Densho Digital Repository - Katsugo Miho Interview VI

Densho Digital Repository
Katsugo Miho Collection
Title: Katsugo Miho Interview VI
Narrator: Katsugo Miho
Interviewers: Michiko Kodama Nishimoto (primary), Warren Nishimoto (secondary)
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: March 10, 2006
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1022-6

<Begin Segment 1>

MN: Okay, this is an interview with Mr. Katsugo Miho on March 10, 2006, in Honolulu, Hawaii, at the University of Hawaii campus. And the interviewers are Michiko Kodama Nishimoto and Warren Nishimoto. And to start today's interview session, we're going to follow up on some items that we were covering last time. And near the close of our interview, you were sharing with us the Sospel incident where you...

KM: Almost wiped out Shadow and Najo and John Ushijima. What I forgot to mention the other day was that the road going up to the hill intersected two of our guns, number one gun and number two gun. So in other words, the drivers would have come between two of our guns, and from that incident they would, for about one or two weeks, they were always kidding us, yelling at us, and telling us, "Hey, after all, that's our boys up there. Don't waste your ammunition on our boys." And years later, after this thing was, came out in some of our talk stories, who are the drivers, said, "Kats, I was the driver over there yelling at you boys all the time." No kidding. And the person revealing this was Keiji Kawakami. Keiji Kawakami, who, after the war, became the owner of Iolani Sportswear, one of the biggest manufacturing merchants in Honolulu. And his right hand man, who designed all the outfit, was another 442 member, Jackson Morizawa, who designed all the artwork. Well-known artist, you know, on his own right, he's an expert in charcoal painting. And the person who was the fashion designer for Iolani Sportswear was the wife of "Halo" Hirose, my high school classmate from Maui who was an Olympic swimmer.

And by the way, there was an interesting incident that I should maybe mention about Halo. As we covered my brother's accident, where he got killed in an automobile accident, the 442 was guarding this Afrika Korps, German prisoners, Rommel's troops who were captured and brought back to the United States. And they were helping the Alabama peanut farmers harvest peanuts because there were no workers. Well, the prisoners, German prisoners were enclosed in a barbed wire enclosure, which, with the guarding 442 soldiers around the perimeter of this enclosure. And the story I remember is that Halo Hirose one day was called by one of the prisoners, called him over. And the prisoner was supposed to have -- as the story goes -- the prisoner pointed at Halo, and in broken English, was trying to communicate with Halo. And the best that we gather is that Halo said that the prisoner said, "Don't you remember me?" Because he remembered Halo, this prisoner, German prisoner. And it turned out that just before World War II started, Halo was one of the American swimmers that swam before Hitler in that last athletic meeting in Germany, and the German prisoner happened to be one of the German swimmers and he remembered Hirose from that time. And so this was his story, which was really a coincidence but happens. But that was the incident that I should have mentioned back in the Alabama incident.

<Begin Segment 2>

KM: And to follow up on the continuity of a story from last week, the other day, when we were in the invasion of Germany, as I indicated, we were ahead of any other American troops. And we came across a complex which turned out to be a warehouse. And from what we could gather, it was supposed to have been a warehouse for German officers, pigs, American pigs. The Germans had evacuated the area just before our arrival, and there were no other American troops. And naturally, we would go in and investigate what was the complex, and, to our surprise, we found out that it was like a commissary. First thing we saw, were all kinds of foodstuff, schnapps, cheese, big size wheel of cheese from Holland, and cigars, and cognac, all of these luxury items, including Portuguese sardines. And these sardines, we discovered was in wooden crates. And each gun crew was advised to come up and pick whatever you wanted. And so we ended up with, my gun crew, we ended up with two boxes of sardines. And besides that, we had the cheese and there were some musical instruments, a whole flock of piano accordions, so there were a few of the boys who were musically inclined, and we had, for a long time had this accordion, which was very loud. And when the unaccustomed players would play, it was very noisy. But that and a bunch of harmonicas, German Hohner harmonicas, was in this commissary.

And so, you know, our boys, after chow, the regular meal, we were always looking for something else to eat. For instance, in Italy, we would have a lot of fruits because we were in the middle of June, July, August, there was all kinds of fruits, especially grapes. We were forever eating after chow. And in France, corn on the cob was one of our favorites in Italy, because it just, July and August was the height of the corn season. As a matter of fact, many times we had to drive through cornfields to place some guns. And so the corn was right at hand, you just reached out and you could get these corns and we would put them in the gallon cans. And because they eat, the Italians were completely amazed at us eating these corns because the Italians never, they never ate corn on the cob. The corn was cattle feed, not to human beings, or for making flour. But we evidently exposed these Italians to corn on the cob. In France, our number one was potato chips. Because we went into France in fall, September and October. And so whatever that was available was potato patches in the area that we were in, in France, and so we were constantly eating potato chips.

And then when we went to Germany, we had these two cases of sardines and so we ate sardines in all kinds of shapes and forms and this was excellent Portuguese sardines. We read the writings on the boxes, you could see it was from Portuguese, from Portugal. And the highlight of the sardines is the story that I have is we were in Heidelberg, and Heidelberg was declared an open city. In other words, like Rome was declared an open city, fighting would cease, just before Rome, and both sides would agree that within a perimeter of so many miles, there would be no fighting, that the Germans would withdraw from Rome, and then the Allies would advance, and the next contact we had with the Germans was in Civitavecchia, right near Belvedere, where the fighting continued. So the same thing happened in Heidelberg because it was a famous university town with a lot of artifacts and whatnot. And so we had a couple of days of rest because of this open city declaration. And one day, I was thinking of how to treat our boys, because at that point all of the corporals that were kind of the sergeant, and so how I'm gonna treat my boys. And I thought I have a brilliant idea. Maybe sardine soup might be something interesting. So I made sardine soup. And it looked all right, there a lot of, we were in the middle of a vegetable patch or whatever vegetables we could get, got some leeks, onions, I forget, what else. But we made the sardine soup in, I guess, the outside helmet, I think it was. And then, but it had to be served to the men in the mess kit cups, because that was the only thing we had. And everything was alright until we had to wash the... I think we all enjoyed the soup, but trying to wash the soup after we had it was almost impossible to get rid of all that oil, fish oil from the canteen. And every once in a while, when we talk story, some of the boys remember this and kid me about the sardine soup to this day.

WN: That was cooked in a helmet.

KM: Yeah, we warmed it up.

WN: Directly on the fire?

KM: I think I did it just over the fire, yeah. But we also had small little gas stoves, too, we use that gas stoves quite often. But I think it was open because it was done enough to share with the gun crew, so there was eight or nine of us. But I knew they all enjoyed it except for the washing.

