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gky: Okay, tape three with Walter Tanaka, October 20, 2000, in El Macero, California. Okay, so can you talk a little bit about the soldiers and their belief that they are invincible?

WT: Uh-huh. Well, early in during the war, their esprit de corps was very high. And they, sometimes they refused to talk. But we have our ways and means of their coming to realize that it was futile for them, or they felt it was futile for them to resist or tell a lie because we would catch them in a lie and things like that. And then the one thing is, they're lonely, they're prisoners in the cell, you know, waiting for interrogation, and they were lonely people, you know. They want somebody to talk to. And yet, when you talk to them, they say, "Well, I'm not going to say anything more," or, "I refuse to talk," and all that. But fine, if they refuse to talk, they'll sit in their cell and then if they refuse to talk, we can put several of them in the same cell and they talk about geisha parties and the kiisan girls or the women in China if they had served in China and things like that. But at the same time when we find out that, you know, they served in China, or they served in Malaysia, or they were part of a combat, you know, hardened, experienced soldiers. But towards the end of the interrogations, they will, they get to the point where they feel that, "Well, now what are they going to do with me? What's going to happen to me?" And so, at that point... well, in the meantime, you see, the interrogator, he's basically stern and demanding about getting information, and the right information, the correct information. And so we reflect that in our interpreting, but in between, well, if they're cooperative, we tend to be kinder to him and, well, I would offer them a cigarette, or a piece of candy, or something. And they're dying for a cigarette if you smoke. They hadn't eaten a piece of chocolate candy or something like that for god knows how long they were in the service. And so they were receptive to that and were willing to talk. But, finally, when it comes towards the end of the interrogation, they say, "What are you going to do with me? Where am I gonna go?" And they said that, "Australia is a big continent, a big country with a lot of space." And says if you would just let us out in Australia and if they had a little plot of land where they could grow some vegetables and live out the duration of their life, you know, that they would be satisfied with that. We said, "Well, no, when the war's over then we're gonna send you back to Japan." They said, "No, you can't do that because I'll kill myself, or I'll jump off the boat and commit suicide." And they were very serious about it. And they begged, you know, that they would not be sent back to Japan. It was pretty pitiful, tragic that they felt that way and felt that there was no other recourse. But the Japanese army was very demanding, just like in basic training the way they treated the soldiers, and they were taught to die for the emperor. And so that was their mindset.

gky: So sometimes you'd give them candy, sometimes you'd give them a cigarette. How other little ways would you be quote/unquote "nice" to your prisoners?

WT: Well, that's about the extent of what we could do. We, rather than talking to them harshly, we kind of talked and sympathizing with them and their predicament, and assured them, or tried to assure them that when the war is over, the things will be different, you know, that he should be able to go to Japan. But it's something that they'd have to go through a lot of indoctrination or meet up with other prisoners and eventually see, from the number of prisoners, how they're pretty much losing the war. And there was a lot of inequalities in what they had in the Philippines, like in Manila. Japanese officers were living it up and enjoying things in the rear echelon while in New Guinea, they were just starving to death. By the time I went to Hollandia, New Guinea, where I was the interpreter for Australian naval lieutenant commander, and I used to go to the prisoner war enclosure and we interrogated prisoners there. And we would see some of the many prisoners there that were just absolutely skin and bones, just practically starved to death, and sick with dengue fever and malaria and diarrhea. And all that that they were just human, practically human skeletons.

gky: So the physical condition of the soldiers who you interrogated was pretty poor?

WT: Yes, towards, as the war progressed.

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