<Begin Segment 1>

gky: The date is December 14th, the year 2000. We're talking with Rusty Kimura. K-I-M-as-in-Mary-U-R-A in L.A. Rusty, what year were you born; when were you born?

RK: January 19, 1915.

gky: And how long did you serve in the MIS?

RK: From December, about December 5th through...

gky: And the year?

RK: December 5th of 1942 through about February 26, 1947, and then I received a discharge overseas, but I continued to work for the army doing the same job as a civilian. So I was with the army, in other words, in the army for approximately fifty months but I stayed another over seventeen years as a civilian working for the army.

gky: Were you drafted?

RK: No, I volunteered from Topaz Relocation Center in Utah.

gky: Why did you volunteer for the MIS?

RK: Well, I heard there were army recruiters in camp seeking volunteers for the language school in Minnesota. And at first I thought they got a lot of nerve asking us, putting us in camp and then asking us to volunteer. But I thought, after thinking it over, I felt that I would like to volunteer, because by going into the army, in view of the fact that others were also going into the army, as a group we might be instrumental in, say, making life a little bit more easier and, what would you say -- friendly, a society more friendlier to our families. It might be an advantage to our families, you see.

gky: So, you always think of yourself as a Japanese American.

RK: Yeah. As a Japanese American being put in camps and then still we volunteered for the service in the army and for our country. I think it would give a good impression. Of course, I didn't think of all those things in detail. Only briefly it might be of some help to my brothers and sisters, 'cause I didn't have any parents at the time.

gky: Yeah, your mother died in Tanforan just before you went to camp.

RK: Right, right.

gky: And you originally stayed out of a relocation -- so-called "relocation center," but after your mother died, you decided to go there.

RK: Yeah, and join the family.

gky: Gee, that must have been a hard decision.

RK: What was that?

gky: It must have been a hard decision; instead of staying on the outside of the barbed wire, you chose to go in with your family.

RK: Well, my mother died so I figured I should be with the family. The purpose of my not going into camp with my family at the time was that I felt that I could go to -- the government said that if anyone moves off the coast, even if they stay within the state but inland, they may not have to go into camp. Those persons may not have to go into camp. The government didn't promise, they just said they may not have to, so I thought I'd take the family car, go up to the, further north into the Marysville area with which I was very familiar, and that way I could send to camp whatever little necessities that they might want, you know, like peanut butter, canned goods, or whatever, and clothing. But then my mother died, so I felt that I should be with the family, with the rest of the family. Not only that, the Marysville had to go into camp anyway. Most of the Marysville people I think went to Tule Lake.

gky: What did your mother die of?

RK: Cerebral hemorrhage.

gky: She had a stroke.

RK: Uh-huh.

gky: And, you're the third of eight children, right?

RK: Right.

gky: So you had eight brothers and sisters, seven brothers and sisters who were actually parentless. Your father had already died, hadn't he?

RK: Right.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

gky: When you went to the MIS, what happened? You went to Camp Savage?

RK: Yes. From the relocation camp in Topaz, we boarded army trucks, went to the railroad station, and by train we went to St. Paul, Fort Snelling in St. Paul where we were inducted and received our, you know, our -- well, we'll just say equipment, clothing and whatever. Then, I think, we stayed in Fort Snelling only a few days and then we were shipped to -- across the way to, it was called Camp Savage. I think there's a city of Savage there, and our camp was called Camp Savage.

gky: What was it like to go to language school? What did you have to do? What were the requirements?

RK: Well, first, when we were recruited in Topaz, we had to pass a very simple Japanese test, you know, And I didn't know very much Japanese because I didn't have the foundation, the basics of Japanese, but I guess I knew two or three -- I just happened to know two or three of the kanji that they presented me and they figured, they just said, "Oh, you're okay. You'll do fine," and accepted me. They just were looking for personnel because they figured they could train us anyway, and they certainly did in Camp Savage.

gky: I heard that school was pretty rigorous.

RK: Yes, it was; up early in the morning, I don't remember what, six o'clock or whatever. Then we went out on an eight-mile march first. At that time, that happened to be a very cold winter, 34 degrees below zero. And after the march, we'd have breakfast. After breakfast, I think breakfast was from about eight o'clock, then from nine o'clock we'd go to class. And class was mandatory from nine to five. Then study period was mandatory from six to nine. So from nine to eleven, you see, the lights were out at eleven o'clock. From nine to eleven, most of us studied in our barracks, and some fellows would go to the latrine to study after eleven o'clock, because the lights were always on in the latrine. They'd sit on the stools and study. I didn't do that even though I probably should have. But, however, I did study in the sense that the first month in Camp Savage, the first month of school, I didn't go into town, into Minneapolis with the other fellows who went in to have Chinese dinner, or whatever, you know, to see a movie. I stayed in and studied because I thought I was in over my head in my class, and I had to study to keep up with them.

