Densho Digital Archive - Chester Tanaka Interview (denshovh-tchester-01-0005)

<Begin Segment 5>

I: Was there anything else that was funny, any other incidents? Maybe good natured competition? Were the Hawaiian boys separated from the mainland boys?

CT: No, not really, we really got along, the Hawaiian as well as the mainland. We had names, we were known as kotonks. They said if they hit us in the chin and we fell over and hit the ground, our head would go kotonk, the sound of a coconut hitting a rock when it fell off of a tree or something.

I: How do you spell that? K-O-T-O-N-K?

CT: Yes, that's a kotonk. And so all the mainland guys are known as kotonks, and all the island guys were known as kanakas.

I: How do you spell that?

CT: K-A-N-A-K-A?

I: What does that mean, do you know?

CT: I'm not sure to this day what it means, but I just call them a bunch of kanakas. But we really got along very well. I don't know how to explain it, but there was no friction.

I: Was there rivalry between the various training companies?

CT: Yes, there was, and also between battalions. But no bitterness or anything, it was just a friendly rivalry. We were always, our company was better, or our... then you get down to the company, then our platoon was better than the other platoon, or our squad was better than their squad. This was, I guess, generated, part of the army training program. But anyway, we enjoyed it. We really felt that we were better than the other group.

I: In the movie Go For Broke! with Van Johnson, it give you the impression initially that the white officers, called haoles, H-O-E-L-L-Y or something like that, weren't very happy to be assigned with the Japanese American regiment. Is there any evidence of that or any prejudice by the officers?

CT: I really didn't run into any prejudice or any overt things of that nature. I think there was a little distance or aloofness at the beginning and in the States. I think once we got overseas and got into action, it wasn't a question of haole, that's H-A-U-L-I, I think... well, I'm not sure. Well, anyway, I don't think it really made any difference whether you were white or yellow or whatever, it was what you were doing in combat. And then at that point, all the ancestry disappeared. It did not matter, it really did not matter.

[Interruption]

I: Is there anything else that you can relate to us that would, to talk about your -- we have very little anecdotal material information on training, most soldiers didn't find it all that funny. The only thing they would remark on is that, it was interesting, sort of the clash between the Hawaiians and the mainland people. Were there any other incidents, maybe in the town, the director of the training camp?

CT: I really didn't run into that. I heard that there was a clash between the Hawaiian groups and the 69th Division. This was right before I got into camp, I just heard about it after I'd been there that there'd been a brawl or something, and that it was forgotten. I mean, you don't forget it complete, but I mean soldiers or GIs, you're under strain or stress, and get bored or whatever, and everybody's going through the same old crap all the time. It's not the same old stuff, but you know, it's not like being a civilian where you're going to do this or that. And the sameness kind of gets to you, so you just, I guess you just release it through a fight or whatever, or you get drunk or whatever, this is one of the things. I don't know. Whether it was a racial thing, I doubt, but it could have been. They might have been calling names and things, but from what I gathered, it was over after the brawl, the pent up tensions were released. And I was down at the camp there for a couple of months, and I never heard about it again. And the relationships, I would mingle and work around the other groups and divisions, Caucasian groups, no problems.