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KM: And, you know, being out there at Camp Shelby, when you folks weren't drilling or training, what were you folks doing?

Playing poker or going to the movies or going to the PX. Going to the PX was a very popular thing, although you didn't have money, so you always had to have financier take you out.

But oh, you know, when we first went to Camp Shelby, there was this incident I should record. Like I said, we were in a completely new area. And in the army, a unit is entitled to a PX for their own soldiers to patronize. And so the 442 Infantry Regiment had their own PX. I think there were three or four PXs on the infantry side. And before the artillery had their own PX, remember, the artillery was in a brand new area, we didn't have we didn't have any PX. Although the 69th Division, they had a nearby PX. But the first incident that happened that brought the boys together, so to speak, is that this is word of mouth kind of a thing that in the army, you always go by word of mouth. And what happened was, during the first week we were there, Hawaii boys, beer and Hawaii boys go hand in hand together. But they were looking around and found some PXs. They patronized a PX that was the 69th Division that was there by the infantry group. And you got to remember, we were quarantined the first month, first for two weeks, or two or three weeks, from going out into Hattiesburg. Because the army was going to let the Hattiesburg people and surrounding neighborhood people know about our presence, as well as the 69th Division, were supposed to be oriented to the fact that there was a regiment of Americans of Japanese ancestry. A unique group coming into Camp Shelby, but these boys found out that there was, a couple of boys went to this PX 69th Division PX, and they were kicked out by the Caucasian boys in the PX. And the way how they were kicked out was, "Who are you boys? Where you boys from?" "We are from Hawaii, Japanese Americans." "What? You Japs? How come you Japs are in this, in uniform?" And so these boys were, there were just two three of 'em, they were kicked out. And so they went back to their company area. "You know, we just got kicked out of the PX over there and we were called 'Japs."" And so a delegation of Hawaii boys moved over to that PX, and within ten or fifteen minutes, all of the Caucasian boys who were in the PX were down on the floor. This happened within the first week.

Of course, throughout our training, the one year that we were in Camp Shelby, there were numerous number of fights between 442 and Caucasians, the 69th Division boys. Because you got to remember, in 1943 it was the height of the propaganda area where the American government was trying to indoctrinate the general population to, in support of the war. And so all of the movies and news with everything referring to the Japanese is "Japs." And so the GIS did not know any better, that any Japanese Americans, as far as they were concerned, was "Japs," and that the terminology was accepted terminology. But to us it was a declaration of war as soon as we were referred to... and this invariably happened. The first one happened in the PX, but at the bus stations where the boys, after a night of drinking, and the Caucasian boys, after a night of drinking, would be at the bus stop, and they would be feeling high. Then I'm sure the reference to the 442 boys by the Caucasians that they were Japs was, in many respects, innocent. Or maybe sometimes intentional vicious. But the kind of fight that happens like this, in the Caucasian boys' case, you would have two or three of them going out together or four or five of them going out together from one unit. If there were fifteen other Caucasians there, none of them were really related or from the same unit or whatever. Whereas in the 442, the Hawaii boys, the AJA was an AJA. No matter who, it was one of us. And when a confrontation happened between two or three Caucasian boys, two or three Hawaii boys, and they got involved in the fisticuffs, the Caucasian boys was with whoever they were with, three or four of them. But any other Niseis who were around the vicinity would get involved in the fight. So it was never a fair fight. It was never a fair fight.

And with reference to fights, of course you heard that within our own 442, Mainland Kotonks and the Buddhaheads, we had our own fights, which is based on different reasons. But the night before we left Virginia, there was a fight in the debarkation port, Newport News, the night before we left for overseas. And when we got to Italy, before we moved up north beyond Rome, before we got to Anzio, we had a couple of days in Naples. And I personally witnessed a fight between one of our boys and our airborne division boys. This was a fair fight in a way. The airborne GI had referred to us as "Japs." And this was at the staging area where we were required to meet for transportation back to our unit. After the leave was over, we had to be at this staging area to go back to our camp. And it was at this staging area that this fight happened, because this airborne. And later on the same airborne division, the anti-tank company from 442 became attached to. And when they found out, and the story goes that the airborne, some of the boys apologized to the Niseis because anti-tank boys supported the airborne in such a manner that the airborne boys were very surprised at the kind of support that the Nisei boys gave them in the invasion of southern France. So there was a makeup after that fight, but even overseas, we had these fights.

MN: You mentioned that, like, there were also fights among the AJA, between the mainland AJA and Hawaii AJA. And you said there were reasons for this.

KM: My evaluation of that basic what you call is, you remember, when the 442 boys, Hawaii boys moved to Camp Shelby, we were met by a cadre of Mainland boys. Mainland boys who had already been in the army before 1943, who were drafted or draftees or whatever. Like the Hawaii 1399th boys, they were already in the army. And in early January of 1943, as I understand, these boys who were going to be the cadre of the 442 were gathered together, and they were given intensive training from January 'til March. And when our boys came, all the top positions, the first sergeant, staff sergeants and buck sergeants, so-called cadre, who were going to train the Hawaii boys, were already in place. Now, these boys had the touch job of controlling the Hawaii boys. And the Hawaii boys, after the basic training, when you consider that the IQ of the Hawaii boys was, at that point, the highest in, the average IQ in the Hawaii boys was the highest in the army. In the administration or in the ordinary day events, that difference between IQs had come up.

You know, in the infantry you had to have all kinds of situations where various solutions to the problems were put up. Now, if the staff sergeant couldn't give a solution, imagine when you have a guy like Dan Inouye, Masato Doi, Mats Takabuki who were buck privates, and their solutions as compared to some of the Nisei Mainland boys? Not all of them, because I had a very competent first sergeant, staff sergeant, bar none. But in the infantry, it wasn't the case. So whatever the Mainland boys did, it was like throwing the rank. In order to get the Hawaii boys to obey, from the point of view of the Hawaii boys, it was the rank being thrown at them. Not because of rationale, but because they were buck sergeant, because they were first sergeant. And so the gripes... and in the army, ordinarily, you have any kind of gripes anyway. So what would happen is that in Company A, first platoon, a member of the first platoon is mad at his sergeant, but he won't fight his sergeant because he knows what would happen. So what happened is that he would tell his friend in B Company, because maybe they happen to come from Maui, but they're in two different companies. This is the same throughout all the 442. You have all of these friends scattered all over the different companies. And so he would tell about his sergeant giving him a bad time. And from what I've heard is that the sergeants all slept in the same hut with his squad. His bunk would always be his bunk. So this particular disgruntled GI would tell his friend, "My sergeant is sleeping on this position in the bunk." And so after lights out, couple of his friends from another company, not the same company, would come in and beat up the particular sergeant. From what I understand, these are the type of fights that occurred. Because it couldn't be done in the open, basically. So it was different company boys beating up on the buck sergeant, from the high up sergeant of another company, not within the same company. And this happened for a while to the extent that Colonel Pence had to call the entire regiment together, oh, two or three times, I think, to reprimand the entire regiment for internal fighting. He called the whole regiment together and said, "You've got to stop. I won't stand for all this internal fighting."

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