<Begin Segment 4>

[Ed. note: there were problems with the video on the original tape for this segment.]

LD: What were you told about this assignment when you first started? What were you and others told was the nature of this assignment? What were you told?

HM: We were told that we're going overseas. Exact country was never given us as India or Burma or anything. You're going overseas, and you're going into combat. We might be the first United States Army troops in continental Asia, and seventy-five percent casualty is expected. With that in mind, the colonel told us, "You have been selected to lead this group." Then, of course, we got scared, normal. So at that time we stopped, then we talked it over. "Gee, shall I go?" If we don't go, somebody else is going, we don't know. I'd like to give it a try. After all, what have we done up to now? What we did with the 100th Infantry and the school here, to prepare ourselves for war, battle. And that's the final test. We don't go, whatever we did was all for naught. That's the reason to give it a try and see how the others feel. And then we started collecting people, seven from Hawaii, seven from the mainland.

LD: What kind of things were you thinking about when you picked somebody or tried to decide who to pick?

HM: Well, actually, who to pick wasn't we go after somebody. There were so many people coming up to... I don't know how the story got out. "You fellows going to lead one outfit into someplace on the Pacific? How about taking me?" We didn't have only fourteen, we might have gotten a hundred, we don't know. From that group, well, they all wanted to go. Came to a point where it was more difficult to pick somebody. And the mainland boys, well, we left it up to certain mainland people to select them.

LD: How did you pick them then? Why did so many people want to go, and how did you pick them?

HM: I don't know. I don't know why they want to go. After all, in that MIS school, that school was never exposed to combat. And in a military sense, combat is the final test. It's something that you have, you have arrived. You made it if you go to combat. Unless these people want to stay in the background and don't do anything, they might, but you're training every day, imitating war and this and that. When the final time comes, you're going to war. Your mind is already, gee, we're going to war. Now everything comes back to you. You're going to war, your family, your sisters and brothers and all that, you start to think of those things, but there's no turning around there. You're going to turn around, I felt you should have turned around at the very outset, before you started on to this.

LD: So how did you think the fellows, what kind of... what were you looking for in the fellows that you picked?

HM: Well, actually, we didn't go to the individual and say, "We pick you." No, we submitted their names, and actual... well, confirmation was done by the colonel and I don't know who the other options would be. We submitted the names, and then they were all approved. We didn't go to each individual and say, "You, how about you come and join our group?" Not to that extent. We picked the names knowing that this person is this type of person, is good in English, and this and that, and we compiled fourteen names, submitted to the chief, colonel, and the orders were cut. And that's the first and that last group to go as a unit. From Savage or Snelling, they always sent in groups of nine, twelve, fourteen, in teams, but none ever went into combat. Only our group. They all went into Australia, Philippines, all over, and they worked out of the headquarters of some unit. They might have gone on a mission, troops, individually that is, then come back. You've heard of Hoichi Kubo? He was in my barrack, he was my assistant barrack leader. He was one like that, see. He went up and he did the daring thing and climbed the cliff and bring back those Japanese from the caves, the civilians. But he was that kind of person, gutsy, very gutsy.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1985 The Center for Educational Telecommunications and Densho. All Rights Reserved.