[Interruption]

gky: What, why was it important to you to pass?

RK: Important to me to what?

gky: Well, you said you studied, you studied when you could have gone out and had fun or had a little relaxation.

RK: Well...

gky: Why did you want to pass so badly?

RK: Well, I just wanted to keep up with the rest of the fellows in class because I really thought that I was in over my head because it just happened to be that during the test, in Camp Savage that is, we also had a test so they could determine what class we should, they should put us in. So I think it just happened to be a coincidence that some of the kanji that appeared in the test happened to be something I knew, and they were rather difficult characters. I think that prompted them to put me into a class that is higher than I should have been in, and I felt that, gee, I didn't want to be kicked out of the school; volunteer for the army then have to be sent back to relocation camp because I failed in the task, in the test, I mean.

gky: So, that must have been sort of a prevalent feeling though, a certain amount of pride, of ganbatte, or...

RK: Right. I mean, I would be embarrassed to have to go back to camp and say this fellow volunteered for the army but they didn't want him. They kicked him out. They sent him back. He was rejected.

gky: So you did make it through camp.

RK: Yeah, I made it through.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

gky: And what happened when you first went out, got sent overseas by MIS? Where did you go?

RK: When I was sent overseas? Well, I was sent -- I was in with a large group. I went by boat to Australia. We landed in Australia; we arrived in Australia about sometime in the afternoon, say late afternoon. I think there was about fifty of us in the group, and it was just one, oh, Matson liner. I don't remember how many days it took us to get to Brisbane, Australia, but it took a long time because, from what I understand, the ship, our ship, was traveling alone without a convoy so it was zigzagging to avoid, what, possibly mines or whatever, or detection. We got there about 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon. By the time we -- there's thousands of fellows; we were not the only ones on the boat, so by the time the thousands of fellows debarked, it was about five, getting dark. It was about five in the evening.

gky: You were assigned first to an Australian unit, but you didn't want to be assigned to an Australian unit.

RK: No.

gky: Why not?

RK: Well, I wanted to be with Americans. Not only that, I wanted to be with a friend of mine. I was hoping to be with a friend of mine with whom I was acquainted before the war. We played football together and so forth, you know. And just about the time when I was considering asking to be shipped to a unit that, to any unit that he would be shipped to, I was suddenly already ordered to report to this Australian outfit.

gky: So you had no choice.

RK: I had no choice. It was too late.

gky: What did you do with the Australian outfit?

RK: I interrogated prisoners and scanned documents. I was in Bougainville seven months with them, but immediately upon arriving in Bougainville, I was sent to the front, to the front lines, to battalion headquarters. And from battalion, I would go to the companies occasionally, and so I was in the front area for six months out of the seven months. And after the six months with the battalions and companies, division headquarters, Australian division headquarters intelligence chief asked me if I would be willing to come back to division headquarters for one month, because in a month I'd be returning to Australia and that would give Joe [Kimura is referring to himself] a chance to experience a front, life at the front, that is, for one month. I guess Joe wanted to be able to say that he served in the front lines, at least for a little while. So I came back to division headquarters and looked into the, how the POWs that I had already interrogated, how they were doing and whether there was anything that I could do for them, you know, like comfort items and things, cigarettes, fruitcake. Fruitcake was plentiful at the time, supplied by the Red Cross. Then, after a month, my last month there, I flew back to Australia.

gky: When you were at Bougainville, can you tell me your experience with Captain Timson?

