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LD: And then at some point, somebody came and recruited you for MI. Can you tell us about that? Say, "Here I was at Camp McCoy..."

KY: Well, we were --

LD: What did you think of that? When you knew that fathers of some of your buddies were locked up, you're talking about locked up by the FBI, they were boys from the islands there, just like you were. What did you think of that? Could you start by, "When I heard that some of my buddies' parents, fathers were locked up in the same camp that we were going to be training in..." start it that way, "When I heard."

KY: When I heard that the fathers of my friends were in an internment camp at Camp McCoy right, a stone's throw from where we were training, well, we felt, what a contradiction. I mean, it's not a good feeling. But still, we were at Camp McCoy, but we didn't know how we were going to end up. Because we were named the Hawaii Provisional Battalion, whether we're going to be a labor battalion, whether we were going to be training for infantry or regular army or whatever it is, we didn't know. And for six months we were going to various training, basic courses and so forth. Actually, in the meantime, what happened was, I think only a few weeks after that, I think all the internees were moved to another camp, and we were there ourselves.

LD: In fact, your bishop here. Tell me about that. "In fact, Bishop."

KY: Yeah. In fact, when we met with Bishop Miao at the Izuma Taisha shrine this morning, he indicated that he was sent to Wisconsin for internment, and then we actually inquired from him, we understand it was Camp McCoy.

LD: Okay, still another way. When you arrived at Camp McCoy, at that very moment that you arrived, he was already, the bishop of your Shinto shrine. Describe it. The bishop of your Shinto shrine in Honolulu was already there locked up. Put it that way.

KY: Actually, Bishop Miao had told me this morning that he was at Camp, that's the first camp they were interned, was at Camp McCoy internment camp, locked up. And he also confirmed when I asked him, the fact that the fathers of the two buddies of mine were in there, he said yes they were in there. Now actually, the army really didn't know what to do with us because I guess the higher-ups had a lot of policy questions as to how to treat us in uniform. And with all the mass evacuation going on full blast, and here we are in uniform, and what the deal was, I think all Niseis were classified 4 something, 4-C or something, I think. They cannot join the army. But from my own experience, we were given this basic training, we were going marches, hikes, all over the bluffs of Wisconsin, I was getting kind of tired and monotonous, too. It was very obvious that they didn't know what to do with us.

LD: It must have been cold, you were cold, though. You'd probably never been in that kind of winter snow, cold, either, right?

KY: Oh, that's right. So finally, I think at one point, after a few months, I think, they changed our designation to 100th Infantry Battalion separate. See, separate means that you're not attached to any army unit, so we still were hanging in the air, sort of. So you train and train, keep on going all over the bluffs of Wisconsin. So while I was there, I thought I might as well see the United States, so I used to go all over the country travel on passes. But one day, actually, the Major Dickie came from the War Department and wants to interview volunteers to go into Intelligence Service. But in my own mind, when I'd gone to school in Japan just before joining the army, I knew the language, custom, people, so it would be a logical choice to volunteer for that service, which I did.

LD: What did he ask you? Say, "When I was at Camp McCoy, Major Dickie from the War Department came."

KY: When I was at Camp McCoy, Major Dickie from the War Department came to recruit volunteers for the Military Intelligence Service. He went through asking some questions, whether it's to test your loyalty or... he was pretty tough, he was a tough regular army officer, too, you know, West Point. And he would ask questions like, "Now, if we were to ship you to Japan in a submarine to go on a special mission to Japan," he said, "would you carry on your mission?" These are the type of questions he was asking, these pretty straightforward and tough questions.

LD: What did you say?

KY: No choice but to say yes, naturally. I don't know whether you're going to put that in. [Laughs]

LD: He was asking if you were willing to be a spy or something, right?

KY: Well, being in the army is not a spy as such. But would be similar to spy work, we've got to carry on a mission.

LD: You didn't have any hesitation?

KY: Oh, no. No hesitation because I think there was a need for that type of work.

LD: You would have been ready to do that? Said, "We're going to stick you in by submarine and you're going to go undercover."

KY: Oh, we're in the army, we've got to carry orders.

LD: So did you talk to any of the other guys about how their interview went? Did they tell you what questions were asked, or did you guys talk together about it? You know, some of the other folks who also decided to go for the interview, right?

KY: Uh-huh.

LD: Did you talk to them about what happened?

KY: Well, the others are, they didn't... the recruiting team wasn't too successful at the start, but they had to do some hard selling to get recruits. I know what the Intelligence Service was, because on one of my passes I went to Minneapolis where Camp Savage was, and I met a fellow from Hilo in the army. He was going to that school and I asked him. All the others wouldn't, they wouldn't say anything, secret, and they wouldn't say anything. But this fellow from Hilo, I got his confidence, and he told me what they were doing. Then at Camp McCoy at the interview, I told my friends what the recruiting was all about, and I said, "These are my friends who went to college in Japan," I told him, I said, "They not only need us, but they got our number anyway." We used to come back in the summer and go through all the routine of when immigration office would question us and write it all down. So then I told them, "I think we'd be better off going to Intelligence School because army don't know what to do with us anyway." We're just marching up and down the bluffs of Wisconsin and just to mark time. I said I'd rather volunteer, so I volunteered.

LD: What did you want? Would you have preferred to fight as an infantry and fight in Europe, or fight in the Pacific? At that time, what would you have preferred?

KY: Well, at that time I would rather use my skill, which was much needed. And so I convinced the others, too, that I think we'd be doing better service to our country if we went in as interpreters than going as an infantry. So my friends all decided to sign up.

LD: Did some of them want to go into Europe instead, see more action?

KY: Lot of them, those who didn't want to go just stayed.

LD: Those who didn't want to go to Intelligence stayed.

KY: Oh, yeah, that's the 100th, that's the original 100th Battalion. So after about four or five months' training, then the War Department finally set their policy on the use of the 100th Infantry, so they named it 100th Infantry Battalion at that time, separate.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1985 The Center for Educational Telecommunications and Densho. All Rights Reserved.