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gky: This is tape two with Kan Tagami in Mililani, Hawai'i on January 5, 2001. You said that the trip to Rangoon was interesting. How come?

KT: Well, there was no opposition. We were expecting something but I don't know what we were going to do if we did. We only had fifteen people. But the colonel believed some of my, the report I told him that hardly anybody there, you know, which was true. The Japanese had taken off toward Thailand. Oh, there was one American unit there. That was called... I forgot the name. They only had two or three people, but we didn't get to meet them. Anyway, I told you about the bank. About five years later -- I don't know where I was -- somebody contacted me and wanted to know why I opened the Burma Bank. I said, "Don't ask me. The colonel was in charge. We did nothing but take a look," you know. They had a big investigation on that for a long time. They finally found out that we were telling the truth and nothing was missing. So that's what it was. It was interesting in the sense that we went into an enemy territory, no Japanese troops, nothing. It's sort of empty of most -- no British troops, no Japanese troops, except us. We just stayed there about a week and then came back. I don't know what the purpose of the trip, because I was only a sergeant then. I think it was interesting, at least. And the Japanese war scrips were still good. You could eat on that, they were still accepting that, the civilians.

gky: How long were you with the Mars Task Force?

KT: Oh, all right. In November, 1944.

gky: I have that you went over in June or July of 1944 with the Mars Task Force, and then it was November of '45?

KT: Yeah. I think we left this base camp that we were in, Myitkyina, in December, 19...

gky: Must have been '44 before the war was over.

KT: Yeah. And we started our march down the road and ended up in Burma, I guess that's where it was.

gky: How many Nisei were with the Mars Task Force?

KT: Well, there was my team, which was fifteen, including myself. And there was fifteen in the other one, 475th Regiment, all former Camp Savage graduates

gky: So, there was a total of thirty?

KT: What?

gky: There was a total of thirty?

KT: Yeah, a little over that, I think. There was some OSS [Office of Strategic Services] people.

gky: And how big was the Mars Task Force?

KT: Oh, two regiments. Two regiments, a brigade actually, with attached field artillery and things like that, one brigade.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2001 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.