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gky: Also you were, you went to Japan. How did that change your life?
Gordon Y: Well, that was, I think it was pretty emotional, traumatic, in the sense that when we finished, when we were finishing our training in Fort Snelling, VJ Day was announced around August of 1945. So that meant that we had finished all our, we were in the middle of Military Intelligence training for use in the Pacific operations. And because the war ended, our orientation changed. Now we were going to occupy Japan, so they, I think there were subtle changes in our training, because we were no longer to be used as combat troops or whatever, associated with that, and we became considered occupation forces of Japan. We graduated in, I was the last class in Military Intelligence. Let's see. Oh, at that time, I was selected as the best soldier in the graduating battalion in Fort Snelling, and had a ceremony at graduation, they gave me a gold watch, which I still have. Then we shipped off to Fort Lewis in Washington state, or Fort Lawton, that was the port of embarkation, in about March, we graduated in March. Must have been the end of March, first part of April, we shipped out to, immediately after graduation. We were the last class in Military Intelligence at Fort Snelling, then they moved the whole school to Presidio right here in Monterey. So we left Fort Snelling, I think there were many hundreds of us, maybe six hundred of us, and we shipped off to Fort Lawton in Washington, in Seattle, Washington. And then we were there a couple weeks and shipped off to Japan.
gky: The year?
Gordon Y: Year was April of 1946. Took us two weeks on a liberty ship to go to Japan.
[Interruption]
gky: Tell me, what were your first impressions of Japan, or where did you... Yokohama?
Gordon Y: We landed in Yokohama. Amazing sight, amazing. Everything was blasted out. There was no city. Yokohama was blasted out, bombed out, leveled, just like you would imagine in war. Well, it was wartime. The Allied forces, eleven claimant nations, captured Japan. After the peace treaty was signed in about September of 1945, we got there in the first part of 1946. So the war was still total devastation, there was no building or anything. So here we landed in Japan, and when you looked around, the whole country was leveled, devastated. They used, the Allied forces used incendiary bombs in the Pacific. In Germany, Europe, was high explosives, two different kind of bombs. High explosives are used to bomb out buildings, concrete structures. In Japan, everything's made out of wood, wooden homes. So incendiary bombs burning was the technique that was used. And as the bombs came down, it just burned out everything and everything we could see in Yokohama. Then we went up to Tokyo, and that's where I was stationed, at that time, April of 1946.
gky: And how did going to Japan with the MIS change your mind?
Gordon Y: Well, it's very emotional. You're going back to a country that your parents came from. It's a funny feeling. So you realize that the people there share the same kind of, we share the same kind of blood as they do, and here we're invading the country and taking it over. And it's a very peculiar feeling.
gky: Did you think about your parents?
Gordon Y: Yeah. While we were there in Japan, my mother had contacted me because she knew I was, of course, stationed, going to be stationed there, and she told me to contact her birthplace and my father's birthplace. And I told her I wasn't gonna do that because I didn't feel that that was what I should do. So it took me many months, and then I finally went to her birthplace.
gky: Why didn't you feel like that was something you should do?
Gordon Y: Well, I don't know. I just didn't feel that... I don't know. I just didn't want to do that. I felt like an American soldier. I just didn't want to go to his birthplace.
gky: So even though your face was Japanese, you felt you were American?
Gordon Y: Yeah, yeah. In fact, there was a lot of difference between us and the Japanese even though we looked alike. They could tell instantly that we were not Japanese, the Japanese people. Because our mannerisms and our speech was totally different. It takes a long time. In fact, I don't believe... it's just like someone coming to the United States. You can tell right away they're not American, they're European or they're Swedish or they're German, or... you can just tell by watching them. Their haircut's different. Their clothes is different. We were the same way over there. So even there we were able to walk into places that were off limits because we looked Japanese, you opened your mouth and they could tell right away that you're not Japanese, you're something else. So we had a lot of interesting, funny experiences along that line when we were in, at first. After a while you start to pick up the mannerisms because you're right there all the time. I was there twenty-four hours a day doing things that were, we were beginning to learn the culture. The certain way you move your hands. I'd watch them and how they move their hands when they greet. So there's certain... like this. [Gestures with hand] This is a motion Americans don't use, but in Japan, this motion is used a lot. "Oh, I'm sorry," and they go like this. Well, Americans don't do that. So there were motions. And the way your body language changes when you're in a foreign country and starting to pick up the mannerisms of a foreign country.
gky: So you become more Japanese by being there?
Gordon Y: Well, not more Japanese, but I was learning the culture. We sure didn't learn it in the army school. In fact, I don't think I learned that much in the army school. It's when I got to Japan is when I started learning the idioms and the body language and cultural things and really got into it.
<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.