WN: Now this is canned sardines.

KM: Canned sardines, small little canned sardines, there was about ten sardines in there, but it was excellent sardines. And we had two cases of it. So you could imagine from -- and this was very early in our invasion of Germany, because Heidelberg was maybe within the first two weeks of our invasion, and we were there for fifty-five, our invasion took about fifty-five days. But I think Heidelberg was around the second week that we were in Germany.

<Begin Segment 3>

MN: And then what did you folks do with the schnapps?

KM: Oh, beer was, from the PX we had, once a week, if possible, we would receive our ration of PX material, which included candies and the number one item was a beer that we all enjoyed. But as I said, in France, we had green cognac, and in Germany we were exposed to schnapps. And schnapps is, I guess schnapps, vodka, they're all in the same line of liquor, almost straight hundred percent alcohol. I remember one incident that just about towards the end of the war, when things were rather relaxed, and we had some days of complete relaxation, and at one point we were told that we could completely relax and take it easy for one day or so, and so we all decided that we would help ourselves to the schnapps that we had on the truck. And I tried to... in those days, I wasn't that much of a drinker other than beer, and these schnapps and whatnot, not something we were accustomed to. So there was some orange juice, I remember, and so I mixed the orange juice and the schnapps. And somehow I remember that in France, there's a couple, elderly couple that invited once over, had put some sugar in to the jigger of vodka or cognac. And then I thought, well, I'll put sugar into this mixture of orange juice and schnapps. And for the rest of twenty hours, probably, I got sick. And I don't know how my gun crew members felt, but all night long, I was heaving and making all kinds of noise, and that was a very sad lesson that I learned, not to mix sugar in with any kind of drinks. But we all had our boys who were, none of our boys were bad drinking boys. They had, they were well under control even though they helped themselves to liquor.

WN: Now, was drinking done, most of the drinking done only during breaks?

KM: Breaks.

WN: Was there any problem with guys drinking out in the field?

KM: Not in our, not in my gun crew or our battery. The artillery boys were not as wild as the infantry boys, so to speak, and you don't blame them. Infantry boys go through hell. And we did not go through hell like the infantry boys did. So for most of us, it was controlled, and there was, throughout the campaign.

WN: And where there are regulations stating that liquor is not allowed?

KM: Not when you're on duty. Not when you're... there was absolutely no drinking, other than in your so-called free time that we had. The officers were very good about that. No rest period... you had rest period when we were off the line, we were off from action, for one or two days we were, as we said earlier, take a bath and change of clothing. This happened every so often.

WN: During those breaks, was drinking allowed?

KM: Yeah. So could someone conceivably carry a bottle of schnapps in their backpack and wait for a break and then drink?

WN: No, no, the breaks we're talking about were one-day breaks or two-day breaks when we were completely off the line. We were not on a standby basis, we were not in a position to fire our guns or guns at that point, they were already covered up and everything.

MN: But you also mentioned that you folks would get cigarettes, and then you folks also found some cigars.

KM: In this warehouse was, I don't know where the cigars came from, but there were a whole bunch of cigars. And a lot of us tried cigar smoking, but cigar smoking, you got to get used to it. And so just to temporarily get into smoking, you don't do that with cigars. For playtime, we indulge in cigar smoking, but not really, it wasn't available all the time. So the PX we only had cigarettes.

MN: Did you get into cigarette smoking during the war?

KM: I did because cigarette, we went overseas, it was all free. And there was a ration for every... every person was entitled to X number of beer cans and cigarettes. The basic supplies. And so non-smokers would bargain away their cigarettes or use them as a bargaining, bartering material. But drinking was the same thing. People who didn't drink made the best use of their ration.

WN: What percentage would you say of your battery, let's say, smoked cigarettes?

KM: I'd guess there were just a handful of the boys who did not smoke. I smoked because it was available, and it was something that you did to pass the time away. Even after discharge, I smoked for a while while going to college. Until I found that it was such a nuisance to, when you had to do your own laundry. After discharge, you had your own laundry and then the cigarette in your shirt made it so difficult to clean your dress shirts that we used to wear. Those that didn't have aloha shirts as such, we had mostly dress shirts, and it was such a chore that I gave up smoking. Although later on I started to indulge in cigar smoking.

<Begin Segment 4>

MN: And then another thing men often mentioned in their rations were chocolates.

KM: Chocolate was candies, all kinds of candies was rationed. Yeah, we were well supplied with candies.

MN: So did the men just eat a lot of candy, or was it mostly for bartering?

KM: The boys all ate one or, they ate the candies, but once we got overseas and met up with these civilians, we found that candies was one of our best bargain merchandise, and so we kept it for that purpose. Most of us, lot of us, we were always souvenir hunting, whenever we had the time. Not only souvenir hunting but for bargaining for chicken, anything to eat, basically, other than the army food, other than the chow that we were fed. Anything other than the chow was desirable, especially eggs and chicken. And so the chocolate and cigarettes we used as...� money was, especially Italy, France and Germany, money was of no value in the countries that invaded. What was issued was American occupation money that was printed out and when it was Italy, we had this lira, and in France it was franc. And then in Germany we had the German marks, but these were American-printed, almost like a coupon. But that was the money used by the military, and supposedly the German people, the Italian people... but the reputation was that we were very lucky to get that money, although I'm sure it was of value.

Talking about this money, when we were in Germany, we had the occupation German marks. But when we first got there, I remember that one of our boys came across a cache of payroll marks. And I don't know how much it was, it was just a vast amount of German mark, printed German money that was being used at that time. But the talk was that, oh, those were useless. And so it was kind of used like a plaything, we used it among ourselves without any real value and we just, you know. But some, couple of the smart ones kept some of the marks to bring home and I even have some souvenirs of these. But the ones that I have is World War I mark, German mark. Somehow I got a cache of souvenirs that, a whole batch of German marks. But later on when we came back home, we were told we were foolish because international monetary, at that point, the German mark was still good, that we could have bought it back to the United States and turn it into the banks and get dollars in exchange. We didn't know that, none of us knew we had thousands of dollars. �This, like I say, was a payroll cache that one of our boys came across.

WN: To what extent was souvenir collecting, was it a big thing among the boys?

KM: Almost all of the boys. I had one partner, Flint Yonashiro, who was my regular souvenir hunting partner that we went all over the countryside.

WN: What did you folks consider to be desirable souvenirs?

