Densho Digital Archive - Howard H. Furumoto Interview (denshovh-fhoward-01-0008)

<Begin Segment 8>

LD: What do you remember about the trip on the ship with the other guys and getting to know the new troops that came on? What do you remember about that?

HF: Our time was pretty well occupied with presentations of jungle warfare, lectures by the officers and the noncommissioned officers. But the thing that really stands out in my mind is that in the beginning, we were considered somewhat oddities, not completely accepted by our fellow soldiers. And this is how we maintained our position until we got until we got into actual bivouac and training grounds, then we got to know them, of course, very, very intimately, then we were gradually accepted.

LD: What did you guys do in bivouac?

HF: We went on long marches, constructed pontoons across bridges, practiced air drops, but mainly it was a question of conditioning for jungle warfare.

[Interruption]

LD: How did feel about the other guys? What was the feeling that you had for the other fellows in your Nisei unit?

HF: From the outset of our assignment and of our voluntary service for the Merrill's Marauders, the fourteen interpreters that accepted the assignment felt very, very close, a close kinship with one another. We know from the very beginning that we were volunteering for an extraordinary campaign. And we stuck to each other very, very closely until the end of the campaign. But the Nisei interpreters were distributed among the regimental combat team in small groups, and of that group, of course, I got to know Edward Mitsukado, our team leader, very well. He was an older person and a very diplomatic and, as I recall, a very kind person. But beyond him, Edward Mitsukado, I got to know my subteam leader Tom Tsubota, who happens to be living here in Honolulu right at the present time. And then, particularly, the Kibei with whom I was teamed up because of his strong Japanese background, and, of course, of my strong English background. We happened to endure each other throughout the war until the completion of Myitkyina. So what I'm trying to say is that each one of us would have gone to the rescue of another person in the group, even if he had to lose his life to do this.

Now, I recall one other incident that concerns B Battalion and the interpreters who were assigned to that particular unit. B Battalion happened to be isolated, cut off from the rest of the unit in one of the bloodiest battles of north Burma. Bob Honda, who is now deceased, and who happened to be the team leader of that group, went around after, that is, after surviving numerous banzai charges by the Japanese, went around to each one of the interpreters in his group and said to them, "Well, if it appears that we will be captured, I'm saving a bullet for each one of you. Rather than to have you captured and be tortured, I'm going to put an end to you guys."

LD: Did you ever discuss that before that moment? Had any of you thought about it or ever talked about it?

HF: We have, well, especially after the campaign and so on, and the story came up, and this is how I got wind of the happenings on that particular hill.

LD: Because you all know you were taking terrible risks.

HF: Yes, that's correct. We looked after each other.

LD: You felt that you would be more badly treated than any other American, say a white, Caucasian soldier, if you were captured?

HF: In the hands of the Japanese, we felt this to be very true. That we would be ferreted out as enemies of the imperial army and would be subjected to numerous tortures.