<Begin Segment 19>

MN: You know, as you were telling us about that incident, several questions came to mind. Like when you heard, the first time you heard that your dad had been picked up on December 7th by government authorities, what were your thoughts?

KM: Remember I said December 7th was not a surprise to, at least to me? So learning that he was picked up was no big deal. We expected my father to be one of those would be under what was termed "dangerous enemy aliens." So it was no big deal as far as our family, or me, as far as I was concerned. It was a known expectation. In all of our decision-making that my brother and I made, it was a given fact that my dad's role, he had his own role, he played his role. We were different, we were completely different from him.

MN: And like at that time, Katsuro was already an attorney, he was serving with the Emergency Services Committee, he was well-known in the community. He was involved in politics.

KM: Not yet.

MN: Not yet, but...

KM: Although Hiram Fong was. You see, Hiram Fong was already a territorial legislator before the war.

MN: And your brother was with this...

KM: My brother became his partner after the war because Hiram had to have somebody to take care of his law business when he was called up to serve in Hickam. And so he couldn't just leave his law firm as-is. So I don't know how, but my brother started to take care of his... and eventually became partners with Hiram shortly thereafter.

MN: So I should correct myself, but at the time your father was incarcerated, Katsuro was an attorney with the Emergency Services Committee. Based on what you know, after the fact, was there anything that Katsuro could do or did to try to help your dad's cause?

KM: You know, I don't have, I've never... I've not looked into what Gail Okawa had been digging up. You could get as much information on the internees about what kind of hearings that they had, how many hearings they had, this and that. I never really looked up my dad's case, although I do know that one bit of document I saw, that even after Katsuaki had died in '43, my dad was giving another hearing on the question of whether he would be released to Jerome or Rohwer where many of the internees had been released, and that I just saw the [inaudible] that he was turned down, even after my brother Katsuaki had passed away. So he did have a hearing. After Katsuaki had died, and yet, in spite of that, he was denied release. I didn't have any further details as to what was discussed at the hearing.

MN: And I know that you weren't on Maui at the time your dad was picked up, you were here on Oahu. What have you heard about how he was picked up?

KM: What I heard was that very early during that day, people came and then they just took him away.

MN: And with your father taken away, how did that impact your mother and the hotel?

KM: Well, to begin with, my mother was basically in charge of the hotel to begin with. It didn't drastically affect what was happening at the hotel. At that point, there were already some people, workers from Honolulu who were already staying at the hotel, workers, defense workers.

MN: And going back to Katsuro, at that time, in '41 when war started, what did you know of Katsuro's work with the Emergency Services Committee?

KM: Very little. I didn't know he was anything, like a member of the Emergency Services Committee.

MN: And before we leave the early part of the war, I was wondering, when you became a member of the HTG, that happened kind of fast, what squad or group were you assigned to? Like was there a, like a... how would they, when they organized it, what was your designation?

KM: I have absolutely no idea. Except the first night, those of us who had reported to the gym, first task was cleaning the guns, cleaning the Cosmoline. And after that was all done, then we were makeshift groups and hodgepodge, we were just placed out of Iwilei. And you know, there were a couple of boys who, because it was such a last-minute thing, or unplanned thing, couple of boys were lost. The truck driver who dropped them off forgot where they were dropped off. So instead of the four hours shift that we worked on, some of them had to spend eight hours. [Laughs] Because the driver, I don't even know if it's the same driver who dropped us off who'd go and pick them up, but there were a couple of boys I know, instead of four hours they spent eight hours. Maybe they were moving from one place, it was a fifty-yard area by themselves, or maybe they were sleeping or loafing on the job when the trucks came by, and the trucks were all blackout, too.

WN: You talked about the rifles. Were they up-to-date rifles?

KM: No, this was a Springfield 1903. 1903 rifle they called it, where you bolt action, you had these rounds that you press in, five rounds. Five rounds to a clip, and we were just given one clip. But this was better than the, 03 Rifle was better than the first rifles we were issued in Camp Shelby. In Camp Shelby the first rifles we got were the Enfield Rifles. I have a very vague recollection of this Enfield Rifle, but it was real obsolete, the Enfield Rifles.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.