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gky: This is tape two with Rusty Kimura, December 14th, the year 2000 in L.A. Okay, can you back up a little bit and tell me about these Australians that pick up prisoners and documents?

RK: Oh, yeah. Then I just mentioned about the aerial photograph. After I had the Japanese prisoners look at it and give me an approximation of where the guns were located, I'd call these four Australian soldiers who always were running around in this jeep, and try to get their opinion. So away from the two prisoners, I showed these four Australian soldiers this aerial photograph and I told them that these prisoners tell me that there's a bridge along here and a trail there. "Oh, yeah," he said. "This is a trail here. Oh, that bridge, we've been over that bridge many a time." So they knew it. One of them said, "Oh, we've been over that many a time." So I asked them, "This fellow hurt his leg but he said he walked normally, but leisurely. From that bridge, if they walk, walking this way, about how far do you think they would get in ten minutes?" So they pointed -- I said, "Here's a pencil," and they pointed at it and made a dot right on that aerial photograph. It's almost exactly the spot where the prisoners pointed, almost on top of that. And I just grinned. I think I probably chuckled, you know. And I took it to Captain Timson and I told him, I says, "The two guns that we've been trying to knock out and couldn't find are located right here, so if you want to make sure you get 'em, send a bomber over and bomb this spot. But to make sure you get them, bomb a 100-yard strip with this spot as a focal point, 50 yards this side and 50 yards that side and you'll get the guns." He didn't like it in a way because here was a sergeant telling the captain what to do. But he says okay. "I'll send a couple of bombers, Corsairs," he said. I didn't even know the name of the bombers. He's the one that said, "Corsairs." So he sent a couple of Corsairs over and they knocked the guns out. So the next day, these four fellows, Australian soldiers said, "Rusty, you want to go out and look at the guns we knocked out thanks to you?" That's the only time they ever thanked me -- "Thanks to you." So we went over there and the guns already had, the Aussie soldiers had already used knives or nails or whatever to inscribe their initials or their names on that, like Larry, Jones, Sidney, or whatever. So, and it was two or three weeks later, but Sidney, the head of that four man group, gave me a little cardboard box one day, had a tag on it, what they call a clearance tag, and it stated that it came from the war trophies department, General MacArthur's division in Sydney, Australia. Although, General MacArthur's headquarters was in Brisbane. And I thought, "What's this for?" They said, "Well, we thought you'd like to have a souvenir for knocking, for having those guns knocked out." And I thought, at first I thought to my -- I don't want to carry this two-pound thing around, you know. But I realized they were trying to do something for me so I graciously said, "Thank you very much," you know. So I carried that all the way through Philippines and Tokyo Occupation and brought it back to L.A. And it's in an L.A. museum today.

gky: It's in a Japanese museum?

RK: Yeah, yeah. Plus a Japanese battle flag.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.