<Begin Segment 4>
gky: As a specialist, your position was not one that could be filled by anybody?
RU: Well, not really, because, like I said, I think I had an added advantage when they thought I was a former POW. They were always telling me, "When did you get captured?" And I wouldn't tell them. I told them, "It's none of your business."
gky: Did the Japanese prisoners that you interrogated, how did they look on you? What kinds of things did they ask you, or didthey ask you?
RU: Yeah, they asked me all kinds of personal questions. He said, "How am I supposed to act when I get captured like this?" I said, well, I told him, "If I were you," I told him, "I would feel as though I'm reincarnated." That's what I did tell him. He says, "Oh, yeah, that's a nice way to take it." You know, in the Buddhist religion, they believed in reincarnation, and so I said, "That's what they call in Japanese, nagusameru. In other words, to pacify their soul, you know. So...
gky: When you think back on your experiences in the MIS, what do you think is the most important thing to you that you did?
RU: Well, that is the -- when I found out that the -- I felt that was the most important thing I did for the U.S. Army.
gky: What role did you play in the Admiral [Isoroku] Yamamoto shooting down of his plane?
RU: I had nothing. It was Harold Fudenna's hard work that resulted in Yamamoto being shot down.
gky: When you think about all the things that all the Nisei did, not just you, but all the people overall, how do you look on the role that you all played in there?
RU: Oh, I think we played a big role. I think George Sankey's translation of Z-Plan [formally named "Combined Fleet Secret Operations Order No. 73" that detailed Japanese plans for a decisive military battle], and Admiral Yamamoto's plane being shot down because Harold Fudenna made the accurate translation, and Maya Moko's wipeout of the 6th Division thought they all had a big part, and then all the work that the Merrill's Marauders did in Burma, they made a big difference in the outcome of the war.
gky: How, what kind of a difference? I mean, how would you describe the difference?
RU: Well, it shortened the war. Like, General MacArthur said, "It shortened the war by two years."
gky: I'm sorry, do you want to do that again? I think it was Colonel [Charles A.] Willoughby [Chief of Intelligence for the U.S. Army during World War II].
RU: Well, General Willoughby is on behalf of General [Douglas A.] MacArthur and, but the general said, general MacArthur said that, because of our work, we knew more about the enemy than what they knew themselves.
<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.