RK: Well, see, the thing is, my, I would say, my conduct -- I don't want to blame everything on Timson, but my conduct was such that it didn't really enamor me to the Australians either, because we had mimeograph orders reporting from Australia to -- Brisbane, Australia, headquarters to an Australian outfit. I'm not the only one; a lot of Niseis were assigned to Australian outfits. We all, each of us got a travel orders, you know, who to report to, what unit you're going to report to, and all the names of those Niseis that are going to report in the same group. It was a terrific order, because I asked others, but they don't remember receiving that type of order. But Joe, the other Nisei that was with me with Australians, there were only two of us, he remembers. In fact, we used to -- at first, we'd go over the orders together in Bougainville, and we were amazed at the -- and grinning to ourselves because of the power of that order, because it was signed by General [Douglas] MacArthur, Lt. General (Richard) K. Sutherland, and Major General [Charles] Willoughby. (Ricahrd) K. Sutherland was right next to MacArthur, MacArthur's next right-hand man. He was head of the entire staff, and signed by the three. And the order had listed what the commanding officer, any officer that we report to, these are the conditions that that officer must meet, they're required to do that for us.

gky: So, what did they say?

RK: You mean the people that received...

gky: No, what...

RK: Oh, what did it say? Well, I don't remember everything. There must have been at least ten things in there, but one of them says make sure that Niseis are not captured, because -- it didn't explain why. Because they would suffer inhumane treatment, or whatever, and so forth. And then another one was when an interrogator is at division headquarters, that's the rear echelon, he has to have one bodyguard. He goes to regiment, he must have two bodyguards. If he goes to battalion, it's three bodyguards. Every, succeedingly closer to the front. If he goes to the company, he has four bodyguards. But the interrogator may refuse to go to the company. But all those bodyguards is conditioned on whether the interrogator wants the bodyguards or not. In other words, if I insisted, he, this order says you got to give me four bodyguards. If I'm going up front, they have to give me the four bodyguards, because General MacArthur is the supreme commander of all the forces, Australians, or anybody else.

gky: Were you guys that went to foreign outfits, were you better protected than the ones that went to the American outfits? I mean, would those orders apply to someone who was going to an American...

RK: Gee, I don't know whether it applied to those who went to American outfits. I imagine it would. But I asked Ace Fukai and he went to Australia, and he doesn't remember the orders. I wish I had kept one as a souvenir, you know.

gky: That is a pretty powerful order.

RK: There's a whole line of things. Oh, another one was when the interrogator is interrogating, nobody can enter that tent without his permission. That means even a lieutenant general can't come into the tent.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

gky: Will you tell me about the incident with Captain Timson?

RK: Huh?

gky: Can you tell me about the incident with Captain Timson?

RK: Yeah. Well, he came into the tent and sat next to me and kept saying ask him this, ask him that, what did he say, you know. What Captain Timson wanted was for me to say "What's your name?" And let's say he says the name is Rusty Kimura. "His name is Rusty Kimura." Ask him how old he is. "How old are you?" "I'm twenty-two." "He says he's twenty-two." I said, "I can't interrogate that way. That's not the way we were taught to interrogate." I said, "I can't do that. The way I interrogate, I can interrogate in fifteen minutes everything I want to know, I want from him. I know what's needed." So I kicked him out of the tent. The order says no one can come into the tent unless I say so. Joe, back in division headquarters, he refused to let a lieutenant general come into the tent. And later on when he told me about it we sort of grinned and laughed about it.

gky: So, what happened with, when you ran into Captain Timson later? Was he real mad about the...

RK: Yeah. Well, I told him, I told him in his tent. He had a large tent, but he had a partition like that drape, for example. But the tent is like this, right? So it's all open up there, and even if it wasn't open, the people on the other side, two sergeants, could hear everything I was saying. And I came into -- these are two artillery sergeants that I was interrogating, and there's a, the top sergeant in the whole battalion was in the next side, and the next higher ranking sergeant was with him. The highest ranking sergeant is called sergeant major, and his assistant was a master sergeant. When I was telling Captain Timson off, you could hear a pin drop because they were listening on the other side. I told Captain Timson, "When I'm interrogating, I don't want anybody coming and bothering me, so you stay out of my, if I may use the word, goddamned tent. You stay out of my tent." And they were listening. And then I walked out and he never ever came into a tent again. Nobody ever came into a tent, into my tent.

gky: But, you know what is sort of amazing, later you came across some information that was going to be helpful, and Captain Timson listened to you.

RK: Well, whatever information I got, whether he believed it or not, he had to act on it, because if he did not act on it and my information happened to be true, well it's his neck, you know. See, for example, I tell him they're going to attack tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock and he does nothing about it, and 160 men up there on that little knoll are massacred, then it's his neck because I gave him the information that they're going to be attacked, but he didn't act on it. So he would have to act even if he didn't believe that an attack would occur.

gky: What months were you on Bougainville?

RK: Huh?

gky: When were you on Bougainville, what year and month?