KN: Number one -- not souvenir, one of our prime objective was to, something to eat. Invariably it was eggs, fresh eggs and chicken. And two big incident that Flint and I experienced was like that incident where we had these special prisoners of war, that town that we came across these girls, beautiful girls who had PW on their backs. But, and this was before Dachau so we didn't know about it. Except reflecting back to that incident, it must have been a special type of domestic servants that the Germans used during the war. But this was, at this time, town that Flint and I came across a bucket of eggs that I said was covered by water. I brought it back to the boys and we had a feast of eggs.

And the other incident was very early in our invasion of Germany. Germany, we found, hardly in the big cities, we got to the big cities, but we never did go through the big cities, we were always on the outskirts. And so on the outskirts we were in this little hamlet and Flint and I walked into this little hamlet which was not too far from where we were stopped by for a couple of days. And so we went in there and then we found that this hamlet was completely vacant, nobody was there. And so we've located a chicken coop full of chickens. So we looked around and we found some burlap bags. And we brought back, Flint and I brought back, I would say my recollection at this point maybe twenty chickens in two burlap bags, two or three burlap bags. And we brought back the treasure and I still have a picture of the barbecue that the gun crew had with this chicken. But this one picture was taken to remember the day that we had the biggest chicken barbecue. Other days we will have one or two chickens, people would come across one or two chickens. But that one we had about twenty chickens in a burlap bag, we bought back to the gun crew. So practically the whole battery had a chicken that day.

<Begin Segment 5>

WN: You know, you folks were together a lot during the war. Did you folks ever get tired of each other? Did you folks get into arguments?

KM: I don't recall ever any of our boys ever having any argument among ourselves. I don't remember. I don't remember ever within our battery. Of course, there were boys who were hard to get along with, who very much liked to be left alone. And there were, for every one of us, there were moments when you wanted to be alone, you didn't want to be bothered. There were lots of times when people would let you be alone, be reflective of...

MN: In those days, were there, you know, by your recall, were there any instances where men were really troubled, being depressed or emotionally disturbed?

KM: From the very beginning of our training in Camp Shelby, there was one of the boys who we thought was very unsettled, disturbed, very quiet, never did associate with the rest of the boys too much, always by himself. And before basic training was over, I think he was sent back home. And he was a likable guy from Kauai and I've tried to follow up as to whatever happened, but I never could locate him in Kauai after the war. But he, I understood he was discharged from the army very early in our training. And then later on, we had a kibei who was in the 442 and he could barely speak English, but he was in the army. And so they put him into the mess hall, he was a cook. And everything was all right until Tokyo was being bombed by the American airplanes. And then we noticed that he seemed to be very quiet, very... and, as I understand it, it got so bad that he never went overseas with us. Before going to overseas, I don't know, ultimately, whatever happened to him because we left without him. But, and this was primarily because he was worried as we understood about the bombing in Tokyo. And he had, evidently he had parents in Tokyo. But talking about, those were the two in my battery that I know personally about.

MN: And then, you know, people mentioned the chaplains, Chaplain Higuchi, Chaplain Yost, just from your experience, direct experience with the men in your group, to what extent did the men that you know, have cause to see the chaplain?

KM: Chaplain Higuchi was the chaplain for 2nd Battalion, I think, and Chaplain Yamada was the chaplain for 3rd Battalion, and Chaplain Yost was for the 100th. And the artillery had a Chaplain West, a Caucasian chaplain, I don't remember where he came from or what because we had very little ties with him. I don't know for what reason, but I don't remember too many contacts with Chaplain West other than when he notified me that my brother had been killed in an automobile accident. But he wasn't close to the boys. There was a gap that I don't think we ever, I don't remember attending any church services with him. Some of our boys, even I, maybe when we had the chance, we would attend something that Chaplain Higuchi or Chaplain Yamada had on the infantry side, but I have very vague recollections of interchange with Chaplain West, other than the one time that he came to inform me about my brother's accident.

<Begin Segment 6>

MN: And then changing the subject, but you mentioned how the kibei soldier reacted to bombing in Japan. When the United States bombed Hiroshima and you eventually heard about it, what were your thoughts then? Because you had family in Japan at that time.

KM: I didn't know anything about where my sisters were. All what I knew was that my sisters were in Tokyo, although I had distant relatives in Hiroshima. My eldest sister had not come back from Manchuria yet. See, my eldest sister and her family had been missing in action, so to speak, in Manchuria. It was the last ship that came back from Manchuria that my sister and her four daughters were on, and they were lucky enough to come back, and the whole family in Hiroshima had lost contact with them. So it was after the war, when my sister, my eldest sister and her children came back to Hiroshima. So my two sisters, Tsukie and Fumie, were supposed to be in Tokyo as far as I was concerned. And only years later did I find out that Fumie and Tsukie were both in Hiroshima when the atom bomb was dropped. But during the war, my sister Tsukie tried to contact me. And I have the Red Cross letter that she wrote to the Red Cross inquiring about my two brothers, and she had heard that we were in the army. And so I don't know how she heard, but she had heard that we were in the army. And so she wanted to locate and get in touch with us, a copy of this Red Cross letter of inquiry that she had sent to the Red Cross. I don't know how I kept it, my mother probably kept it.

MN: You know, since you were thinking that your sisters were in the Tokyo vicinity, and you knew that the U.S. was bombing the Tokyo area, did you have any thoughts or feelings about that?

KM: Well, of course, we had no idea. The war started, we were not in communication during the war, so from 1941 on we had very, we couldn't worry about them because we had other things to worry about ourselves in Hawaii. So we had very little time to reflect on what was happening in Japan. We had more of our own worries every day.

<Begin Segment 7>

MN: And then I'm going to move you up to where we sort of left off. In November '45, the 522 finally gets to go home. You know, you folks had more than enough points and folks were allowed to come home, and folks traveled across the U.S. You went from Europe to New York, Camp Kilmer, Camp Beale, Camp Hanna, you went to all those different places before you crossed the Pacific. What do you remember about the time you spent on the Mainland as you made your way home?

