Densho Digital Archive - Kazuo Yamane Interview (denshovh-ykazuo-02-0011)

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KY: After Ritchie, we got sort of bored listening to our friends overseas talking about the excitement, so Colonel asked for volunteers for a special mission overseas, so we volunteered not knowing what the mission would be. The mission turned out to be that we were called in as a team under Major White, and we left for New York. And while we stayed overnight in New York and left on a C-54 transport, it's a huge military transport, with only five of us. So we felt this must be a pretty important mission to be sending five men on a C-54. After the plane left New York, we met all together in the plane, and Major White read the orders. There was a U.S. Navy lieutenant senior grade, Arthur English, with us, and the three Nisei men from MIS, the only ones that had actually gone to the European Theater of Operations. And we didn't know whether we were going to India or Europe or where the mission was. Then Major White opened the sealed orders and read it to us, the orders read that we were to be assigned under General Eisenhower's headquarters, SHAEF, which is Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, going by way of Newfoundland and Scotland and landing in Paris.

We were assigned to Petite Palet which is in Versailles, France, when we had our headquarters there. The order also read that we were train with the British commandos, in fact, our primary mission was to train with the British commandos either by land, air or sea, to attack, go into Berlin and capture documents, Japanese documents in this case. The reason for that probably being at that time Japanese was with the Axis powers. The naval military attache group was pretty huge there in Europe. Also, the embassy staff was pretty large because of the, probably, exchange of information I presume. And I think primarily for that reason, we were assigned to Europe on the Far Eastern Intelligence. The group in Far Eastern Intelligence actually composed of the British navy, British army, all colonels, French, all colonels, the Italians, and actually, what the United States was trying to do was to get a prior commitment from the Russians because of this mission that we would like to have the Russians guarantee our safety in Berlin. Just about that time, what happened was the Russians were advancing to Berlin pretty fast, and we didn't want to commit any United States forces in there because they wanted to get there first. So not having the Russians' approval, we also were sent out in the field from, oh, I covered Germany, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Luxembourg, some parts of France, Italy, and did all the other document checks so some nationals of Japan were captured, listing them. I think the team, which the other two sergeants went out on a mission, whereas I was in Italy, where Sergeant Nagano and George Urabe went, I think they captured a huge staff of Japan military naval attache staff, and also the embassy staff was captured at one of the hot springs resorts in Austria. That was a prized capture by us on our mission, so it kind of paid off, we didn't get into Berlin, but we did.

LD: You mentioned that there are all these colonels around all you guys were only sergeants. Lot of the MI talked about a certain resentment and discrimination. How did you feel about that? Here you were a sergeant, all you guys were sergeants, Jimmy Matsumura was only, your instructor was only a sergeant.

KY: Well, that was one of the reasons we got kind of... not resentment, but we felt it was unfair that we actually do most of the work. We're able to do the work, we're doing the work, but the rank is not there. And whereas all the others, the Caucasian officers at Savage were almost instant Japanese language specialists, and they all got commissioned. I think there was a lot of dissatisfaction in Savage and among the Niseis. Of course, field commissions were given later.

LD: Did you find it hard to do your work sometimes at such a low rank? Did you find it hard to get credibility and acceptance of your judgment while your higher, because you were only a sergeant?

KY: Oh, if you had a higher rank, your job gets much easier, especially getting Allied officers, for instance, doing work with Allied offices. When the war, when we're in Europe, when we were in Europe, VJ Day... no, no, VE Day came about, and the [inaudible] department had called us back to go to Washington, D.C. So Major was telling me, "Well," he says, "Now we can work on the invasion of Japan. Then maybe we'll give you a commission." [Laughs] As far as I was concerned, they can keep the commission. I had eighty-five points, I was going to get my discharge, my father was ill, and they had a lot of business in Hawaii. So I thought maybe the best thing to do was get my discharge and let others do the invasion of Japan. So that's my finale of my service.

LD: Your finale was what?

KY: Yeah, my service in the military. I came back to Washington, D.C., asked for my discharge, then made preparations to come home. So my wife and I came home, got discharged in Washington. State of Washington, I got my discharge in the state of Washington, Fort Lewis.

LD: You did your service and came home. How do you feel about your overall service? How do you feel about what you were able to do and your assignments? How do you feel about your service overall?

KY: Well, I guess as far as my feeling on my service in the military, I think serving four years, I think I served my country well. Having served four years with the necessary eighty-five points, I think I think I did more than my share, and I think I should have gone further, say, in the invasion of Japan, but I feel that I've done my duty. I also have some other commitments like, say, my father, he was old, he was sick, and we have the family business, so I felt good that it was the right thing to do.