RK: Oh, I was there from October of '44 till spring of, May of...

gky: '45.

RK: '45, yeah.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

gky: Can you tell me about when you interrogated the two prisoners together?

RK: Yeah, that's, those were the artillery sergeants. That's when I had just told Captain Timson to stay out of my tent. The artillery prisoners were there waiting for me. I had, I thought I had completed interrogating them, and that's when I went into Captain Timson's tent to tell him that I'm very disappointed in this interrogation because I haven't gotten what I thought I could get and I don't know why. Today, I can't recall why, but, and he, since he and I were at odds, he agreed with me and said, "Yeah, it appears to me that the interrogation was a failure," or whatever he said. So I walked back into the tent and I told the sentry, the guard, I says, "Take them back to the," -- what's the name, stockade -- "the prisoner's stockade." So they started to get up and the one, there's like a ping pong table there and the folding chairs, and they were sitting together. The one, the closer one had a gauze bandage around his knee with a blood clot, looked like dried blood. I said, "How'd you hurt your knee?" He said, "I fell." I was standing about seven, eight feet away from him. "How'd you hurt your knee?" He says, "Well, I fell off of a bridge." And I thought right away, "Bridge." Well, I know what kind of bridges they have around Bougainville there. They're big log bridges like this about 60 feet high, trees, they chop them down then they'll take an ax and flatten one, the top part and threw it over this ditch. The ditch is only about four, five feet deep, but they're perpendicular and all rocks, and a tank wouldn't be able to make it. They'd have to make a regular bridge for a tank to go over it. But anyway, they didn't need any bridges for tanks, so they just needed it for soldiers, for us infantrymen to cross. There are many of those bridges. Well, I shouldn't say many, but there's several. Anyway, they're very slippery because they're green trees. If anyone falls, and all the rocks don't seem to be nice smooth rocks, they're all sharp pointed rocks. And I had my own name for them, I said, "Lava rocks" -- not that I know what lava rocks look like, but I always thought lava rocks were sharp, pointed rocks. The big ones, boulders, you know, they're so sharp that if anyone fell even four feet, they're sharp enough to cut the sides of your boots, the leather. Anyway, to shorten this story a little bit, I said, "Well, if you hurt your knee..." I sort of bluffed them pretending, acting as if I already knew where they're guns were located. See, we had been trying to knock those guns out for a long time. They had been firing at us every night, never during the day. They were probably running out of ammunition. But anyway, I said, "It must have taken you quite a while to walk from the bridge to where your guns are located." He said, No, I walk normal." I said. "Well, how long? How many minutes did it take you to walk from the bridge to your unit?" He says, "Oh, it was about 10 minutes," and he looks at his friend for confirmation. And the other guy said, "Yeah, about 10 minutes." So I got, I went right next door to Timson again and got what they call aerial photograph, and all I could see is the tops of the trees, you know, dense jungle. But I saw a little pencil line and I thought that must be the trail. And right alongside of it, about an eighth of an inch wide strip, that's the Laruba River. That's a large, wide river, quite a river. I called these four Australian soldiers in who were always together. They're the ones that ride in the jeep, go around picking up the documents and bringing them to me, or they'll pick up a prisoner. We never had more than two. Always one or two.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

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.

<Begin Segment 7>

RK: And about that little white sheet of paper, you want me to tell you about that?

gky: Sure, tell me about that.

RK: You're going to edit this anyway, right?

gky: It's going to be edited.

