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gky: What happened when you went to train with the 100th Battalion?

KY: When?

gky: About six months later, you went to train with the 100th Battalion.

KY: Well, we're out in the field -- actually, I was with 298th Infantry Hawai'i National Guard for six months, and actually, while we were staying out in the field, we got a sudden call from company headquarters that all men of Japanese blood should report to company headquarters which was at at Waiole School, and not saying any why, and we were driven back to Schofield Barracks. And when we got back to Schofield Barracks, all the arms were taken away. We just got our uniform and a duffle bag with supplies in it already, and no time even to see, no time even to call home. They said, "Get on the train, you're going to be shipped out." So the train went to Honolulu Harbor, and that night we shipped out. And at that time I heard rumors that there was a battle at Midway. So, that was the reason that I thought, and I found out later that that's the reason that all the Nisei soldiers, took our arms away.

gky: Okay, so this must have been June of '42.

KY: Yeah.

gky: Battle of Midway. Then you got shipped out of Honolulu to Wisconsin?

KY: Well, that's a strange tale again, because we were on the transport, the old SS Maui, and we had, see, when we left Honolulu Harbor it was at night, always at night, we left Honolulu Harbor at night, and there was a destroyer who was escorting us. That night it was all times that we went out from Honolulu Harbor, and daylight came and there was no destroyer. We were out at sea just by ourselves, just the transport itself. And we had an incident where I think a Japanese submarine had sunk one of the ships, you know, one entire ship so we were kind of leery or so that they might come and get us, you know, get the ship, transport. But lucky we didn't encounter that, so we were alright. And we were out at sea going zig-zag, you know, they don't go straight course, they go zig-zag, and we didn't have the slightest idea where we were headed for or what. We asked the shipmates over there where we're headed and they wouldn't say anything. So one dark, one night slowly we got into harbor, which one was open, and we arrive about midnight again. And when we got off the ship, they split us in three. We went from the transport, we went straight on to the trains waiting there -- there's three; one was taking the northern route, one the central route, and another the southern route. And I went on actually the central road, and then we went straight central, and the only stop that we had was in Nebraska that I recall. All our blinds were, we were ordered to put our blinds down. And we stopped in Nebraska. It was leaking. And while we were there, we got, you know, we had coffee break, they had USO already and they served us coffee and, actually, the people thought we were Filipinos. They said, oh, "You just had the battle of Manila," and this and that. But we just went by. From there we proceed to where we didn't have any idea, we asked the what you call it, boys on the train, and they didn't tell us. They didn't know other than that, I guess the military so, you know.

gky: All of you on the train, all of you on the ship were Nisei?

KY: Yeah. These are all Nisei, all GIs of Japanese blood.

gky: About how many?

KY: I think total was about 1,500, roughly 1,500.

gky: And when you were divided into these three routes...

KY: Well, they were a company.

gky: ...did all of you wind up in the same place?

KY: No, you see, that's the story that I told you about nobody knew where we were going. Either we were going to a POW camp, or certainly not training, because our arms were taken away. So, actually, the three trains converged into, let's see, La Crosse, Wisconsin. Sparta, Sparta is where the U.S. Army Camp McCoy is, so we... no, actually, our train got into Camp McCoy at night again. Always at night. And slowly, as the train proceeded into the camp, actually in the darkness all we could see is stockade, you know, with the tower where they had guards, armed guards in each tower, and all of us in the train said, "Boy, I think they're going to put us in the POW camp like a stockade. And we were there for about an hour or so, and I try to make preparations for our own way to stay. In the meantime, I don't know what happened to the other two trains, but they must have converged before us or after us, you know. But our train, the central route, we stayed there for an hour, then after the train moved and they assigned us to another area, which was, looked like a military camp. [Laughs] So that's how we ended up in Camp McCoy.

gky: Then you were training with the 100th Battalion there?

KY: Well, see, at that time we were no, no name. We were 298th Infantry. 298 and 299 is Hawaii National Guard, but we were not known as the Hawai'i National Guard anymore. We were known as the Hawaiian Provisional Battalion. No designation. We were at Camp McCoy; we were under, see, the patch we had was General Headquarters. Kind of like a fuzzy unit designation, you know. But, in time, after we were training, then we got word from Washington that our unit was known as 100th Battalion, that's the 100th Infantry Battalion. Oh we, we really were trained. We used climb the bluffs in Wisconsin and just marching and marching, you know. They didn't know what to do with us, I suppose. In the meantime, the West Coast, you know, all the mass evacuation was going on. So we found that they still didn't know what they wanted to do with us. It was getting kind of monotonous walking up in the bluffs of Wisconsin, we're all trained already. And just about the fifth month or so, there was a team that came from Camp Savage, a Major Dickey. He was fluent in Japanese, and he... first he asked for volunteers to go to the linguist school. Actually, in my mind, I used to... prior to my drafting, I was in Japan for, going to school in Japan, university in Japan, so I used to come home every summer. And naturally, immigration station they have all your records. So they wanted volunteers. I felt that, "Well, I might as well volunteer," because there's a paper trail on my action going back and forth to Japan, so I volunteered.

gky: Why did you volunteer? I mean, one way you were going to be going to Europe, one way you were going to be going to the Pacific, or did you not know that was your choice?

KY: No, there was no choice because we just went to Camp Savage which was the Japanese linguists school, language school.

gky: No, I mean, but if you had stayed at Camp McCoy, you would have gone to the Pacific. If you went to Camp Savage, then you were going to go to -- I'm sorry, you would have gone to Europe. Camp Savage, you were going to go to the Pacific.

KY: No, at that time at Camp McCoy, nobody knew as to what they were gonna do with the 100th Battalion after that, you know. So, actually, we were a segregated unit and we have to train as an infantry unit, you know. And we never knew whether we're going to Pacific or we're going to be discharged. In fact, in Hawai'i itself, the Territory Guard, for instance, it's a unit of University of Hawai'i students, and they were disbanded. And we were treated even in Hawaii, we knew where we stood. And then we go to Camp McCoy, we see all this mess, mess of this whole evacuation. But, actually, we were... many times we had officer from Washington, D.C. come by and evaluate the 100th Battalion. They thought it was an excellent, excellent fighting unit. So, that's all.

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