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gky: The date is December 14th, the year 2000. We're in L.A. with Don Oka, O-K-A. Don, what year were you born in?

DO: 1920, January 5th.

gky: Oh, birthday coming up.

DO: Yeah.

gky: And how long were you with the MIS [Military Intelligence Service]?

DO: I went there around 194 -- end of 1942 to December 1945.

gky: So, three years.

DO: Uh-huh.

gky: And, when you were discharged, what rank were you?

DO: Discharged at Fort Lawton, Colorado.

gky: And what rank were you?

DO: Tech sergeant.

gky: Tech sergeant?

DO: Uh-huh.

gky: Alaska was one of the first combat zones that MIS people were sent to, and you were sent to Alaska, right?

DO: Yes. I was, I was the second group to go to Alaska. First group went there for Attu Campaign, and after that they needed more interpreter quickly, and I was at Savage, Camp Savage, studying, and they said, although we were in the middle of the class, after only three months, they asked our class, about thirty of them, to go to Alaska.

gky: But you were all Kibei. You must have been, since you spent twelve years in Japan, from the time you were five to the time you were seventeen, you must have been pretty well versed in Japanese.

DO: Yes, I was stronger in Japanese than English. As a matter of fact, even today, I think I speak better Japanese than English.

gky: And you must have been in the top class in Camp Savage.

DO: Yes, Class 4 and most the students in there were, if I'm not mistaken, say 60 or 70 percent Kibei.

gky: Okay. What was Alaska like?

DO: Alaska, just cold. [Laughs] But it was good experience to get to know the people and I with the Alaskan Scouts because I was assigned to them, and I did enjoy it.

gky: Did you interrogate people, or were you supposed to interrogate people, or translate documents? What were your duties?

DO: My job with the Alaskan Scout was to land fairly early, and then to advance with the patrol, close to the front and wherever we face resistance from the enemy, we pinpoint where they are, and that information supposed to go back to headquarter and somehow we supposed to take them out.

gky: How much did you wind up doing on Alaska? You went to Kiska, right?

DO: Yes.

gky: Not Attu?

DO: No. Attu veteran met us in Anchorage, Alaska, and they more or less trained us for coming campaign. And they told us how tough Attu was, and Kiska would be much tougher. So they prepared us for that. But fortunately no one was there.

gky: So what do you mean, "No one was there"?

DO: That air force insisted that there's nobody on the islands anymore, the last two, three weeks before the invasion. But the navy demanded that somebody had to be there because we had surrounded the islands all these month. There's no way of escaping. They've got to be there. So the invasion took place and when we landed, Canadian troops and U.S. landed from opposite direction and found nobody. And it was early and foggy, and Canadian and U.S. mistook each other for Japanese and start shooting and there was some casualties.

gky: Gee, so they snuck out of the harbor.

DO: Yes, uh-huh. I don't know when. But after the incident, when the whole thing was over, I heard from Japanese friend that said that they used a ship during foggy day and snuck in there and took them out, evacuated.

gky: So Alaska wound up kind of being a bust for you, I mean, in terms of a combat zone.

DO: Yes, but I was kind of happy to see nobody there, because before the landing, everybody said this was going to be the toughest. I even saw Signal Corps had motion picture group there taking pictures. These are the guys that took picture of Africa desert victory and same group said this is going to be even better pictures, you know. And they were aboard the ship. They stopped to interview us, and for an instant there was -- after four or five minutes, our captain rushed over and said, "Hey, hey, these boys are off limit to the press and any kind of information given out, so cut this out." And we were cut out from the interview.

gky: But it was just you Nisei, you Nisei soldiers?

DO: Yes, uh-huh. They thought we were Indians at first, and they asked us what we were doing, and we told them what we think, and what do you think of the coming invasion, and we're just kidding. And these officers, Signal Corps officers, said, "This is going to be a very good movie," so, you know. Then we're cut off.

gky: Were you cut off because you were Nisei soldiers and this was the first time you actually had been in a combat zone?

DO: No, because all the Niseis, the interpreters, were off limit to any press people. No information given out, supposed to be secret.

gky: So in terms of what you were supposed to do, did you then say, "Oh yeah, we're going to interpret documents or we're going to interrogate prisoners," or what you really were -- your assignment really was? Did you let the Signal Corps people know, or did...

DO: No, we didn't. We didn't talk about our work. They thought we were one of the troops and we let it go at that.

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