Densho Digital Archive - Edward H. Mitsukado Interview (denshovh-medward-01-0007)

<Begin Segment 7>

LD: Let's put you at Savage and the first time you're approached. In fact, let's talk about the fact that you flunked the test and shouldn't have been going at all, right? So why did you get pulled in and what did they say to you about that? Pulled you in, right? That's kind of interesting, why don't you tell us about that? How you got, what they said to you about why they said you.

EM: Okay, how shall I start now?

LD: Just say, "I was... they pulled me out of the 100th Battalion to go to language training and I actually flunked the test." Put it that way.

EM: 100th Infantry was at Camp McCoy. The language school at Camp Savage sent out some of the instructors to test the Japanese ability, Japanese language ability of the Niseis in the 100th Infantry. And, of course, they didn't check everybody, but they did make some selections -- not some selections, but they interviewed most of the fellows in the 100th Infantry. And I was one of those, so I was called in for a Japanese language test. And this was verified later on, that I flunked the test. I was one of many who flunked the test that they had given, the language test. And as a result, I never thought that I would go to this language school. And yet, about a week later, after the language test was given at Camp McCoy, the commanding officer of our 100th Infantry Battalion called me in and said, "Sergeant Mitsukado, you will be leading a group of about sixty to Camp Savage." I said, "Camp Savage? Where the hell is Camp Savage?" And he says, "Well, I don't know where it is, too, but it's in Minnesota somewhere, and they have a language school, a Japanese language school." And he says, "You will lead this gang to the school." So he says, "Make sure that you round up all the fellows who are supposed to go," you're responsible to make sure that all, I think there was about sixty of us from the 100th Infantry to go there. So then I told the colonel, I said, "How come? Something's wrong here." He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Goddamn it," I said, "I flunked the test. I'm no Japanese linguist. I don't know too much Japanese." And the colonel said, "I don't know, your name is on the list here. So knowing you, Eddie," says, "I'm getting you to take this group to be responsible for taking this group of sixty to Camp Savage." I said, "Gee, how come?" I said, "I flunked the test and everything. Colonel," I said, "when I get there, can I ask for a return back to 100th?" He says, "Well, you can, I don't know what good it's gonna do, but you can try it."

So I took the group up to Camp Savage, and then I went to see Colonel Rasmussen, who was the commandant of the school there, and asked him, told him that I had no business being in the school there. And he asked why, so I told him that I had flunked the test and all that, and that I wouldn't be the right kind of material for the school here. But he told me, he says, "No." He says, "Look, we're not taking only those who know the Japanese language, but we're taking those who also know the English language, too." He says that, "You have showed that you can talk with the fellows, talk with the boys and everything, and that you're very familiar with, back in Hawaii you talked with everyone with the 100th Infantry. You get along very well with the boys, and you can talk to every one of them, even the fellows who don't know too much Japanese," I mean, too much English. He said, "You can talk to them," and this and that. So the main thing is that we wanted some people who would be able to work with fellows who know a lot of Japanese and not enough English. Said, "Maybe you can make a good combination." Because even if you don't know too much Japanese, if your ability to talk in that Hawaiian pidgin and all that, you might be able to help out a fellow who knows Japanese very much, very well, but not able to put it into English, which would help the outfit, to help whoever you are working for.