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gky: Tell me about this top secret mission that you went on, the second top secret mission when you didn't even know what the mission was?

KY: Oh, Europe. Yeah. Well, we got that mission and was ordered to get ready to leave such and such date, and the team, we had only three. Not the same team that went to the Pentagon. I was the only one and there's a George Urabi from San Francisco, and Pat Nagano from San Luis Obispo, the three of us. Our team leader was a Major White. He just came back from Seattle R2 mission. Our orders read -- and the orders were similar to the navy -- U.S. Navy had sent a member of the team, a senior lieutenant, English, four of, three, four, five of us. Five of us had these order to go on this mission in a really huge C-54. C-54 is almost the size of a B-29. Only four of us on that plane. But we left New York airport. I don't know which airport, but we left the New York airport. We landed in Newfoundland, and Newfoundland, went straight to Scotland. Scotland, I think, we dropped into Scotland just to refuel, I think. And then we went straight to the French airport -- I forgot the name -- and landed. And our mission was to report to Supreme Allied Headquarters, which is known as SHAEF, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, General Eisenhower's headquarters. And we actually were attached to General Eisenhower's headquarters in the Far Eastern division. Our mission was, when Major White read our mission, he said our orders read that we were to go be attached to and train with the British commanders.

[Interruption]

KY: Our orders read that we were to attack Berlin for documents by land, air, or sea, train with the British commanders, and we were to headquarters at General Eisenhower's headquarters. That's the order. So we got to the French airport all right, and we immediately went to Eisenhower's headquarters. At that time, our section was at Petite, Versailles -- I forgot the name. "Petite" is "small" in French, the smaller headquarters, but next to the big general headquarters. And our first meeting at Eisenhower's headquarters, our team, our section, Far Eastern section was Allied makeup, you know. We had U.S. Army, we were the U.S. Army, we had the U.S. Navy, we had the British Royal Army, British Royal Navy representative. All colonels, everyone colonels, we were the lowly sergeants. [Laughs] And we had free French colonels and a free Italian colonel all in that Far Eastern section. And there was a, we were sent to General Eisenhower's headquarters all right, but the question is where are we to be billeted, where our barracks would be. They didn't provide us with any, so, finally, we had to end up at a stable where they had, where the Moroccan troops were barracking. The barracks was a stable, royal stable which, where the horses were. The first night, we stayed at the stable with the royal horses, you know. They were black Arabians, I think; I don't know.

gky: So did they billet the Italian colonel there, and the French colonel?

KY: No, there they won't officers billet, you know. We were the only enlisted men of that section, you know.

gky: Wasn't that kind of an insult?

KY: Well, you got to sleep someplace. [Laughs]

gky: Why were you there? Why were you Nisei part of this team?

KY: But, see, the mission was attack Berlin because, at that time, as you know, there was the tri-Axis: Germany, Italy, and Japan, finally, you know, and it seems they had intelligence reports that the Japanese were going to Europe by way of submarine or things, you know, and likely that there were some Japanese documents in the embassy there which could lead to someone trying to decipher some of the secrets of the Nazis at that time. See, the thing is that there was [inaudible], but I recall that, well, per actual mission, we separated in teams, and I think we had the Battle of Cologne, I think, was, they were going out in the field, so the three -- George and Pat went with the staff of the officer, intelligence officers to more or less see if there's any documents that would be of use to Far East intelligence, and I went to another route. Then in the meantime, while I was going to the southern, down in Bavaria area, southern Europe, you know, the Bavarian area... boy, we have a -- you see, we had orders from Supreme Headquarters so we could go into the British sector, Italian sector, French sector, American sector. Even American soldier, he can go only in the American section. He's not supposed to go in other nationality, other national army sections, see. And we had passes from, we want gas, we just go any station, fill up our gas, just show 'em the order and get gas. And if you could go to any town which there's no barracks facility, and we go and see the town major, and the town major go to the Germans' home and tell 'em, "You folks have to get out tonight, we have American soldiers going to stay." So we billeted in residences of the Germans, or French, or whatever. So we had a pretty good arrangement.

But while going to these missions, I was hearing reports about General Patton. He was trying to head for Berlin. By hook or crook, he was going to get to Berlin first before the Russians got there. So he commandeered diesel fuel for the tanks from all over, taking them and marching toward... and I think he was right, too, because, boy, we could see on the road alongside, a trail of German tanks battered and burned. And you could see the German POWs all with arms like this, marching, hundreds of them marching back toward the rear lines. And that spelled out what I saw, the reason why General Patton was trying to get there before the Russians, because the Russians got Berlin first. We tried to get, American army people wanted to get in Berlin. The Russians were there first and they held the key, and no American soldier would come in Berlin. You see, that's the first Iron Curtain already. So Schaffe was trying to get the Russians to guarantee our safety to allow us to get into Berlin although occupied by the Russians, but the Russians refused. So were hanging around in Schaffe all the time, you know.

Many, of course, were out special missions, so there's a big crack, big crack in the intelligence for our team, anyway, was that in Austria is a hot springs resort. The whole Japanese staff, the whole Japanese embassy staff, army attache, naval attache, about 150 of them were all holed up in a hot spring bath. They all gathered together, and I wasn't in that team because George and Pat went and they interrogated them, made a report of all that. That's amazing, outside of Berlin mission you had, that was a big accomplishment of our team going to Europe. But I asked for, actually, a mission to go to southern Europe section, Bavaria, Yugoslavia, Italy, you know, and southern France, because my brother was in the 442nd and I was in the 100th, and all my friends in the 100th were in Italy, see. So I asked that I wanted to go to Italy. So one of the British major, with our own staff car with a driver; we had a good deal, you know. So, we went. That British sector was, Venice was under the British sector, see, and Americans cannot get in, but we just freely went in. So I went to Venice and Naples and Napoli and Florence and all that area. We drove over, see. The alpines, we went to the Swiss, well, the Swiss Alps. We didn't get too far because they were neutral. Then I went to Italy and then I inquired about where the 100th and 442nd were, and they were an hour in Lake Cuomo, it's a beautiful resort, Lake Cuomo. So I met my brother there, stayed overnight there and saw my buddies in the 100th, you know, and then drove back on the way to Prague.

gky: Did you ever find, or did you hear of any Japanese documents being found in Berlin?

KY: No, we found some. I found some in Hanover, Germany, and not too many. Mostly from the -- you see, I think military attache, naval attache, and embassy all one, and they had kind of a tight security. But the loose documents that we found were from the big Japanese firms. They handled some military equipment, but not too many. The biggest find was in a group of embassy staff, naval attache, military attache. Southern Europe didn't have much.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2001 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.