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gky: Okay, this is tape three with Roy Takai on October 20th, the year 2000. Okay, what did the prisoners physically look like?

RT: The prisoners in Burma -- by and large, the prisoners that we captured in Burma were wounded prisoners. They had been in Burma for quite some time. They were not fed well, they were mostly very -- they were not in good physical condition. They were very poor physical condition, and consequently, their morale was very low. They were very poorly clothed also.

gky: Can we talk a little about Maizuru now? What did you do?

RT: Well, Maizuru, in October 1946, I was assigned to the Central Interrogation Section of ATIS in Tokyo, Japan, and in December 1946, we got word that the Russians were going to repatriate the first group of Japanese to -- from their area to Japan. So the Allied forces and the Americans, specifically, in Japan decided to set up a port of entry in Hakodate, Hokkaido, Maizuru, in Kyoto Prefecture, and at Hariyo in Nagasaki Prefecture. They assigned me to... assigned me and one other officer, and ten enlisted men to go to Maizuru, in Kyoto prefecture, to process the group of repatriates to be sent there. We went to Maizaru, reported to the intelligence officer of the 35th Infantry Regiment, who had jurisdiction over the area, and we set up a screening procedure to screen the repatriates to determine whether or not they had any potential information which might be of ultimate use on a strategic level to our country, and also to determine whether or not there were people among the repatriates, who would cause harm to either the occupation or to the Japanese government. At that time, we only handled the first boatload, shipload of repatriates, which numbered anywhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 to 2,000 people. The Japanese Demobilization Bureau is a Japanese agency who housed and who provided logistics for the Japanese repatriates while they were there. These repatriates were happy to be back to Japan. They suffered quite a bit in Soviet-controlled areas, and specifically in Manchuria, in that area.

Then in February 1947, after we returned to Tokyo, the Allied, the U.S. formed a intelligence team again to be sent to Maizuru, and they put, they had a command unit commanded by Lieutenant Gary Otoshi of Hawaii, and he had a sergeant to assist him. They had two interrogation units each, with a linguist language officer, and enlisted, one enlisted man each to assist them. They had an interpreter's unit with one officer and one enlisted man, and they had a translation unit which I took over with my enlisted assistants. In other words, there were five officers and five enlisted men in this intelligence team. We were -- each unit was provided with a jeep and trailer, weapons, and other equipment required to fulfill our mission. In other words, typewriters, folding desks, and so forth. We drove from Osaka to Maizuru, and again reported to the intelligence officer of the infantry regiment. There, we set up the screening procedures again, and we handled the repatriates as they returned to Japan. The other two ports were similarly manned by the U.S. MIS individuals.

gky: Do you remember any anecdotes, any stories? What is your most memorable experience at Maizuru?

RT: Well, Maizaru was a different experience because it was a type of questioning that would try to draw out from the repatriates whether they had information of value to us. What was happening was we would screen the repatriates in Maizuru, and if we felt that they had sufficient information to be debriefed later, we would earmark those individuals. At some time in the future, say six months or maybe even a year later, they would be called to the Central Interrogation Section in Tokyo and would be given a thorough debriefing, intelligence debriefing. So our, our experience in Maizuru was a very short and brief questioning of these individuals, and we finally, after some experience, started to work harder on individuals who were detained in certain areas; certain areas where we knew that they had information of strategic value to us. I cannot recall of any information which sticks in my mind as being different from other repatriates. It was straight questioning and nothing too different happened to us. The only thing that I know is that Captain Ono, Gene Ono, who later commanded an intelligence unit at Maizuru, worked so closely with the repatriates that he contracted tuberculosis and he had to be medically evacuated back to the United States. Many of these repatriates were emaciated and had lived under such terrible conditions for so long that they contacted tuberculosis. And unknown to us, who worked closely interrogating them, there were many tuberculosis patients among them. There was no time at the Maizuru, unless they were spitting blood or obviously was very sick, that these people had tuberculosis. Recently, Captain Gene Ono was honored by the Japanese government for his work there in Maizuru.

gky: Did you feel the work at Maizuru -- how did you feel it was important in helping America and the allies after the war?

RT: Well, the work at Maizuru was very important in that we were able to, after being selected at Maizuru and being debriefed in Tokyo, we were able to collect a great deal of strategic-type information, which we had never had before the... Siberia is a very unknown area, was a very unknown area to us, and the Japanese were stationed in certain locations along the Trans-Siberian railroad line, and they were able to observe many, many things of value to us. Not only were they able to observe, they lived in that area and they talked to the people living in that area and we in the interrogation center in Tokyo had a unit called "Town Plans." And they would select a certain town and then they would collect information about that town, especially if it was of military value. A town where there were Soviet troops, I think, like this, and Maizuru was a screening point, and it was valuable because if you were not able to select these people for intelligence debriefing at a later date, you would miss all that information. Also, although another organization in the U.S. Army took care of the people who did not have the best interests of the occupation, or Japan, in their minds. They were placed under a surveillance in some instances, the Japanese police had them under surveillance, and they were watched so that they could do no harm or threaten the Occupation of Japan or cause any harm to the Japanese.

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