<Begin Segment 20>

MU: Okay. Now we want to talk a little bit about -- wanna hear you talk a little bit about the CIC boys that were trailing you into the Chinese restaurant.

HW: Oh, you mean the Chinese gathering?

MU: Or...

HW: Yeah, social.

MU: Well, yeah. Talk about that first, and then talk about the, how you ditched the CIC boys.

HW: Oh. [Laughs]

MU: They're both interesting stories so...

HW: The Chinese community in Brisbane had asked, had invited us to attend their Wednesday night, Wednesday evening socials. And whenever we had the time -- we worked until we got our work done. Sometimes it was midnight, but some days we would get done on Wednesdays and we decided to go down to the Chinese community center. We'd been there, oh a few times. Went in there this one time and I saw one fellow with the Aussies that wasn't dressed quite like an Australian. And I thought, "That's kinda strange. He's not one of us." And I looked at him closer and here's this Chinese kid that I sort of grew up with -- his father owned a restaurant in my hometown. So I went up to him and I said, "I know who you are. He says, "No, you don't. I don't know you." But, 'course, I never saw him again. They probably assigned him somewhere else.

MU: You think that he was assigned as a CIC agent?

HW: Well, they're assigned to do certain tasks and go blend in with the community. See that -- make sure that nothing is leaking or something isn't happening. And it's a job that's gotta be done.

MU: Tell us a little bit about how the restaurant people were generous with you folks.

HW: Oh, oh the Chinese restaurant? Yeah, we would go in and they would always seat us in the back of the restaurant. But then when they brought the slip out, if there was three of us, they would write "six persons" on the slip and then charge us for one meal. But they would let us eat all we can, all we wanted, because they were rationed. Unless they had proof of so many dinners served, they couldn't buy, replace the rations that they had to use, the foodstuff. I thought that was pretty nice.

MU: So you got double helping for the price of one?

HW: Price of one, yeah.

MU: How come you people were able to get along with the Chinese community so well like that?

HW: Well, I don't know. Maybe they had seen a friendly face. [Laughs] You know, Oriental face -- looks like 'em.

MU: They were happy to see you.

HW: Happy to see us, yeah. I think so, yeah.

MU: And then, of course, you had that incident where these CIC guys were checking up on you.

HW: Oh, yeah. We were in Brisbane and walking down the street and we were kinda aware that somebody was tailing us. So we just, finally decided that it was actually a tail checking on us. So we said, "Let's duck into the next restaurant." And we did, went in the door and then hid behind the door. The guy comes in and we looked at him, he's looking around the restaurant, and he looks towards us, so we say, "Boo." [Laughs]

MU: Now, would he be a white fellow or Asian?

HW: Yeah, he was a white fellow, yeah, yeah. But, I think in times of war it's necessary to make sure that nobody is leaking.

MU: It's not so much loyalty they were checking on, but they wanted to make sure...

HW: If there's a bad apple, they want to find him. Thank goodness -- not that I know of, nobody's ever found a bad apple, yeah.

MU: Nobody did that. Yeah.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.