RK: Anyway, Sid and those three other fellows, friends, buddies of his, came in and brought a cardboard box with the flaps all torn off, you know, like Campbell's soup cardboard box, empty one full of documents; dropped it on the ground floor there in my tent and said, "Okay, Rusty, here's some work for you." And they walked off. So a white sheet of paper, you know, about half the size of that sheet there, white one, just like the ones we use here in the office, too. And as if it had floated to the floor right here in this room, just clean, clear, you know, it's not stained or anything. All the other documents were weathered, you know, they got little dabs of mud or blood or both on it. So I was curious. I picked it up. It's the first thing I picked up, and here is a bit of information that surprised me. It had a sketching done by, you know, these pencils -- half of it's red and half of it's blue, or whatever. It had those little red and blue marks on it and it showed sketches of a combat position and a few characters. The red indicates the enemy, the blue indicates the Japanese. And it shows the position and the kanji says that they're going to attack on a certain day, at a certain time. I looked at it. Well, this is tomorrow. So I took it to Captain Timson. I was excited, you know. I thought this was great, but I tried to act nonchalant, you know. I says, "Say, they're going to attack this position tomorrow at eight o'clock, I mean ten o'clock." And he looks at it and he knew immediately, right away, where that position was. He says, "We only got 160 men up there, but they can't attack us. How could they attack us?" He says, "The main force, you, yourself, Rusty, gave us the information that powerful, famous Japanese 17th Army is located down south. That's over 20 miles down south. How they going to attack us by ten in the morning?" And he had me stumped there for a second, for a moment. Then, I thought, "Yeah, but this is only two o'clock in the afternoon. Ten o'clock tomorrow morning, that's -- two to two is 12 and another eight hours, that's 20 hours. Not only that, they could already be half way up here, right? Or maybe they're already up here preparing to attack. They wouldn't arrive too early because they would be detected, you see." But, anyway, I told him, "You know, my job is to get you the information. What you do with it is up to you." You know, I was tempted to say, "You can stick it where the sun doesn't shine for all I care," you know. But in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't say that. That would have been a little bit too harsh. But the next morning at ten o'clock, they attacked right on the dot. And when I heard that, I had a grin from ear to ear. I thought, "Now he can't come to me and say, 'I told you so'."

[Interruption]

gky: How did Captain Timson prepare for the attack?

RK: Well, after I gave him the information, it was not for me to follow up on it or anything. That wasn't my duty, you know. They take care of everything. But I imagine that he had probably at least a battalion to reinforce that group of, that detachment of 160 men.

gky: So, a battalion is a thousand?

RK: Huh?

gky: A battalion is a thousand?

RK: It's about a thousand, yeah.

gky: Did you translate any diaries?

RK: No, I didn't. I looked at -- in fact, I didn't get many diaries, maybe only one or two. I got a lot of like pay, we found a lot of pay books and things like that because we had a lieutenant, a captured lieutenant, who was what the Japanese army call an intendants officer. That's a payroll, pay officer. You know, dollar, I mean yen coins and Japanese currency and pay books. And I used to give, I gave the pay books away to the Australian soldiers as souvenirs, you know.

gky: When you went to Bougainville, you told me the story about how you got off the ship, you know, those rope ladders, and how you couldn't reach from one rope to the place where your foot was supposed to go. Can you tell me about that?

RK: No, no. You know those -- when you're climbing that rope ladder, it's a long ways down to the pier. It's surprisingly a large ship, you know, and the square is only about say 18 inches. I'm just guessing, of course, about 18 inches. But when I step on the rung of the rope ladder, it sinks down like that, and my left foot, for example, is way up here, so I can't get my left foot off because it's on the rung of that ladder, that rope ladder, and I can't get it off. So I have to pull myself up so that I can release my left foot. And finally, I managed to do it in such a way that I wouldn't have that problem and I managed to get down. But it's kind of scary in a way, because the pack, the backpack is very heavy. It weighs, I would say, way over 40 pounds, and also have a rifle on the back too, you know, which makes everything very clumsy. And I realized that time is when I heard sometime in the past that when you're way up high and you're climbing down, don't look down. And when I looked down and saw that, I recall that warning, you know, that admonition. So after that, I just slowly managed to get down to the pier.

gky: Was not being able to get, you know, not being able to reach from one to another, was that a common, common or was it just 'cause you're...

RK: No, because I'm short.

gky: Were Japanese POWs easy to interrogate?

RK: Huh?

gky: Were Japanese POWs easy to interrogate?

RK: Oh, yeah. Very simple. They would, it was, they would tell everything.

gky: Why?

RK: Well, the Japanese are not supposed to be captured, so they're not, what would you say -- they're not taught to withhold information because they're not supposed to become prisoners in the first place. They're supposed to die for their country. So, but, I feel that despite that, even if they were taught to withhold information, there would have been at least a few who would have given information anyway because they were prisoners of war and they probably felt that they would never get back to Japan, and, or if they had a chance they would kill themselves anyway, or whatever, you know. But, we, the treatment they received was so, what would you say, so compassionate, you know. We gave them these Red Cross, what the term is, I can't recall the term now. But the Japanese would call them comfort bags. The box has got a piece of fruitcake, cigarettes, candy, a little hand towel, toothpaste, and whatever, toothbrush, things like that. And I'd give one -- I only got one or two prisoners at a time, so even if those comfort boxes were meant for Australian soldiers, I'd give one to the prisoners, you know. One Australian sergeant did tell me, "Say that's for us." I said, "Well, it doesn't matter if it's for you." I said, "We got extras anyway." So I'd give it to them. They wouldn't say anything to me. I was a Japanese American from the U.S. forces, and they, I guess they regarded me with a little more -- what's the word -- tolerance, or whatever, you know.

gky: Were they were ever suspicious of you because you were Japanese American?