KM: Well, we came back on... I forgot the name of that Swedish liner. But we were probably about six thousand troops on the ship. And it was a pleasant trip back from Marseilles. We got on board ship in Marseilles and uneventful. And then reached Camp Kilmer, New York. And one of the first persons we see in Camp Kilmer is Ted Tsukiyama. Ted had left us in the middle of basic training to go to MIS. We never saw him after that, we never heard about him except that he went off to some parts in Minnesota intelligence school. And then we get to Camp Kilmer and here's this whole bunch of Military Intelligence boys. Basically these were from the China-India-Burma area. And so we had a very unexpected reunion with Ted in Camp Kilmer. And we flew over from Camp Kilmer to California by air. And it was kind of scary, because before our return, the infantry boys had been ahead of us, they had come in. There was even available, welcome home when they came in. But that happened, I don't know how many months, but I heard about it. And so, but we had heard that one of the planes that the boys were in crashed. We were in these DC-3s, the common transport planes for the army. But we had heard about this plane accident. And so we, "Hey, we'd rather go by train even though it takes four or five days." Yeah, but we had no choice. After that, fortunately there were no accidents. I think that the plane accident, there was one life lost, one of the boys, 442 boys. But we came, we landed, must have been Fairfield in California because it was up north. Camp Beale was up north. And when we got there, we got to meet a whole bunch of new recruits, Hawaiian boys, mixture of Niseis, Hawaiians, who were stationed in Camp Beale. And these boys were having a bad time with the regular rest of the GIs in Camp Beale, they were Hawaii boys, not Niseis now, these are the regular Hawaii boys who were having a bad time by these Caucasian soldiers in Camp Beale. And we had heard that when the 442 boys came in and heard about this, there were some fights again in Camp Beale. I mean, this is what we heard but I don't know if it actually happened. But from the best of what I know, it did happen because the Hawaii boys were being mistreated by these. And so one of the situations was that the 100th and the 442 boys were going to be required to do KP duty in Camp Beale. And that was a big issue, and it almost ended up in fights. But the people in charge of Camp Beale recognized the situation and the refusal of 442 boys to do anymore KP duties. And so they were relieved from doing KP duty. And by the time we got there, the word was out that we didn't have to do any KP duties also. And so after a few, couple of days that we were in Camp Beale, we were shipped back to down south to Camp Haan, which was in Los Angeles. And Camp Haan is where we were there for quite some time. The excuse given was that there were no ships going to Hawaii. And so we spent Christmas and New Year's in Los Angeles. But remember this Christmas and New Year's was the first Christmas and New Year's after the war. And so we happened to be on the streets. And I think I was out both New Year's and Christmas. But the New Year's revelry in the streets of Los Angeles was, from what I understand, it was when the war ended. Everybody was celebrating in the streets, and we were part of the celebration. It'd be something that if we didn't have it back in May of '45, we experienced in New Year's and Christmas.

And ultimately, and this was while we were in Camp Haan, that one day there was a notice that anyone who wanted to go to see a television show can sign up. And we didn't know what was television. But we had nothing to do, so about a hundred, more than a hundred of us volunteered. When the night came, we get onto these two buses or three buses, I think. Probably two and a half buses because clearly there was about a hundred of us. We got on this bus, had no idea where we were going to go. Few minutes and we got into this big parking lot. We parked there and then the outside wasn't that well lit. But they say, "Okay, all of you, stand in line and stay close to the person in front of you, and follow the one ahead of you." And so we found out, we realized that we were entering a building. The building was dimly lit. We got in and before we knew it, we were in something like a theater. And we were marching into this theater, and after we had all gotten into this theater, and we were going to see a show so we knew we were in some kind of theater. Then the lights went on, and we found out that we were in this, later on it turned out to be CBS, I think studio. Right in the middle of the studio, whole bunch of us. Then a familiar voice comes out over the loudspeaker and it comes out, here comes Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra announces that tonight his special guests were members of the 442 and he performed and we had, got recognized by the audience. But Frank Sinatra's leadoff, you know, these stars, they all have somebody else to perform before they come out. And so there was, at that time, totally unknown female singer who happened to be Peggy Lee. She was completely unknown at that time, but Frank Sinatra was at his height of his popularity, it was 1946. And the only paper that I had was this ration ticket to go to the PX and buy things. And so, to this day, I have the signature of Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee right below it. And I think that's quite a souvenir, because Peggy Lee became one of the more popular singers after that. And we have her picture to prove it, it's in a book, Fire for Effect, that picture, which somehow I ordered and I got. We were asked if you want one, and I said I want one, and followed up and I received it later on.

And then we got on board this ship, New Mexico, and it took us, it took us how many day from Los Angeles to... the normal trip was five days, I think, but it took us double than, I think five days. But rather uneventful except when we got off Diamond Head it was two or three o'clock in the morning and nobody slept. Everybody was up, we were all on the railing until we saw the skyline of Honolulu. But that was a very, very heartwarming return. And basically it was the 522, but as I said, there was this group of intelligence servicepeople who had come in and joined us from Camp Kilmer.

<Begin Segment 8>

MN: You know, like you were saying, it was basically just a real heartwarming thing to see Diamond Head. What were your thoughts at that time?

KM: Hard to reflect on what pure joy, pure joy coming around. And we had to wait out in, outside of Honolulu Harbor until daylight. But it was heartwarming to see the lights. I think it was better than daytime, to see the lights of Honolulu at two, three o'clock in the morning.

MN: So where did you folks disembark?

KM: I think we got off at Pier 40, I think it was Pier 40. Although the Pier 40 was not as large as it is now. But it was a smaller company, but that's where the military ships landed. I know it was in the Aloha Tower, it was in that, what is now foreign trade zone, in that area.

MN: And so when you arrived at Honolulu, what was the homecoming like for you?

KM: My mother was there. My mother was there and my nephew John was also there, he was about three or four years old at that point. And my dad and I guess my brothers. But the reunion with the parents was the highlight of the homecoming. They had, my dad had just come home shortly before that from the internment camp.

MN: And your mom and dad were both here in Honolulu?

KM: Uh-huh. My mother had relocated from Maui already. And at that point, both my parents were doing work up in Tantalus. Up in Tantalus there's a macadamia nut farm. You know, there's a macadamia nut farm right up here on Tantalus and they were working as pickers of macadamia nuts. Macadamia nuts have to be picked by hand, and so she had nothing else to do at that point. And they provided housing up there so they were living up in Tantalus.

<Begin Segment 9>

MN: And sometimes men have told us that when they came back, they also visited the families of men they had served with. How about in your situation?

