hope they learned something about being human. Because I think, like Harry was saying, I think we did treat them, you know, even though they were prisoners of war, we understood what they went through. They were doing their job. Unfortunately, they were fighting, from our point of view, for a wrong cause. They thought it was the right cause, but, you know. So what I'd like to do is to meet these people, not so much as to embarrass them that they were prisoners of war, but to find out how they fared after they came back. I know that they went through hardship and everything else. Maybe there's some people there that became very successful. I don't know. But I would -- I'm not trying to make them feel obligated, but I wish they would say something nice about the Niseis, you know. That they would say, gee, if it wasn't the Niseis, their life could have been very, very difficult, you know. Not as a thank you to us but, you know, I wish they would realize that the Niseis did really help. Because if it was left up to the non-Niseis, I don't know what could have happened. Because, like the story that Harry was saying about the guy wanted to chop the ears off, you know, and stuff like that. It could have happened if it wasn't.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.