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gky: Was Camp Savage difficult for you?

KY: Camp Savage? Well, you see, the only thing new and different was that we had what you call "heigo," which is military Japanese, you know. Of course, they went all the basics of Japanese, and so they had classes, one to, I don't know, forty I think. We took tests and they classified you according to that. Then, after taking the test, I ended up in Class 1, is the highest class. And so those who... there was some strong in English, these were Japanese, there are some strong in Japanese, the English, and they teamed them up together as a team. Strong in Japanese and strong in English and put them together and they get one whole language specialist, you know. That's the way it was done.

gky: So, were you -- you never went over to the Pacific though. What happened?

KY: Well, I mean, I was asked to go to the Pacific, not asked to go the Pacific but, after VE Day in Europe, when I was in Europe, they wanted to send me to Sweden, I think it Sweden on a special mission. That I declined because my father was very ill and the Red Cross cabled me my father's ill. When we were out in Prague, VE Day, we were told to get back to Supreme Headquarters, Eisenhower's headquarters, come back for shipping immediately to the Pacific. At that time, of course, as I said, my dad had a stroke and he was only... we had four sons and four of us went in the military, so there was no one in order to take my father's place, so being the oldest of the sons, then I see that I have enough points for discharge. Eighty-five points was the number of points you had, you can ask for a discharge, but I had over 100, so I asked for discharge.

gky: When were you born?

KY: When was I born? I was born December 8, 1916.

gky: Tell me about how you got over to Europe in the first place.

KY: How I got into Europe? Well, I'm moving kind of forward, but actually, when we went PACMIRS, which is Pacific Military Research Center [Pacific Military Intelligence Research Section] we were just about to be started, and we were in the Pentagon, we finish our mission, and I guess the general staff had the idea of starting a similar unit that they had at the European Theater of Operations intelligence unit section was in Camp Ritchie.

gky: I'm sorry. I'm a little bit mixed up. I thought that you'd gone to Europe, and then after that you came back to PACMIRS , but that's not true. You went...

KY: No, no. I went from Pentagon...

gky: ...to Savage to Pentagon? Get chronologically then.

KY: Yeah, that's why I said I'm moving forward. From McCoy, Savage, Pentagon, and Europe. That's the order.

gky: Okay.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2001 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.