KM: In my situation, the artillery boys, one of the first things after meeting with the family, reunion with the family, the boys were always trying to locate each other. Because we scattered, although we had no idea where so-and-so was living. But a lot of time was spent hunting down who was where and the telephone numbers to get in touch with. In my case, it also involved finding out when the university was, second semester was opening up. I had come back January 14th, January 13th or 14th '45 or '46. And the second semester started three days after my return, and I registered to go to school, come back to University of Hawaii three days after discharge. Don't ask me about my first year in college because to this day, it's a vague memory of what happened during the first semester, especially the first semester after I returned. But as veterans, as soon as we got settled, somehow we agreed to meet downtown, we're down in the old Mitsukoshi Building, right on Bethel and King. At that time it was the Mitsukoshi Building. It was the first building in Hawaii that had an escalator, the Mitsukoshi building. And right alongside, on the mauka side of the Mitsukoshi Building was a cafe called Owl Cafe. And in the back of the Owl Cafe had three billiard tables. And so somehow, especially our artillery group, we said let's meet every day. For a while we would meet at the Owl Cafe around lunchtime and just spend our time playing billiards, and just talking stories, finding out what each other was doing, where we were located. But even after I enrolled in school, three days after I got discharged, I know that I would spend almost every day at Owl Cafe with the rest of the boys. It got to a point that almost every weekend, every Saturday, we would have a barbeque and beer drinking at Sandy Beach where the park is now located. It was a very nice area for barbequing and picnicking. And so for a good, I don't know, probably a good year, every Saturday, every weekend we used to have a get-together at Sandy Beach.

WN: How many in the group?

KM: Oh, we would be, my recollection is that probably at that point it was twenty-five to thirty or more.

WN: Were these boys, did you know any of them before the war?

KM: No, no, these were all my battery, boys that I got to know after joining up with the 442. These were all our battery boys. And so pretty soon, I think 1945, pretty soon the battalion group wanted to get together. Like the infantry boys, different companies, and at that time, the infantry companies were much larger than us. And so the 442 boys as a group, various groups, started to meet each other at various places. In the beginning, most of the boys used to meet at Nuuanu YMCA. Not the now Nuuanu YMCA, but it was located where the highway, the vineyard highway is now. But we used to meet at the, most of the group used to meet at the Nuuanu YMCA. And the group's meeting started to evolve in different company boys meeting with their own company boys, like the artillery boys would meet with just artillery boys, 2nd Battalion now. You got to remember, at that point, when we came back, the 100th Infantry was already a club. They had formed a club where they started to save money from Wisconsin. They had formally allocated that club was to form and then they were assessed so much a month, which was put into the kitty. And before our, the 442 returned, the Emergency Service Committee, which was in charge of community relations between the AJAs and the community. You must remember that veterans of the 100th Infantry started to come back after the hospitalization, those who had so-called million dollar wounds, back from 1943, Battle of Cassino, all these people got wounded and injured, spent maybe six months, maybe one year. But they had already come back to Hawaii way ahead of us, even before the end of the war. And so I don't know when it was, but they didn't properly custodian which was a federal organization that managed all of the confiscated property of Japanese citizens like the Iida Shoten. Iida Shoten owner's grandpa, the property of the wholly-owned Japanese national was confiscated by the Alien Property Custodian. And all of the Japanese schools in Honolulu and throughout the islands were all confiscated. Years later we have all these court cases to return the properties and that, but at that time, the Nuuanu Japanese school, which was located up in Nuuanu and I think it was either Judge Street or right there in your place, across the street from the gas station, had been confiscated by the Alien Property Custodian. And the powers that be thought that we got to take care of our veteran boys, AJA veteran boys, because those were the only group coming back as such. And so the Nuuanu Japanese language school was giving free and clear, lock step and barrel to the Club 100, which was already organized and being. And so this valuable piece of property was turned over to Club 100. And so when we started to meet, in the beginning we were meeting in the YMCA and other places. The 100th heard about our difficulties and so they said, "Hey, come on over to our place, we have some meeting rooms and you can utilize the place for meetings."

<Begin Segment 10>

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.

<Begin Segment 11>

KM: The other clubhouse, as I recall, that had the slot machines for a while, was the clubhouse located at Judge and Liliha. There was a well-known clubhouse over there, and I remember it was Camp Alumni High School building. As I recall, they were the only other civilian club or, they had only one slot machine. But the first few years that we were in existence, the income from the slot machines were adequate to take care of all our expenses. But then we wanted to get a building so we had our first carnival, I think it was 1947, at the old stadium, Honolulu Stadium where we had a carnival, five-day carnival. And one of the minor acts... what was his name? It was a big-mouth comedienne, movie actress. She was the star of the show. Aw shucks.

WN: Ethel Merman?

KM: No, no. But anyway, she was this... but supporting act was the, what brothers now? Three brothers' act. And later on, this, one of the performers became famous as Sammy Davis. He was one of the acts that at that time was totally unknown performer. But for years thereafter, Sammy Davis always had an open heart for the 442 boys. Whenever he'd come to Honolulu he would try to get in touch with somebody from the 442 club. He always inquired about the 442, he never forgot the 442. But Sammy was one of the performers that, more interesting than that is that in 1947, '46 when we put on the carnival, after World War II, many of the so-called nonprofit organizations were putting on money-making projects. And their favorite, the game to be played and to make money was bingo, out-and-out bingo. And so by that time, Ralph Yempuku was our co-sponsor. He was one of the promoters to help us out. And so Ralph, and then he got into partnership with Earl Finch. And they were to supply us with all the prizes for the bingo games. And Fred Matsuo was the general chairman. And the artillery, because we were such a big group, we were assigned the bingo games as our concession, and we had three bingo game sites because it was going to be the biggest money-maker. And so we had this scheduled carnival. And about two or three weeks before the opening, we got word from the police, Captain Tarbell, hard to forget him. But Captain Tarbell came and told us, you know, "Up to now, all of the nonprofits have been playing bingo. But we're going to get strict. You cannot play bingo as is played now. The game of bingo as played now is a game of chance." And the authorities were clamping down on gambling and games of chance that was going on. At that time, they had this game called, it was [inaudible] in Waikiki which was very popular. And that was, later on, ended up in the courts as to whether it was a game of chance or a game of skill. But Tarbell kept it, Tarbell informed us that the department was going to start the policy of no bingo games as played at that time, which was, for their interpretation, a game of chance. But when we got that notice, we started to figure... and the merchandise had already been bought, committed to us, basically. And so we thought, well, what are we going to do? Are we going to turn it into a game of skill? So up until the opening, we thought that it would be a game of skill if we put balloons on a board with all the numbers and then one person from the audience, a player would get a dart and then throw it at the balloon. And then whatever balloons he hit, that number would be the one that's called. Now, bingo got to be played in five, ten minutes a game. You don't make money unless it's done and over with in ten, fifteen minutes. But playing that dart even, sometimes they would miss, and then you got to turn it over to another guy, another person. I remember the first night, we tried this dart throwing and it took forever and a day. So the next night, we tried variations of making it into a game of skill, picking numbers, throwing the dart, couple other devices that we thought about. But we tried that the second night, still didn't work. And we were already on the second night of three more days.

