<Begin Segment 10>

FA: How did you feel when, once you were accepted, arrived in England, you were the first B-24 bomb group there, you volunteered, you went to gunnery school for two weeks, then you were finally assigned to a bomber crew. How did you feel after that?

BK: Oh, that was a great feeling. You finally felt that you belonged, you know. And finally felt I was going to have a chance to prove myself. It was such a tough battle all the way up 'til then, and all the things that you had to put up with to get there. So it was really a great feeling. You know, I got stuck on KP and dirtiest KP jobs for as much as two weeks in a row and none of the other guys got more than one or two nights of KP. It was all things like that that you had to endure. So once you got on the combat crew, boy, everybody treated you differently. You knew that your life was always on the line, that your next mission you're gonna go out and you don't know whether you're gonna come back again. So it was a whole different ballgame. And the respect was just unbelievable.

FA: Tell me about the camaraderie you felt with your fellow crewmembers.

BK: Well, that was just it, we used to kid each other and I can particularly remember this one kid with an Italian American name, Joe Fortie, when we were over there in North Africa when we were bombing Rome and Naples and I'd kid Joe and I'd say, "Joe, we're gonna go over and knock the spaghetti out of your ancestors today," and of course Joe would shoot right back and says, "Hey," he says, "Wait 'til I get to the Pacific. I'm gonna knock the rice out of your dishonorable ancestors." [Laughs] It was like that.

FA: After your return from Europe, what happened after Washington, well, after you were sent back to the States from Europe? What happened next?

BK: Well, that was the unusual thing, is the army, air force, sent all the returning airmen to a rest and rehabilitation home and I was sent to, of all places, Santa Monica, California, the old Edgewater Beach Hotel. And so probably by pure accident I was probably one of first ones to come back to the West Coast. First Japanese American to come back to the West Coast since the evacuation. And a lot of things started happening, of course, when I got up there in Santa Monica. I was invited to appear on this national radio program with Ginny Simms...

FA: You spoke to the Commonwealth Club.

BK: Just a couple hours before the program, well, they decided, the NBC officials decided to kick me off of the program because they said the Japanese American question was too controversial.

FA: At that time, the 442nd was being formed, young men from camp. What did you think of the idea of a segregated combat unit? You got to serve with Joe Fortie and all your fellows in Europe, but you were the only Japanese American on the crew. What did you think about the idea of this segregated unit of Japanese Americans being, volunteering and drafted out of the concentration camps?

BK: Well, I never really gave it any thought, I mean, particularly that way. All I knew was that they were doing it. And of course later on, why, I was real pleased that I heard that they were doing so well. But I didn't have any feelings about a segregated unit.

FA: You just saw it as an opportunity for them to serve?

BK: Yes.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1998, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.