Densho Digital Archive - George Hiromoto Interview (denshovh-hgeorge

<Begin Segment 12>

DG: So maybe now would be a good time for you to describe how you entered the MIS.

GH: How I got into MIS? Well, to tell you the truth, I went to Camp Beale, you know, in Marysville, it's a camp. And from there, I didn't know where I was going to be taken, and I went to basic training, Fort Knox, Kentucky. You ever hear of Fort Knox where the mint is? That's where I had a basic training. Then after that, they told me to go to Camp Stoneman over at Pittsburgh, and I didn't know I was going to Japan. And they put me on a bus, they went toward the ship, you know, to that harbor. I said, "Gee, where in the heck am I going?" [Laughs] They said, "You're all going Japan." Oh, okay, I'll go Japan.

DG: But you already knew you were in the Military Intelligence.

GH: Oh, yeah. I didn't know I was in intelligence, but I told them I have a Japanese language experience, so that's on my record. So they checked my record. So after Fort Knox I had my basic, I finished there and came back to Pittsburgh, and they put me on the ship, and I went to Tokyo, and in Tokyo they put me in Military Intelligence School. It was in downtown Tokyo, it was NYK Building, Nippon Yusen Gaisha, that's Japan's big ship company. Oh, it was a beautiful building there. They took over, Americans took over that, U.S. took over there, and they taught interrogation and things like that, where I learned. So I didn't have to go. You probably heard there was a school here, like Camp Savage and Monterey, San Francisco. I didn't have to go there because I had a Japanese experience, language, so they put me on this MIS there in Tokyo, and I stayed there three months in Tokyo. And then from there they shipped me to... I didn't know where I was going and they shipped me to... it's 50 miles west of Nagasaki, city of Nagasaki. There's a naval base called Sasebo. But anyway, it was close to that place, they had a naval base where we took over. So that's where I was in, and to there, they were bringing Japanese repatriates from Manchuria, all Japanese repatriates from Manchuria, and they bring 'em into this camp. Then at that camp, they separated all of them. We had a room to ourselves, so we interrogated these Japanese in English -- Japanese and then I have to write in English.

DG: And what would you ask them? What did they want to know?

GH: Very important things about Manchuria, well, army base and anything to do with the service, army. Well, I think it's McArthur's deal.

JS: What was it like... did you go to the city of Nagasaki, because that was right after the bombing, right?

GH: Yeah, I went to Nagasaki. I went two, three years later, so you can't even tell if it was bombed or not. Hiroshima, same thing. It was bombed, you probably saw the picture where it was bombed, you can't even see the site being bombed. It was all cleared up, it's amazing. I went over there and I said, "Gee, I can't believe the atomic bomb hit here," but you can't even tell, it was all clear and the buildings were nice.

DG: You couldn't see people who had injuries?

GH: Oh, I saw some of them that got hurt, yeah, they show it to me and they say, "Look at my burn." Some of the girls showed me the leg where it was burnt, yeah, it was too bad. You know, a lot of them got killed.

DG: How long were you there?

GH: Nagasaki... oh, that place where I stayed was about seven, eight months. See, what happened to me is I could have stayed there longer, but the transfer from this place where I was to another place, joining the other group, but they say I was... you know, in the army, I wasn't a volunteer or drafted -- oh, yeah, draftees, they told me, "You got to go back." And so I told the captain, I said, "How about staying a couple more years, then I can go home?" And he said, "No, you can't stay a couple..." no, a couple years, but he says no. I wanted to stay a year more, but then after that, they said no, so I said, "Well, I got to go home and help my father farm."

DG: So if you'd volunteered you could have stayed?

GH: Pardon me?

DG: Was it because you were drafted you couldn't stay?

GH: Yeah. If it was drafted, they were sending all the draftees back. And so I was draftee, and so, no, I wanted to volunteer for a year, but they said, two year, no. I said, year's enough because I got to go home and farm. So I came back and helped my dad.