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MN: You were just telling us about Nuuanu Japanese language school being given to Club 100, then under alien property custodianship.

KM: And so Club 100 boys, the veterans of the 100th Battalion, had a nice home and they had a nice meet and greet. Then graciously, when you found out that the 442 boys had difficulty finding places to meet, extended the invitation for us to meet at the available rooms at the Japanese language school, or Club 100 then at that point. And for a while we continued meeting at the Club 100. I remember that initial discussion started about where the two, we had not formed 442 yet. The 442 Club was not formed as yet. But the boys of the 442 inquired what kind of entity the Club 100 was, how did they go about it, we found out that it had been formally organized way back. So eventually there was some suggestions raised as to, number one, can the 442 boys become members of the 100th. And that initial, "Oh yes, they can." No problem as far as I understand. As I recall of these, and you got to remember, this is my personal recollection and others may have different. At that time I was very much involved with what was going on because the 522 was working as a unit, as a 522 Battalion group. And the infantry group was a little different. The infantry boys were E Company, F Company, I Company, and because they were large groups, whereas the initial group of artillery was just as large, but we had just Dan Kono and myself were the so-called negotiators for the field artillery group. We ended up being the spokesmen for the artillery group in all of these various discussions. And so the initial approach was made that, oh yeah, you can, you can join the Club 100 if you want. But you have to become a member of Club 100. The name is Club 100 and not 442. This was the basic hard, fast, primary restriction or requirement imposed by Club 100. And so being that as it was, the 442 boys decided that, "Oh, no, no, if we're going to form any kind of club, it would be the 442nd Veterans Club." And one other requirement that we had to meet was that remember the Club 100 boys were assessed monthly dues back from Wisconsin when they first went over to Wisconsin and trained. And so the 100th prerequisite was, oh yeah, in addition to it being Club 100, you have to pay back all of the monthly dues that all the 100th boys were assessed from back in 1943. You have to pay that lump sum amount to become a member of the 100th, which was an impossible requirement for us to meet because in 1945, when we got discharged, we were giving out what was called "mustering-out pay." Our mustering-out pay was three hundred dollars. This is a one-time payment that got from the, upon discharge. And nowhere was the three hundred dollars going to be adequate to take care of the living expenses as you got discharged and before we got, any of us found work or anything like that. And so the talks fell off, this idea of joint venture, joint committee of 100th and the 442 being one outfit, and never proceeded any further. And so we, some of us continued to use the 100th as a place for meetings and whatnot. But eventually we decided, I think it was in 1946 sometime, 1946, that we would form a eleemosynary nonprofit organization just like the 100th, under the 442nd Veterans Club, and so we incorporated. Today I think I'm one of three. Herbie Sunaga, myself, and Dan Nishimura, are the three surviving charter members of the 442 veterans Club in this day and age. So three of us are still here who were the original charter members of the 442 Veterans Club. And we formed the club in 1946, and I think Chaplain Yamada was the first president. All the presidents of the club, we have their portraits up in the clubhouse, ever since day one.

And then we needed to find a permanent place to meet and all that. And so in 1946 or '47 that we put on our first moneymaking project as to create a building fund for a permanent meeting place and clubhouse. But somewhere as early in 1946, I really don't know whether it was '46 of '47, but we had an offer to meet or to lease this little gymnasium that was located at 933 Wiliwili Street. This was a small little gymnasium where our clubhouse is now located, which was the athletic club. The name is confusing, but recently when I wrote this article responding to Bob Jones, the plaque at our clubhouse shows that it was, ultimately the land was deeded to us by this Moliili Athletic Club. But my recollection is that when we started to use the premises, we had to displace a group of young kids who were utilizing the place for their gymnasium activities. And when we leased the premises, we deprived them of their meeting place. As I reflect now, we had to restrict the use of the premises to club members only. We had a very good reason why. When we started to use the premises, at that time, there were only two other places in Honolulu other than the military established area, where slot machines were being used. Somehow or the other, our club, 442, we had three slot machines on hand, five cents, ten cents, and twenty-five cents. Because we had these slot machines on the premises, we were sure to make, that children cannot come into the premises. So we displaced the activities of the young boys and girls in the Moiliili area, McCully area, after we took over the premises.

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