Densho Digital Archive - Kazuo Yamane Interview (denshovh-ykazuo-02-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

LD: So then let's say you graduated. Let's take you right up to, you graduated, and then what happens to you? What happens to you? Describe that thing about, you know, you graduate, you're given orders, you open up the orders, and tell us about that. You graduated in June.

KY: Immediately after graduation, the entire Savage class was given furlough pass, I think it was two weeks. And as soon as I returned to camp, I was one of the first to be called to the office. They said, "Well, Yamane, you better pack up, you're going out." So we wanted to know who our team was, and Sergeant Matsumura at that time and myself and two others, we packed up and got our new issue. And actually we were told to go to the railroad station in Washington, D.C. We left, and I guess we were instructed to open the orders when we left the railroad station. So you opened the orders and said it's going to be a Pentagon building.

LD: Okay, tell me that again only I want to hear it more clearly. You graduated. Say, "I graduated," tell me when you graduated. "I graduated in June." In June '43 you graduated.

KY: Oh, June '43 we graduated, I forgot the date. Okay.

LD: Yes, June '43. Okay, graduated June '43.

KY: Yeah, okay. From that point on?

LD: Yeah. "They gave me my orders."

KY: I graduated Camp Savage Military Intelligence School June of '43. After our graduation, the entire Savage class was given, I think it was two weeks' furlough.

LD: What did you do during those two weeks? Where'd you go?

KY: Well, I went to visit some cities. I think on that I think I went to Camp Shelby to see my brother, I think.

LD: You had a brother at Camp Shelby?

KY: Yeah, he was in the 442nd.

LD: Oh, tell us about that. What unit was he in? Say, "I had a brother."

KY: Oh. Well, on my furlough, if I recall, I went to Mississippi to Camp Shelby to see my brother who was in the 442nd. And upon returning, I was one of the first to be called to the office to pack up. There at the office, I was instructed that we would belong to a team with Sergeant Matsumura who was an instructor there, and myself and two others. And we went to Washington, D.C., the railroad station, and he got his ticket there, I guess under sealed orders, I don't know. Then we got on the train, then he opened the orders and the orders said that we were to go to Washington, D.C., and we would be assigned to Fort Myers where they have personnel service in the Pentagon building.

LD: The Pentagon got buried in there, I barely got it. Just tell me that they opened the orders and it said that you're going to serve in the Pentagon, all right? One more time.

KY: Sergeant Matsumura opened the orders, and it stated that our, that we were assigned to the Pentagon building in Washington, D.C.

LD: What did you think of that? What was your reaction? What was your reaction to that?

KY: Actually, my reaction to being sent to the Pentagon was that building was one of the highly secured buildings in the United States at that time, and there was no Nisei at all, anybody with Japanese blood was not in the Pentagon building. The only exception was James Hamasaki, a good friend of mine, he was going to the university too, and he came back on the Gripsholm. He was working for the State Department, and he came back on the exchange ship, and he got a job at the Pentagon building. He was the only Nisei of the 35,000 or so employees of the Pentagon. We were the first Nisei soldiers to go to be stationed in the Pentagon. So we felt that was pretty much a high honor, I suppose. On second thought, probably, we would be working on very highly classified documents, and so we'd probably be much more important tasks than out in the field. So we felt that we got a pretty good assignment.

LD: How was it for you at the Pentagon, working in the Pentagon? How was your general experience there, what do you remember about it?

KY: Actually our experience --

LD: What do you remember?

KY: Our experience in the Pentagon, I think, was very helpful to us overall in the sense that I think being in Washington, D.C., we were right in the midst of everything that was happening. And, of course, the Pentagon was the place to be. I thought that it was an experience.

LD: You knew at the beginning there were others that came through, other Nisei came, can you tell us about that?

KY: Yeah, we were the first four, and I think after a few months, three or four months later, I think the air force asked for a team. And then later I met some Niseis in Washington, D.C., and upon inquiring, they were from Hawaii, and upon inquiring, they said they were stationed in Warrenton, Virginia, doing some kind of communications work, they were from either Savage or Snelling, they came in later.

LD: What kind of work did you do? What kind of documents, what kind of work were you asked to do, and tell me about that national inventory, your discovering that national inventory.

KY: Oh, that came later. But actually, our primary work in the Pentagon was an [inaudible] battle, they called it an [inaudible] battle in the Pacific Theater of Operations. The main job we had, actually, I think, was why we were sent there. During the, one of the naval battles in the South Pacific, I think the U.S. Navy had sunk a convoy of Japanese ships, about twenty Japanese convoy ships. And from it, my understanding, they found a huge crate floating on the ocean, and that was picked up and I think was sent over to Australia. They have a large team over there which was called ATIS, Allied Translators and Interpreters Section. And they made a fast translation for the field, the texts. The documents were about five voluminous books which listed every army officer in the Japanese imperial army, probably about 40,000 or so, fourteen files, about fourteen files, file cabinets. Now, that officer's directory, whether it was regular and reserve, I'm not sure, but listed every army officer's full name in the kanji, of course, all Japanese. Listed the unit, the rank, and the code of the unit, and then below that, lists what unit designation, if it's infantry, regiment, or field artillery or whatever. Gives the division, army or division and the unit designation, it gives the complete information of that officer's unit, and even gives the code, is what you wanted badly. And what our job to do was to convert that into a card file, with an alphabetical card file, writing the kanji on it, of the name. Because the name, Japanese names could be read various ways. So we would give it a Japanese reading on it, and then list all the information which was the basis upon which all other information were gathered for all the battle.