RK: No. I didn't feel that at all.

gky: Did they treat you as an American or as a Japanese? I mean, where...

RK: No, they treated me as an American.

gky: So, you were attached to the Australians for a long time.

RK: Seven months.

gky: Did your opinion of the Australians, or did your desire to be, did you still want to be attached to an American unit?

RK: Oh, yeah.

gky: Why would you normally be -- interrogate only one prisoner rather than two?

RK: What was that again?

gky: Why would you normally interrogate only one prisoner at a time?

RK: Well...

gky: And why were you interrogating these two prisoners together?

RK: Well, actually, see, they were both in the same outfit, both artillerymen. So when I asked one question, I would like the other fellow to corroborate that, or, or if I were to ask a question and this fellow was rather vague about his answer, I would like the other one, ask the other one if he knew. I guess I was a little, too, in a way, you know, because I like to get everything done real quickly and get the information as quickly as possible, because after that I would type it all out, you know.

gky: That's right. You had a beat-up typewriter that you carried around with you.

RK: Yeah, Grant Ichikawa gave it to me. He said, "Take this typewriter." I'm glad he did.

gky: Yeah, but it was extra weight. I mean, you talk about that two pounds for the artillery, this was...

RK: Yeah, except I didn't have to carry that around because I just set it in my tent.

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

<Begin Segment 8>

gky: After the war was over, will you describe Japan when you first got there after the, with the occupation?

RK: Explain the what?

gky: Will you describe Japan when you first got off the boat? You got off the boat in Yokohama, right? What did it look like? What did it smell like?

RK: Well, there's no -- I don't recall any particular smell, but it was, Yokohama was really bombed out. I mean, but what surprised me was that all the streets were cleared off, you know. In the Philippines, when we entered the Philippines, there was debris all over the streets, bricks, tree branches, or whatever, all kinds of debris on the streets. In Yokohama, everything was cleared off. All the bricks were piled up in that burned out area, block, neatly piled up. The corrugated tins were all piled up. But there were blocks and blocks that were burned out. No structures at all. Perhaps a little entrance to the basement, or something. You know how an entrance to the basement sometime have concrete, whatever you call it, structure there. And Tokyo was similar, except that Yokohama, it appeared to me that Yokohama was, suffered more than Tokyo.

gky: Where'd all the people go?

RK: Huh?

gky: Where did all the people go? If blocks and blocks were bombed out, where did the people live?

RK: I don't know. I think they just had to assemble in areas where their government arranged refugee areas or something, you know, camps, churches or schools, or whatever.

gky: How did that make you feel?

RK: What?

gky: How did that make you feel that...?

RK: Well, the only -- one feeling I did have was that it's too bad we had to have a war with Japan. I wish the war had been with somebody else, that is, a war that I'm in. But the peoples, right after the war when we went, we'd see people wandering through the streets as if they had no purpose, aimlessly, you might say. Not everybody, but some, a few. The bombing and everything, I think, it just -- people who feel that all their dreams and hopes are destroyed. That type. That's the feeling I got. Even a young couple walking, they don't care if a car runs over them or what. You know what I mean?

gky: It's really sad. And the time that were in Japan for the occupation, did you feel that the feeling had changed, that feeling?

RK: Oh, yeah.

gky: How?

RK: Yeah, they -- the Japanese -- oh, within ten years, they were a busy, happy people. New buildings put up, entertainment spots and new buildings that would put L.A. to shame, you know. That's why, when I came back to, eventually came back to the States, Los Angeles looked like it was, what would you call it, ancient, out of style. Tokyo had nicer looking skyscrapers.

gky: What role do you think the Nisei played...

RK: Huh?

gky: What role do you think the Nisei played in helping Japan get back on its feet?

RK: Oh, I think there were Niseis in positions to help the Japanese people recover. Whether it was in the agrarian area, you know, agriculture, or in businesses, and in politics, political, you know, the administration and so forth. I think a Nisei helped write the Japanese constitution, for example. And there were fellows who were in a position to help Japanese get back into business. I think Cappy Harada was in a position to help. He was with Major General Marquette, who was in charge of that.

gky: Do you think the Nisei had any more compassion than other Americans had?

