<Begin Segment 30>

MU: Well, let's move along. We got much to cover and...

HW: Sure.

MU: Now, after your stay there -- how long did you stay there in Japan?

HW: I would stay there four months.

MU: Four months?

HW: And then I came back because I was having -- by the time I got home I would have five years in World War II, so... plus vacation time.

MU: Your wife, was she in Minneapolis all this time?

HW: Yes.

MU: So you came home and where did you come home to?

HW: To Minneapolis.

MU: To Minneapolis. And then, from there?

HW: And there I went to school for a year.

MU: What school is that?

HW: Minneapolis School of Business. And I worked in a laundry and then I worked in a garment factory.

MU: Really?

HW: And then we decided to come back out to the...

MU: West Coast?

HW: ...Seattle.

MU: Okay.

HW: So we got ourselves a car and a one-wheel trailer. We had our child by then. And we hit the road for Seattle.

MU: When did you get your job with Boeing?

HW: In October of 1948.

MU: Were you about the first one -- first Nikkei?

HW: I was, early one.

MU: First Nikkei to be hired?

HW: Not the first, but one of their early ones, yeah.

MU: What was your job at that time?

HW: At that time, I hired in as a mechanic's helper in a development shop doing development work for new airplanes and developing ideas for other airplanes. It's a, it's a "do it" shop -- you make the part, make it work, and then that's gonna be it. Was not a designing area.

MU: That was your start?

HW: That was my start -- as a mechanic's helper.

MU: Uh-huh. How long did you stay with Boeing?

HW: Oh, I stayed until '71.

MU: So that would make it...

HW: I mean, yeah, '71. I think I put in twenty-three years.

MU: Twenty-three years?

HW: Almost twenty-three years. Twenty-two and a half years or something...

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.