Densho Digital Archive - Walter Tanaka Interview (denshovh-twalter-01-0010)

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gky: When you were serving in the occupation, do you remember what it was like when you first went to Japan for the occupation?

WT: You know, I could hardly believe what happened to me in that I received a direct field commission while I was in Manila, and I was selected as the interrogating officer. In other words, as the war was ending, it was in August of 1945, but I was commissioned second lieutenant in the army as an interrogating officer. And one other Nisei, a very fluent linguist who later served as a monitor in the war crimes trials, a fellow named Sho Onodera. And he was, had graduated high school, I guess, in the United States. Also high school in Sendai High School in Japan, and he was commissioned as a translating officer. And the two of us went to Leyte to Tekluan, which was the headquarters of the United States 8th Army. So we were assigned there each with a ten-man Nisei team, and then we went into Japan. We flew into Japan and the plane that I went on, we're all full colonels. They were staff officers of the United States 8th Army. Commanding officer was General Eichelberger, Robert L. Eichelberger. But when we approached Japan, it was like seven o'clock or thereabouts in the morning. From Okinawa we flew to Japan, and as we crossed the beach to the island of Honshu, south of Tokyo, of all things, suddenly the cloud disappeared as we got lower in elevation and of all things, I saw Mt. Fuji. For the life of me I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Here, all my life as a kid, you know, my folks talked about Japan and about Mt. Fuji and the beautiful scenery and snowcapped mountains on winter days and, you know, Mt. Fuji would be on all kinds of magazines, covers and places. And here I didn't know anything about Japan as far as seeing or ever going there because my folks never went back to Japan in all their life until then, and then here none of us kids have been there and, all of a sudden, here I am going into Japan and into the occupation of Japan. The first day of the occupation, August the 30th, 1945, and we landed at Atsugi Air Base and went into Yokohama, but it was an experience that I just couldn't believe what was happening to me, that here it is, Japan, and it's something I heard about during my days but, like any American kid in school, from first grade in school we pledge allegiance to the American flag and we grew up with mostly American Caucasian kids, and now here I am in Japan for the occupation of Japan. One thing, the faces of the Japanese that were at the Atsugi Air Base, Atsugi Air Field, was something that just struck me in that they had just lost the war and suddenly Americans, including myself, had landed, and the emperor said, "Lay down the arms, don't resist, and accept the Americans, and you know, don't create resistance." And they were there to provide us with transportation at Yokohama because we flew in, there were others by ship or you know, by other means that got, arrived in Japan and a large convoy was formed, and from Atsugi to Yokohama is a 20-mile distance and with MacArthur in the lead, and General Eichelberger, and a lot of the staff personnel. But I was on one of the jeeps that you know, I rode in the convoy into the occupation of Japan.

gky: And that was... MacArthur was leading that convoy?

WT: Yes.

gky: Okay. You know, what you said, that the faces of the Japanese people there, can you describe them? Happy? Sad?

WT: You couldn't tell whether they were...

gky: Sorry, I stepped on you.

WT: Yes.

gky: Would you start again? Okay, what were the faces of the Japanese people like?

WT: These Japanese people were there, were mostly ex-soldiers. Still, since they didn't have much clothes left, you know, they were wearing worn-out fatigue uniforms, and they had those little caps on like all Japanese soldiers had on those days, and they were there to provide us with transportation. Not the staff because we had jeeps, a few jeeps and then a limousine, a black limousine with the stars for MacArthur, and then General Eichelberger with the stars for his limousine. The Japanese government provided and got those two limousines ready and, otherwise, they had Japanese buses, they had Japanese army trucks, all the vehicles they could get together. And these Japanese I would think were ex-soldiers. But they had to drive the trucks that convoyed us into Yokohama. And MacArthur had his headquarters in Yokohama for, I think, several weeks. Thereafter, he went to Tokyo to the Daichi Building. And then General Eichelberger, he and his staff, 8th Army, stayed in Yokohama.

I had one interesting experience. I talked to General Tojo several times. After I was there several months, Tojo still hadn't been apprehended. But I say several months but I don't exactly remember how long it was after we got there. But the military police and the counterintelligence corps went to Tojo's house to apprehend him and bring him in to the Sugamo prison. No, actually, it was before the Sugamo prison. It was at the Omori prison in the causeway into a little island between Tokyo and Yokohama where, in a stockade there, they kept Allied prisoners during the war. Well, when the war ended, all the Allied prisoners were released and then the major war criminals were placed there. But, anyway, Tojo, when he was being apprehended, he asked to be, to get some of his clothes to go along with the military police. So he and his wife went into the house. Now the GIs, the military police, should have walked into the house, but suddenly they're faced with a Japanese house with tatami, a mat floor, and apparently they had learned something about Japanese homes and the customs. And in a few months or whatever time that, before he was apprehended, that they learned these things. But, suddenly, when they went to apprehend him at his house, Tojo said that, "Excuse me, I have to go get my clothes." So instead of following him with wearing their combat boots and going into the house, the people that went to apprehend him stayed at the entranceway. You opened the little gate and then you wait. And there's a place where you would sit and take your shoes off, but they just waited there. They didn't want to walk up on the tatami floor. In the meantime, Tojo went in the back, into a closet, pulled out a pistol, and shot himself in the chest. And it missed his heart so he didn't die. And then they rushed him to the army field hospital in Yokohama where an American sergeant, a GI gave him a blood transfusion. And I understand at that time here in the United States, big headlines here, "American GI gives Tojo, the enemy, red-blooded American blood and saved his life."