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gky: This is tape two with Kazuo Yamane, January 8th, the year 2001, in Honolulu. Mr. Yamane, you were talking about the secret mission that you had at PACMIRS?

KY: Uh-huh.

gky: Can you talk a little bit more about that mission?

KY: The same Japanese army officers' register that was translated at General MacArthur's headquarters in Australia was for technical purposes only, fast, you know. And that book listed the officer's name, rank, his unit designation, and all the details in hard line form. That document actually was requested by general's staff in Washington, the Pentagon, and our mission was to make a translation of that in Japanese. The names of the Japanese officers, you see... one thing about Japanese names is hard, it has various ways of reading it, and if you don't look at the character, the Japanese character, we cannot get the true, correct designation. So our mission was to index I think about forty to fifty thousand Japanese officers. This is official register and it listed active and reserve officers, and we were to index a unit designations and have the names of all the officers in both English and Japanese, all translation of the Japanese names with the original Japanese on it. And on that card file would list the unit designation. So, based on that, I suppose the general's staff would have a breakdown of all the battle. I think, if I remember correctly, I heard the comment made that that was the first time that the Japanese army was really known in every minute detail. It actually took us almost a year and a half to index it. And just about the time, our mission was accomplished, so the idea of having a duplicate intelligence section of the Pacific area. The one at Camp Ritchie was for European Theater of Operations, and since VE Day, why they start to fade out, so the whole battle was to be shifted to the Pacific, major emphasis. So the idea at Pentagon was to create the Pacific Military Research Intelligence Section [Pacific Military Intelligence Research Section]. And we were sent as a nucleus, four of us, were sent as a nucleus to organize that section under -- at that time, we weren't organized. All I know is that a Colonel [S. Frederick] Gronich was to be our commanding officer, and there were some transfers of some of the personnel who were at the Far East Intelligence at the Pentagon, who were transferred. Four of our team was transferred to Camp Ritchie.

gky: At Camp Ritchie, you found a, in a box of crates, you were looking in, like eighteen crates, and someone told you to look at the documents and see if there's anything worth translating. Can you tell that story?

KY: Yeah. When, actually, when we were transferred to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, we were trying to get the office organized, you know. While we were there, still we were not even set up yet, and of course, the commanding officer for us at that time was Colonel Gronich. And he was asked by the commandant of the European Theater of Operations that they had received fifteen crates from the navy at Pearl Harbor, of Japanese documents in which they had no idea -- the language is not their forte, so the general, the commandant asked Colonel Gronich to send one man over to review the documents because they were sent by the navy with the understanding that this had no significant military value, so it would be used for training purposes. So the general, which is a good call on his part, I think, he wanted one more last final review before he classified that as for training purposes. So Colonel Gronich said, "Oh, we'll look at the fifteen crates." And about second or third crate, I was going through the documents and it all battered up and some shrapnel, torn off and all that, but there was one book all stained and wet from water, stained from water, and I was looking at the table of contents, he said, "Thing looks like a textbook," you know. He said, "Take a book about two-inch thick." When I looked in the table of contents, boy, I was surprised the way, the listing of very top secret information. It listed the manufacturers of the weapons, it listed the munitions plants, it gave you the address. It listed an inventory of what they had and spare parts, whether they had spare parts, how many they had, every weapon that the Japanese army had was listed from what I see in the table. I looked at it only about half an hour and I knew this was a very hot document, so I didn't go into detail, I just flipped through, saw the pages inside and by golly it listed all the military equipment of the Japanese army. So I called the colonel, and I told colonel, "Boy, I've got a hot document here." So he came up immediately, and I explained to him. So he took the book and went to his office. He had the three others of my team were there so they looked through that and they explained to the colonel the importance of the listings of the document, and he really took action on it. From then on, not too long after that, the colonel called me up and said, "We have another special mission. I want you to go." He didn't say where. He said, "Special mission is a top secret mission and I want you to, I'm going to assign you to that mission." So I didn't stay at Camp Ritchie long. He said, "This is overseas mission." I said, "Well, in that case, I might as well get married then." So I asked for furlough before going, and then, from that point on, I don't know what happened to the document, but I heard later, years later, that the team, the whole team, they had sent actually a special team from Camp Savage to make immediate translation of the entire book.

gky: You said this was after VE Day, so it must have been after, sometime between -- after June?

KY: Yeah. VE Day, I don't exactly know when it was, but I was still in Europe at that time, VE Day.

gky: I mean, when did this Camp Ritchie document wind up being translated?

KY: Gee, I think it was...

gky: When did you find it?

KY: I was married in October. What is the question? Where did I find it?

gky: Uh-huh.

KY: It was in the crates. It was in the general, it was in the European Theater of Operations in one of their rooms, and I went to their room, in fifteen crates.

gky: Right, and what year was it?

KY: Gee, I don't recall. That was '44, I think, early '44.

gky: January, February, do you have any idea of when?

KY: Gee, I kind of forgot already. But actually, I can't remember my marriage date. [Laughs] I think October '43 or '44, I got married somebody, but '44 -- but all I remember is that we were in Europe already, that's a long story, too. But we went to Europe and when I was Prague we went on to Italy, and coming back from Italy we were notified that VE Day. So we were in Prague at that time and we were ordered to return to Supreme Headquarters immediately.

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