<Begin Segment 14>

TI: Okay, so you went from New Guinea to the Philippines. You talked about being in the foxhole for three days and then you went to the clinic to check your lungs. And then what happened next?

HU: I got well. I got well on medication. So we waited, we're trying to clean up the Philippines, a call came from the front. I volunteered, they wanted somebody to come up there, interpreter, interrogator, I volunteered. So at the headquarters, they got fifteen men all with rifles, machine guns, to form a diamond shape. And I was right in the middle, we went up to the front.

TI: Okay, so the diamond was protection for you?

HU: Yeah, we had protection for me.

TI: So they escorted you up to the front, because they didn't want anyone to shoot you.

HU: No. [Laughs]

TI: And were they more worried about the Americans shooting you, or the Japanese shooting you?

HU: Anybody. So we get up to, about a mile of that, mud and trees, you know. So here's the prisoner. I look at that, and I say, "I don't think he's gonna be worth a darn," by looking at him. He was on a boat, the troop ship was bombed. Luckily, he found a great big log, he latched on. And day in, day out, he floated, and finally the wind forced him to come to the shore of that island. And he was wandering around and he got caught. It wasn't worth it. So I said, "Take me back, I don't want to..." I said, "I don't think this is anything good," and I explained. "Good thing he's still alive, but he's not worth anything. I'm going back." So the diamond shape brought me home. [Laughs] Well, that's enough.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.