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gky: This is Ted Tsukiyama, T-S-U-K-I-Y-A-M-A. We're in Honolulu on January 5th, the year 2001. Ted what year were you born in? When were you born?

TT: 1920.

gky: And when in 1920?

TT: December.

gky: Oh, same as Harry [Fukuhara]. Will you tell me the Varsity Victory Volunteers story?

TT: Well, we have to start with the University of Hawaii ROTC. They were called up on the morning, just within maybe half an hour of the Pearl Harbor attack. They were called to report for duty, so the ROTC at the university was a regiment size, but I would say there's at least five, six hundred cadets who reported. And, about 80 percent of them, I'm sure, was Nisei. We were -- the very first assignment was to go out to the bottom of St. Louis Hill to repel the advance of Japanese paratroopers that supposedly landed on top of St. Vincent. Anyway, they never came and so that afternoon the ROTC was converted by military order into the Hawai'i Territorial Guard and then assigned to guard various important installations and buildings in Honolulu. That went on for six weeks until someone in Washington, D.C., discovered to their horror that Honolulu was being guarded by hundreds of "Japs" in American uniform. So all of the Nisei in the Hawai'i Territorial Guard were discharged. This happened on January 19, 1942. So most of us went back to the university, but within weeks we were inspired to volunteer for our services as a labor battalion since, by that time, the War Department had changed the draft status of the Nisei to 4-C, "enemy alien," so that we were not eligible for military service anymore. So this was a civilian group which petitioned the military governor to be allowed to serve as a labor battalion if they were not to be trusted with weapons, and the petition was accepted. And this group, about 170, was accepted and assigned to the 34th Combat Engineers out at Schofield. So this civilian group, which was given the moniker or nickname of Varsity Victory Volunteers because they all came from the university. This group served with the army engineers for almost a year out at Schofield from February 1942 to January of 1943. And then, by that time, the War Department made the decision that they would reopen military service for the limited purpose of accepting Nisei volunteers to serve in a all-Nisei combat team. And that's -- you know, historians have said that this group of 170 VVVs, although small in number, had a very large impact and had some part in the decision to allow the Niseis to serve again in military service. And, of course, this is how the 442 got started.

gky: So, could you tell how you -- what kind of impact you think that it had, the VVV serving so willingly and immediately?

TT: Yes. I've seen at least one document in the war records in the National Archives where there was a communication to the Secretary of War, Assistant Secretary McCloy, which noted... that mentioned reasons why the Nisei were probably not a loyalty risk and should be allowed to serve in the military. One of the reasons was the good work that the MIS were doing out in the Pacific, but the other one was specifically mentioned that there is this group of volunteers who were working in the labor, as a labor battalion out in Hawai'i, and this is just about the time when the decision was made to initiate the combat team. So there is some definite indication that the experience of the VVV did have a part in this decision that, of course, allowed the formation of the 442 which would give the Nisei a chance to wear the uniform again and to fight for their country, and, of course, the rest is history, as you might say.

gky: You were drafted to go into, and wound up going to the MIS, but you had said that you put on an Oscar-winning performance to get out of the MIS, that you really wanted to go to the 442. Will you tell me that story?

TT: Yes. This is already in 1943 and we were training in Camp Shelby with the 442, and I was with the 522nd Field Artillery. And around that time, the War Department realized the value of what the Nisei MIS were doing out in the Pacific. And there have been papers that I've seen that listed the priorities; in other words, answering the question, what shall we do with these Niseis that are in the services? And the first priority was if they were competent and qualified to be trained in military intelligence, that was the first priority. The second was infantry combat, which would be the 442nd and the 100th. And the third was quartermaster, some of the service organizations. So since there was this great need for more students to be trained through the Military Intelligence Language School system, and this was up at Camp Savage, Minnesota, they sent recruiters out. They had already recruited about sixty from the 100th Battalion in Wisconsin in late 1942. They sent recruiters out to the war camps to try to get young guys to volunteer. And also they sent a recruiting team to Camp Shelby, Mississippi. And on our service records, I guess it showed that a lot of us went to Japanese school one hour a day after public school to learn Japanese, so people with that kind of record were asked to interview and I was called. Well, of course, I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay with my, you know, the outfit that I was training with, stay with the 442. That's when I purposely flunked and I thought I did a convincing job of showing my ignorance and incompetence in Japanese, but despite this Oscar performance, they took me anyway. [Laughs] And I was part of 250 or so that was ordered to go to Camp Savage to report for Military Intelligence training.

gky: Being from Hawai'i, you were used to being around Japanese Americans. I mean, you all are the ethnic minority here, I mean, I think majority. Can you tell me was being in the Varsity Victory Volunteers or being turned away the first time you'd ever felt discrimination, racial discrimination?

TT: Yes. Up to the time when we were discharged from the Hawai'i Territorial Guard, I mean, it was all -- you know, there was no question. We had been accepted for service and we were serving, and we felt a great deal of pride and satisfaction that we were serving our country, and then just suddenly we were dismissed, and the only reason was our ancestry. I've often looked back at that moment when we were so advised that that would be the lowest point in my life that I can remember. Just being brought up all your life, educated, being a Boy Scout and going to public schools, and just being brought up as an American kid in every way, and then suddenly you're told ineffective, you can't be trusted, you're not acceptable. This was just a devastating emotional blow.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2001 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.