And so we had a meeting of the committee and said, "What are we going to do?" So one-arm bandit Dan Inouye was the first vice president of the club at that time, and I was the chairman of the bingo games. So at the meeting we said, "You know, I think we're going to take a chance. It's too much of a loss to, for the next three days we're going to try the same thing, and we hardly made any money the first two nights." So he said, "Okay, we're going to play regular bingo, see what the police department will do." But then we had to choose who was going to be subject to be arrested. So Dan Inouye and myself, as the bingo concession chairman and Danny being the second vice-president of the club. The reason why Dan was to be the volunteer was because our president was Chaplain Yamada. So we didn't want him to go to jail. So Dan and I were going to be the volunteer to be arrested. And the third night we opened up the carnival and played regular bingo, no arrest. Three nights we played regular bingo and we recovered a little bit. The first two nights was a total loss but the last three nights we made some money. But the rest of the story is in Kakaako, right where Hamada Store is located, used to have a small little church in a small little confined block, not block, lot at the corner of Queen and... I forgot what the street was, Kamani Street, I think it was, was a Portuguese Catholic church. And there, had a little carnival every year. One game that they put on was bingo. They had theirs scheduled one week after us, I think. They got arrested. They were stopped from putting on the bingo games, and it was at that point in Honolulu, wide-open bingo was closed. It was no longer, as play, it was stopped. And this is back in 1946, '47.

WN: So why do you think you folks never got stopped?

KM: Then we reflected, we said, hey, I think we must have a little bit of political pull. [Laughs] And I believe that was the initial beginning that the boys felt that they could flex their muscles a little bit. But this is 1946 now, '47, before any of our boys were in office. But that was one of the incentives for our boys, our members to become involved in politics.

WN: Wow. [Laughs]

KM: But that was very early in our club activities. But we continued... thereafter, we had to put on money-making projects to meet our expenses. We had a fully paid executive secretary. I think our first executive secretary was Flash Fujiki, I think. Wait, was it Flash or was it somebody else? With Flash, he was a longtime employee for Japan Airlines. I forgot who the first executive, but we had these expenses so we had to put on... oh, the reason why was because they also stopped confiscating our slot machines, both clubs, the [inaudible] and the 442, very quietly. Up until then we were in operation, and I don't know how we got rid of it. We had to turn it in to the so-called federal authorities who stopped the... it was a very serious matter as far as the federal was concerned. But until then, it was open. So now it became necessary for us to put on moneymaking projects, and so where the Ala Moana shopping center is located, it was, at that time it was a vacant lot. It was where Hawaiian Dredging Company had this swampland over there. They leased it out to the army during the war and they used it for all kinds of storage area. So a good portion of where the center is now located, especially where Macy's is located, was the solid covered area, big enough for us to put on circuses. So with Ralph Yempuku as our corporate motor sponsor, I became the project committee chairman for the club after our first carnival at the stadium. Because Fred Matsuo had left Hawaii and had basically gone to Japan to do all this promotional work with the entertainment industry. So I became the project chairman from that time on, on all of our money-making projects which included the circuses at the present site of the Ala Moana shopping center. And we put on several circuses.

<Begin Segment 12>

KM: And then, in 1960, '61, we had the opportunity to promote and get involved the sponsorship of Tokyo Sumo. And that was a money-making project too. Because although there was strenuous objection from some of the members to get involved with sumo, I had a difficult time getting the boys to go along with the idea of promoting sumo. Because we were already involved with the all-Japan High School Baseball Association where beginning in 1955, a group of all-stars came in from Japan and sponsored their appearance in Honolulu. There would almost always be about fifteen days of visits by these, we would take them to all over the neighbor islands at that time. And then two years later, we would send from Hawaii a group of all-stars and we continued that project from 1955, which is within ten years of, after the war that the 442 was the initial sponsor of this home at home baseball series between Japan and Hawaii until we couldn't handle it any longer back in 1993. Until then, we had this project. So to have the boys agree to taking on a sumo project at that time, a great many of them said, "What is sumo?" They didn't know what is sumo. But I was involved with sumo from Maui and days where I grew up. And my father was an avid fan of sumo who would put on the shortwave radio and listen direct broadcast those days from Japan about the sumo. Because of the five-hour difference, he would listen in the middle of the morning, early in the morning, because sumo would be going on at that, delayed five-hour from Japan. So I was exposed to sumo from very early in my upbringing. And so, somehow, Takao Hedani and I, Takao Hedani was a customs inspector, but he was like a Kibei because he had his high school education in Japan but he was a member of the 442. I had to depend on him because he spoke, I mean, he wrote and read Japanese and so I had to depend on him in our negotiations with the Sumo Kyokai. But from 1962 on, we started to sponsor sumo, and I think we put on... and I'm not too sure, but nine or ten tournaments in Hawaii. And so this Takasago Beya, the stablemasters that we worked with very beginning, believed that sumo was to be introduced to the Western world after World War II. We were strong believer in the way of sumo, sumodo which is the most ancient of Japanese sports. And their lifestyle is, unfortunately, it's so rigid that the younger Japanese men don't get involved with sumo nowadays. Foreigners like the Mongolians are practically taking over the sumo in Japan now. But Takasago Oyakata was individually a promoter. We asked for two promotions, 1962 and '66, or '64. It was at that time that Jesse wanted to go back to Japan, and so we had to work out arrangements for Jesse going to Japan. But thereafter, the Sumo Kyokai saw the light and they went to California, they went to New York, they went to China and they went to Russia, they went to Brazil, they went to Paris and became very popular internationally. Except today, for the first time last year, they appeared in Las Vegas. But from the time we were promoted, we always wanted to get involved with, especially Ralph wanted to put on sumo in Las Vegas, but he was always rejected because the Sumo Kyokai powers that be said, "Oh, no, we cannot get involved with any type of gambling." And so they never approved the appearance of sumo in Las Vegas. I don't know what happened last year, but suddenly they appeared in Las Vegas. So we put on this sumo project, as I said, the last one, it was something about 1988 and 1989 that we put the last promotion, sumo.

MN: So the 442nd Club has been involved in a lot of projects.

KM: And I was the project chairman all the way. And Ralph was, the project required somebody to underwrite the project because we didn't have a big bankroll, the club did not have. We were barely meeting expenses. And so in order to put on this sumo project, somebody had to, we either had to borrow money or advance money that was required from the Japan side. They said they wanted x-number of dollars in their hands before they came out here, whether it was loss or what, that money, that guaranteed money had to be turned over before the budget was started. So we, because we had worked with Ralph on the circuses, and I had worked with him on all the circuses, basically the agreement that I had with Ralph was a handshake deal. We worked together on whatever agreement we had in the very beginning, it was a handshake. It wasn't necessary to put it down in writing, which was, for a lot of people that heard that from me, said, "That's strange." Ralph was a promoter, especially a boxing promoter. And so they said, "Oh, you got to get everything in writing." And Ralph was also a member of the 442 and we had a handshake deal, all of the promotion we had with Ralph.

