<Begin Segment 7>

gky: Can you talk a little bit about what it was like to be in the head of the interrogation section for the Tojo trials, for the Tojo trial, the war crimes trial?

SY: I was... for the Tojo trials, I was most of the time in charge of the translation section, and I had a section of, I had three Niseis helping me to check the translation done by Japanese translators. I had about fifteen Japanese translators in my section. And they would translate documents that contained the information to incriminate the Japanese, particularly war leaders. And the Japanese would translate it, and I'd have my Nisei checkers check the translation and, of course, at the end I'd look it over, too. But most of my time was spent not interpreting in the courtroom scene, but in the translation section, translating Japanese documents into English. I did this for the better part of the, tenure of the trial.

gky: So they were in 1946?

SY: Yes. After we came back from, after Nagano came back to Tokyo, they thought that they needed translation officers to verify translations done, and so most of my time after that was doing translation work.

gky: Did you ever meet General Tojo?

SY: No, I never met him, as such, but certainly I saw him many times in the court where all the twenty-six major war criminals were lined up in dark and here we were on the prosecution staff confronting the twenty-six war criminals.

gky: Can you describe physically what it was like, what the feeling was like when you went into the tribunal room and you saw all the prisoners lined up? Physically, what did it look like?

SY: It was very military, so to speak, because, of course, the supreme commander being General MacArthur, and the tribunal was established under him. So it was a very military setting, and very -- the scene was very overwhelming, let me put it that way, to see that the proceeding, the interpreters sitting in the courtroom to find each individual why they were responsible for their part. And specifically, they had for the gallery, relatives and friends of the criminals, as well as other spectators, and Tojo's daughter, two daughters, were there almost every day in the gallery. Of course, Tojo was found guilty, found guilty and hung, hung in the end, so to speak. Other lesser criminals were of course given longer imprisonment, but Tojo and six others, I've forgotten who they were, six major war criminals were hung.

gky: And will you talk a little bit about the Bronze Star that you got? It wasn't addressed to you, but it had down your parents' address in Gila River.

[Interruption]

SY: My first award was in New Guinea, and it was in recognition of my job as a chief interrogation section and also the fact that the sections were responsible for interrogating some 3,100 prisoners in New Guinea alone. And, of course, like all citations read unselfish in furtherance of military operations and that sort of thing. But this was my first award, so to speak. And, subsequently, I received an award as the translator, the chief of translation section in the Philippines. And also my duties in the war tribunal, but that first one was for conducting interrogations.

[Interruption]

gky: But will you talk a little about here it's being addressed to your father in Gila River?

SY: Oh, yes. Of course, it's very unusual for a citation or anything to be referred to the home front. And, of course, at the time my folks were in Gila River, and so next of kin, my citation at the end reads "Next of kin, Koichi Yamamoto, Gila River, 64-4-D," which is barracks number. Sort of ironic to see the citation being referred to somebody being in a relocation or concentration camp. So it be. So it was, so to speak.

gky: When you think about the time you spent in the MIS, what kind of legacy do you think will it leave?

SY: I believe it leaves a good legacy, because in contrast, not looking down on the fact that the 442 and the 100th infantry battalion in Europe didn't have any direct impact as far as Japan is concerned. But everywhere in MIS we were -- what is it? -- getting information in the defeat of our ancestral country, and I think the MIS, in that respect, not bragging or anything like that, but I feel very good about the fact that we played a big part insofar as defeating the Japanese nation by our intelligence work. And, as General Willoughby cited, he said that the Nisei effort in the Pacific Theater was responsible for shortening the war by two years and saving millions of lives. And General MacArthur stated, of course, everybody is aware of it, but he said, "Never in the history of the American army did we know so much about the enemy before we confronted them." And so these remarks by the head of the G2 and General MacArthur I think just paid tribute to the Nisei cause in the MIS.

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