RK: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think we had more compassion for the Japanese people than anybody else, and in individual little ways, did much to help, you know. Collectively, it amounted to a great deal of help to the people. Like, let's say, for example, I helped a little family over here, say in their obtaining daily necessities. Let's say that I provided the finances to purchase, finance for a family to buy the food, even if it's on the black market. Things like that. Taking them on jaunts.

gky: Can you just stop a minute because of the sirens? Okay. Can we backtrack a little bit and tell me again about how you would help a family?

RK: Well, I think almost every individual Nisei that had contact with Japanese would, in some way would help them, whether it's obtaining daily necessities or entertaining them, taking them out to places of entertainment, you know. Like even if it's to a picnic or to a restaurant, or just taking a trip, because the Niseis, most Niseis had cars or had access to cars, especially during the later years, say after the Japanese began to manage to make a fair living; managed to recover some of their past, what would you say, living capability.

gky: Did it make you proud to be an American, to be part of the occupation forces?

RK: Was I proud to be an American? Oh, yes. I think every Nikkei was.

gky: You spent a long time in Japan after the war, so you didn't really come back to the United States and get, be treated either with discrimination or with praise. You stayed there after the war for how many years? Seventeen?

RK: Yeah, let's see. '45, from October of '45 to December, end of December of '64. That's nineteen years. Yeah, nineteen years and three months.

gky: So you never really got the feeling that your civil rights had been violated because you were in Japan, not in America.

RK: Oh, I think my civil rights were violated when we were put into camp.

gky: But what choice did you have?

RK: Huh?

gky: What choice did you have?

RK: What do you mean, what choice?

gky: What could you do about it?

RK: At that time, when they put us in the camp, I don't think there's anything that anybody could have done about it. No Nikkei could do anything about it. They could refuse to go to camp, or as some, few individuals did, but, what would you say, demonstrations or revolt would have done, wouldn't have succeeded.

gky: Do you think that what the MIS...

RK: Huh?

gky: Do you think what the MIS did during the war helped with the redress movement that came about in the '70s and '80s?

RK: Well, I think it had some influence on it as far as American, the white establishment is concerned. I don't know how our Issei parents received the fact that we fought against Japan. Some Isseis, perhaps most Issei parents felt, well, as the Japanese say, "shikata ga nai. Our kids are Americans so they have to fight for America." They might have taken that attitude, or accepted it in that sense, but, and there might have also been parents, I don't know, but I imagine that there might have been a few parents who felt that they shouldn't have fought for America after, in view of the fact that they put all of us Japanese in camp and the fact that they're fighting Japan.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

gky: This is tape three with Rusty Kimura, December 14th, the year 2000, in Los Angeles. Rusty, when you think back on the war years, what did you learn from being in the MIS? Or how did the MIS influence how you lived your life after you got out of the service?

RK: Will you give me an idea?

gky: Well, for example, you probably wouldn't have been in Japan. You probably wouldn't have spent, if you hadn't been with the MIS, you probably wouldn't have spent as long as you spent in Japan. You may have gone into a different profession.

RK: Well, the only thing is, in the first place, I'm very glad that I volunteered and entered the army, served in the army. For one thing, I'm serving my country, but by being in the army, I met so many people and I've seen so many places that I would not have experienced if it had not been for the army. In other words, it's too bad there had to be a war for me to receive the education that I have received by going to, if it hadn't been for the war, I probably wouldn't ever have left the state of California. I had been up as, before the war, I had been up as far as 30 miles from the Oregon border, right up in the northeast corner, a place called Alturas, to play basketball for the championship, and after high school days with the Nisei football team in Oakland, I went all the way down to Brawley. That's about 30 miles from the Mexican border. But never, I didn't go to, what's the name of that Mexican town there, right nearby?

gky: Tijuana.

RK: Tijuana. I didn't go to Tijuana. Oh, I did go to Tijuana once, but that was after the war. That's right. I went to Tijuana after the war.

gky: Okay, so another reason then was the MIS, being in the military, broadened your horizons.

RK: Yeah. And I enjoyed my stay in Japan, nineteen years of life in Japan. I really enjoyed it.

gky: Why did you come back to the States?

RK: When did I come back?

gky: Why?