WN: So the original intent of these promotions was, along with the gambling and the circuses, was originally fundraising.

KM: Fundraising for the building fund.

WN: For the building, right.

KM: Then, you see, this group, Moilili group, they had twelve... it was an athletic club, twelve surviving members of this nonprofit group. And they were elderly, they had no use for the building group. It was leased out to various groups. So they decided... and we were leasing on a very, one a year visa or something like that from the beginning. And so they decided, well, hey, what better than to donate it to us. And so back in 1950-something, lock stock and barrel, they turned over the whole property to us. But at that point it was necessary to renovate the gymnasium. It was a small gymnasium, so we had to renovate it to the complex we now have, and office site, meeting place, together with apartments to bring in some income. And so we had borrow... now we had something to put up for mortgage. And so it took us until 1987 or 1988 to pay off our mortgage. But now, today, finally, we were debt-free because we had put on all these other projects.

<Begin Segment 13>

WN: I'm wondering, why was it important for you folks to have a club?

KM: Because the members wanted a place to meet and get together with each other. We were... how shall I say it, very jealous of our contacts, of our eyes with our fellow veterans. We wanted to maintain that for some of us... for some of us, the basic activity that ever got involved with was the 442 activities. Of course, I got involved with all kinds of other activities but for the majority of the boys, the contact, lifetime contact activity was 442.

WN: So when did you start thinking beyond just meeting at the pool hall in downtown, even beyond that to include more people?

KM: Or when we decided to meet, he didn't know who I was, Club 100. It started off with a beer bust that we used to have at Sandy Beach, but that was a regular. And then we started to want a place where.. Sandy Beach was more beer drinking and carousing, singing, but the meeting was more formal. Because we started to get involved with, we started a softball league, softball activity. We had a 442 softball league, and then we had a basketball, very early we had basketball league. Subsequently, we had bowling. Bowling was, for a long time, a big club activity. Softball, bowling, those were the primary activities, I think. And in that respect, in the beginning, the 522 Battalion was a single club, single chapter, when Dan Kono and I were basically in charge. But we dominated all of the sports, the battalion. Basketball, we dominated, softball, we dominated, bowling, we dominated. So when I was gone to law school, during that period, I came back, three-and-a-half-years later I came back to find out that the infantry boys had successfully split the 522 Battalion to three different chapters. Instead of one 522 Battalion chapter, they split into A, B and C. The five chapters were, five batteries were divided into A, B and C, which, from the infantry point of view, equalized the competition. But it was that kind of, we had all of these activities now, as a club. And the picnics, all of those years, picnics, individual chapters. We had Christmas parties, individual chapters. So there were enough things going on with the club that many of the boys restricted their family activities to activities of the club.

MN: To put the club's activities in a context, I'm not familiar what it's like for Mainland veterans. But on the Mainland, do the veterans have clubs like this, like a Club 100 or...

KM: In Los Angeles. Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco, had a veterans group. But in Los Angeles, you had both 100th and 442. San Francisco it was basically Niseis, majority of them were 442. Seattle, I think, was the same thing. But when we started to have these reunions in Hawaii, a lot of these Mainland boys started to come. And we started out with Hawaii, and then three years later we talked about... the first two occasions, I think, it was in Hawaii. But then the Los Angeles group became better organized, and so we had reunions alternately, three years in Hawaii, three years in, later in Los Angeles. And did we go to Seattle? I forgot whether we went to Seattle. Basically it was between, alternating between L.A. and Hawaii. But they got organized because of these reunions, and so we kept very close touch with the Mainland boys.

<Begin Segment 14>

MN: And then changing the subject, I want to move you back. I know you told us, don't ask about your first year at UH, but first of all, I wanted to know, what was the rush to go back to UH so soon, three days after you came back? How come you didn't wait? What was the rush?

KM: It wasn't only me, you know, there were others that I found out later. But yeah, Eddie Okazaki was already back at UH because he was one year ahead of me. So Eddie was the president of the senior class, 46. We started back in in 1946. In 1948 he was the president of the senior class, Walter [inaudible] was the student body president.

MN: How come you didn't think of just taking a break? You just came back and three days later you were back at school.

KM: I can't recall why. I cannot recall why... as I said, that period of one year is a vague, cloudy... don't have distinct, other than moving into Veterans Dorm room as soon as you...

MN: Tell us about Veterans Dorm.

KM: As I said, starting to point out to you, coming here, this place we are now seated is the, back of this was the Farrington Hall. And Farrington Hall was being used during the war years as the home port for Maurice Evans, who was, I think it was a famous Shakespearean actor, stage man. And he had a USO performing group, and I don't know what the arrangements were, but there were cottages in the back of Farrington Hall, portable cottages right around, completely surrounding the... enough for his troupe of performers. And when the war ended, they had vacated that premises and we had turned that into what was then called the Veterans Dormitory. And a retired colonel, being the head of our Veterans Affairs at the university, I forgot his name. We had some characters, professional administrative characters at that time. Liebrick? Was it Liebrick?

MN: KC Liebrick.

KM: Yeah, Liebrick. I think he was the Veterans Affairs, and there was a famous military colonel, retired colonel who was in charge of the ROTC at that time. But I got appointed to be, I don't know how I got appointed, but to be the vets' dorm manager. And so I had to represent the boys in various affairs, mostly complaints or this and that. The Vets Dormitory was there for not too long. I was there for about one or two years, but then I ended up in Atherton House. But it was a fun place, was all by veterans. And so there was a day room that we had for the boys to play cards, and so there were a lot of card games going on and they had the same thing. One of the memorable gatherings of veterans was, I don't know what, it wasn't in the first year, Kamokila Campbell came to speak to us. And it was really a sad meeting between Kamokila and the veterans because she did not realize that the veterans were hard-nosed veterans. And she, I think her opening remark which turned everybody off was, "My dear boys," and her tone of presentation. And I don't know what the subject matter that she came to speak in front of the... the whole veteran group was, we had a pretty good, big presentation, people showing up to hear Kamokila Campbell because she was a well-known personality at that time, a very influential individual. But my recollection is that her presentation was a real big flop before the veterans.

MN: By that time, when you folks came back to school, like you said, you folks were hard-nosed veterans. You folks smoked, you folks drank, you folks went through battle, and now you're back in school, subject to studies, tests, professors.

