Densho Digital Archive
gayle k. yamada Collection
Title: Kan Tagami Interview
Narrator: Kan Tagami
Interviewer: gayle k. yamada
Location: Mililani, Hawaii
Date: January 5, 2001
Densho ID: denshovh-tkan-01-0005

<Begin Segment 5>

gky: Okay, just sort of to recap then, Mr. Tagami, after you came back from Burma, you went to New Delhi.

KT: New Delhi.

gky: From New Delhi, you went back to the United States. The war was over by now, you went back to the United States, arrived there on Christmas, 1945, and then you were reassigned.

KT: Yeah, to Washington document center.

gky: And, that's the center in Maryland, right?

KT: No, it's in the city.

gky: Oh, it's in Washington D.C. In the Pentagon or in...

KT: No, it's in a different building. We're supposed to -- all the documents that we collected, supposed to translate it. I got one temporary base called "Yalu River Project." The Japanese had built dams on the Yangtze River. It was very complicated stuff. I'm glad I didn't need to finish it, because by that time my request for transfer to Japan was approved. I left there.

gky: Why'd you want to go to Japan?

KT: I had lived there before the war, and I wanted to see how it is after the war, and how the people react, you know, things like that.

gky: But it must have been devastating in a way, because the people were a different people than when you were living there before the war.

KT: No, they're basically the same people, very polite, and observing niceties and social obligation. But the only thing they didn't have is money, and when you have no money you sort of resort to a lot of things just in order to eat. But I think they lived quite well. After the war, women became stronger in Japan because they were the one that's hustling for food. They were the one that's going out in the country to hustle food and things. The male, they were in sort of a daze because the shock and things like that. But it took them a long time to get back. In the meantime, the women were living, or trying to live. I think that the thing about Japan is that basically their education standard was high. Everyone at least went to grammar school, and their family ties were strong. I think that sort of kept them up, kept them from sort of dispersing or -- and it didn't take them long to get back, you know. They had no natural material to fall back on, only themselves, just the people. And they did all right, I think.

gky: What year and month did you go back to Japan?

KT: In July, 1945, I think, June or July.

gky: You mean '46?

KT: No, no.

gky: After the war?

KT: Yeah, after the war.

gky: You were there...

KT: Oh, yeah, it was December of '45. The peace treaty was signed in August, so I was one of the earlier ones. By that time, the Occupation force was in Japan and what they need most was language, linguists. I was in the officer replacement depot when the call came for me to get an interview as MacArthur's interpreter. Of course, they didn't say MacArthur's interpreter, but interpreter at General Headquarters. I had an interview and they picked me, because they were very -- people were moving out because of the war and all that, and going home, or doing something. I landed the job with MacArthur.

gky: I talked with someone, I can't remember who it is right now, who said that he -- someone had told him about the job. He said, "I'm not qualified, I can never interpret..."

KT: Some people like that.

gky: Yeah, "Why don't you talk with Kan Tagami?"

KT: Oh, yeah?

gky: Uh-huh. I'll have to think of who it is.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2001 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.