<Begin Segment 18>

TI: And so how long did the training take?

GY: Well, we came here in '44, and we left in August of '45.

TI: So August '45, that's the end of the war.

GY: The bomb was already dropped. We were ready to move, move in. From what I understood, we were getting ready for the push up from the Philippines up into Tokyo area. But the bomb fell, and that was it. The bomb fell before we even got out of Fort Snelling. I went home and I said, "The bomb fell," and my mother, she said, "Oh, mujoukenko fuku, yeah."

TI: So what does that mean?

GY: Japanese, yeah. She knew all about it. Yeah, so from here, we went to Presidio, from there we went to Honolulu, from there we went to Manila. That's where we stayed for a while.

TI: So I want to ask about your reaction when you learned about the bomb. 'Cause here you were training to possibly do this push up from the Philippines, and people surmised that it was going to be a very bloody fight when you took Japan. But then the bomb was dropped, which ended the war. So I was just wondering what your feelings were during this time about the bomb.

GY: Well, I don't think we thought too much about it, it just ended. The war ended just like it did in Europe. And I think we were, most of us were relieved, the fact that we don't have to do any fighting ourselves. That was about it. I think it was a quiet trip. And when we got to the Philippines, they put us through another test. And the ones that were real sharp, they went to the crime trials in Tokyo, the rest of us, we just bummed along. [Laughs]

TI: And so talk about your work. You talked about that one trip to interpret for that officer about housing, and then the clerical pool.

GY: That, I tell you the truth, when they assigned me that, I didn't care to go. You gotta go to two different houses, look around, ask a bunch of questions. And end up telling 'em what's going to happen. The ultimate goal of our questioning was to confiscate the house. So I didn't like that. I did the best I could. When I came back, they had issued advancement. And us guys out on the road, we didn't get it.

TI: Oh, so your fellow soldiers were all promoted while you were gone?

GY: Yeah, us guys on the road, we didn't get promoted. So I squawked. They said, "The table of organization's already full. You have to wait 'til the next time." [Laughs]

TI: Yeah, it doesn't seem very fair that because you were out, that others got promoted.

GY: Oh, that was something else. So what, you know. So I waited around, waited around. I got my promotion just before I left.

TI: And what was your promotion to?

GY: It was a sergeant technician. [Laughs] I don't know how long I held that, maybe a couple months.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.