RK: Well, for one thing, my daughter was thirteen, and another thing is a lot of the MIS was going to be transferred to Hawai'i. When they go to Hawai'i, they're on the local economy, no commissary, no benefits. Of course, there was some talk about whether MIS was going to be Japan much longer, and so forth. Since my daughter was thirteen, I was thinking, do I want to live here or America. And I couldn't make a living in Japan. I wasn't that strong in Japanese. I wasn't strong enough in Japanese and English both. So I thought I'd better get back and get my daughter into American schools even though there is a military, what would you call them, military-sponsored schools in Japan, too.

gky: Anything else you can think of about MIS experiences or being in the war? What was it like when MacArthur was fired?

RK: Well, I didn't, I mean, to me, very disappointing. A lot of people disliked MacArthur, you know, but I thought he was a great... there's no question he was a great military leader. He was probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest, America has ever had, but he liked the Niseis, too. I understand that one fellow, Nisei, was, heard him say, one Nisei heard him say, it might have been his linguist, heard him say, "How are my boys doing?" referring to, you know. So I could understand MacArthur's feeling, although he shouldn't have, he shouldn't have rebuffed Truman, so to say, in the manner in which he did. But what I say, I can understand it is because I can understand MacArthur's feelings because he's human. He's a human being, and he was a lieutenant general when Truman wasn't even a captain yet. And here he is, for a general of his caliber, to having a person who was a captain when he was a general, telling him what to do and everything about military policies, you see. Like for example, I don't know what the reason why he got fired, but I think it might have been because MacArthur wanted to fight the Chinese in Korea during the Korean War. He wanted, whatever it was -- I better not go into that because I don't know enough about it. But whatever it was, it's military strategy.

gky: In terms of dismantling the industrial industry in Japan, which the occupation forces did, and then rebuilt them, how did that help Japan rebuild itself? How did the Niseiand their role help Japan rebuild itself? You were an observer.

RK: No, I was just an observer so I don't have the expertise, the knowledge, to assess that. But I understand there were Niseis who -- perhaps Cappy knows -- who worked along with the Japanese to build up the economy of Japan. And, you know, they split the zaibatsu, although in -- into two separate units, or whatever they call it. Like Mitsubishi electric, but they also have Mitsubishi automobiles, or whatever, instead of just one big conglomerate.

gky: Anything else you can think that you want to add? Anything else you can think of?

RK: The only one thing I'd like to say is that it's a good thing it was no other country that occupied Japan, because Russia wanted to divide Japan north and south, just like Vietnam or Korea, and Russia would take the top half, north half, and the United States the lower half, or whatever. But MacArthur wouldn't allow it, see, and it's a good thing.

gky: But not only for that reason, because America was the only country that had Nisei. I mean, it was the only people first, the only country that had people of Japanese ancestry who were going to be part of the occupation who did have family there. Anything else?

RK: One, I just... the relationship between the Nisei who served in the MIS and the Japanese people, the public that is, not with Niseis' friends or relatives, but with the public, the relationship is not really friendly, you know, not close. That's because the Japanese people are rather -- don't understand why we fought against Japan, see. They can't, they figure we're traitors. A lot of people, I'm not saying everyone, just some. There's quite a segment who feel that way. I just wish that our politicians in the position, if they're in the position to do so, would make it understandable for the Japanese people why we were in the army, why we served. This is our country. Japan is not our country. No matter how you look at it, you have to fight for your country. It doesn't matter who the enemy is.

Off camera: The Japanese people thought, I mean, to be a citizen of Japan, it's by race, you have

to be Japanese.

RK: What was that?

Off camera: The Japanese people in Japan for citizenship have to be Japanese by race. I mean, for instance, Koreans in Japan who might be born in Japan have to be considered Japanese citizens as well as any other ethnic group, right? So, maybe that's why they think you are Japanese by race so you should have this loyalty to...

RK: Well, Japan figures, their concept is just like America's in a sense. We're of Japanese blood, so no matter whether we're born in America or Brazil, or where, we're still Japanese to them, to Japan. America says we were born in America, we're born in America so we're Americans. And if you, and if I'm in a foreign country and my child is born in that country, that child is an American. Just like my daughter was born in Japan, but she's an American.

gky: She had dual -- oh, she can't have dual citizenship.

RK: Huh?

gky: She can't have dual citizenship because they don't have dual citizenship in Japan anymore. Okay. Thank you very much, Rusty.

RK: Thank you.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.