KM: I don't know about studies. [Laughs]

MN: How did you folks fare?

KM: I flunked the first report card and the first quarter or first, it was during the first semester, I must have flunked three of the four or five courses that I had. But... and I really don't know how I survived the first semester. I don't recall how I survived, but somehow I think we were all in the same boots, all of the veterans. Prior to our coming back December of '45, ninety percent, ninety percent of the student body were girls. And about 350, I think, the second semester in 1946, I think there were about 350 of us veterans registering right away. So I wasn't the only one that registered right away. Because ahead of me was an infantry group that had come back earlier in, later on in 1945. It was only the artillery group that came back three days before the beginning of the second semester. And I really don't know why I registered so fast, because I was living with my other brother in Kapahulu the first month or so, until Vets Dorm was opened. And I'm sorry, but I cannot recall why, what motivated me to... maybe it was for want of nothing better else besides going to school.

WN: Did things seem anticlimactic to you?

KM: Hmm?

WN: Did things seem anticlimactic to you? You know, through this...

KM: Yeah, yeah, there is that kind of a letdown feeling that everything's all over with now, and we're back to where we started, day one, back in 1941. Because, remember, I started one year later, instead of right after high school. I laid off one year, and probably I felt that there was a gap that I couldn't make up. So probably that motivated me to get in three days after I got discharged. Already I felt I was behind one year, more than the others.

MN: I don't think you can answer this, but how come you had a hard time settling into studies?

KM: Let me give you an example. I think I had Sociology 100, basic sociology course. And I remember distinctly, when I was taking the first examination, there were several questions in the exam which completely astounded me. And the reason why is that, as I recall, the book that I was supposed to study, I never opened it before the exam. There were terminologies out the in exam which I had no idea what it was referring to. But that was, my recollection of the first exam taken after a couple of months after I got in. but even at that point, I had difficulty trying to study, to buckle down and read, basically. It was the most difficult thing to do.

MN: And then so when did you start buckling down?

KM: I guess after the first semester. After the first semester, I think, I buckled down. Then when I just survived the first semester, barely survived.

MN: What do you think made the difference?

KM: I wish I knew. But I believe it was a matter of getting back into the routine of studying. Until then, this business of reading the books and whatnot, was a ritual that we were not accustomed to, that we had already forgotten all about.

<Begin Segment 15>

MN: You know, I know that some of you veterans got involved in student government on UH campus. What got you involved?

KM: Well, I don't know if I said so, but remember, Ms. Jones, my high school, she had always told the students that as a student, you can limit yourself only to the academic studies, or you can get involved in playing baseball for the high school or getting involved with stage plays, or get involved with other, we had some other clubs at the high school level. And she always told us that, "You cannot limit yourself only to academic, pure academics when you're going to school, because there are other factors besides just pure academics, like in life." She says, "When you get out of your school, when you're studying and learning, in going through the world, besides your work that you make a living on, there are other activities of life that involve you and your family. And you've got to expose yourself and get involved with community activities." This was her teaching from the time I was in high school. And so very early when we came back, one of the first things we did was to get involved with the board. Each class had a board of governors or whatever, representing the class. I think from the very beginning they were involved with these board activities, ended up being the president of the senior class at that time.

MN: And the UH government at that time, how involved were the veterans?

KM: Oh, the veterans were very much involved with the activities. Once we came in, I remember the first year there was very little. For second and third people it was with, they were ahead of us. The veterans were very much active. We had a big carnival, first or second year, the university carnival. The first carnival, about the only one that I remember the university putting it on. But we had a very big carnival which Wadsworth Yee was the general chairman of. This was strictly an outside affair, they were extracurricular activities of the student body.

MN: Even as you were a student at UH, your ties with the veterans were still very strong?

KM: Oh, yes. It was ongoing. In fact, the veterans activities dominated more than the school activities. Because, remember, veterans activities, we had softball. When the softball season was there, we had softball. When the bowling season started, we had bowling. And when basketball season came out, we had basketball. So it took up a lot of your time. In between that, we had picnics and gatherings among the veterans.

MN: And then so when you were at the UH and involved in all these activities, how did you manage to support yourself?

KM: I had two choices. We had the GI Bill of Rights, which paid sixty-five dollars a month if you took the benefits of the GI Bill. And I had the option of taking advanced ROTC. As a veteran, you automatically could get into advanced ROTC. Advanced ROTC, you got seventy-five dollars stipend a month. And so I figured I would take advanced ROTC and save my GI Bill for whatever I would do after University of Hawaii. And fortunately, I did that. I took my two years of advanced ROTC and then when I went to law school, I started to utilize my GI Bill.

<Begin Segment 16>

WN: I wanted to ask you this question. How different and how similar a person were you from the time you left for the war and the time you just came back? I'm trying to look at what, how the war itself...

KM: You know, my reflection is that when I joined up and volunteered for the 442, I was rather a very happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care youngest boy in the family who was pampered by his brothers and sisters. Not a care in the world. Being younger, you were kind of spoon-fed with everything. And then, besides that, we had a big family. Not just one or two, but I was always taken care of by my brothers and sisters. And the one that affected me now that I think about it is the death of my brother, I think, affected me very drastically. At that point of time in training, even when I think about it, I became hard-nosed, I think. And you know, my thoughts were, "How come him?" He was, he could have gone to medical school right after he graduated, but he wanted to earn some money and not depend on the family. So he started to work as a paramedic and come to Ambulance Corps. And then before you knew it, the war broke out, and so his chance of going medical school was kind of lost forever. And as a matter of fact, that night that he and I discussed about volunteering, one of my argument was that he had already been accepted as a medical school in Tulane, he could go to Tulane anytime he wanted to, and that his future was to become a doctor. But he didn't, at this point of time when it became an individual choice of volunteering or not volunteering, we had an argument. But said, "I can represent the family," as far as the Miho family is concerned, Katsuo had power as a minister. And so between he and I, I was not attached to anything, I had no plans for the future. And so he, on the other hand, already had a goal to, he should volunteer, but he rejected that. It's an individual choice that had to be decided by him at that point of time. And so he said, "No, I want to volunteer." And top of that, he was scheduled to go to Tulane while he was in the army. From the army he was selected to go to ASTP school. And so all of his weight on me, when I'm in my moments that I was, especially when he died and I was alone with him, all came up. The first few days until my brother Paul came from Yale to join me before the funeral, it was a moment of, I don't know, change taking place in me, I think. Because I think I became a little bit more hard-nosed, more purposeful, more determined as a GI in my capacity at that time as a corporal.

WN: I guess eventually as a student, too.