<Begin Segment 3>

FC: Why did you volunteer to fly in B-29s? After you'd done your tour, why go back? Did you enjoy flying into combat?

BK: No, there were, there were numerous reasons that I wanted to fly on B-29s, that was one of the things, when I got kicked off the national radio program was only the beginning. I was in Denver, tried to share a taxi with a man... of course wearing my uniform with all my ribbons, and slammed the door in my face and said, "I won't ride with no lousy Jap." My best friend and high school classmate, Gordy Jorgensen, was killed in the Solomon Islands by the Japanese enemy. And even when I was there in Santa Monica, my squadron friend Ed Bates came back about the same time I did so they put me in the same room together. Ed Bates' brother was also killed in the Pacific. And I told him that if I ever got over to the Pacific, the first zero I get was going to be for his brother. And there were... there were also the 442nd was beginning to do well in Italy. And I heard reports that, "Well, they're doing great because they're not fighting against the Japs." And somehow I just wanted to prove that it didn't make any difference to me whether I was fighting against the Japanese enemy or the Germans.

FC: In the Army Air Corps, did you run into other Japanese American gunners, navigators or pilots?

BK: No, I never ran into a single one. I did run into a Chinese American gunner... but I kept hearing stories that there were some others and I think it was only until recent years that I found out there was another Japanese American gunner who flew in Europe, North Africa, I guess, he flew more in the North African area. But he was a gunner on a twin engine fighter bomber type plane. And as far as the Pacific, I'm pretty sure that I was the only Japanese American flying B-29s because there was a War Department regulation that prohibited Japanese Americans, could not fly in B-29s. And when I was assigned first to, when I asked for assignment to B-29 crew and was assigned, it was about, it wasn't very long before I was told that I couldn't go with them because of this War Department regulation. And it was at that time that I started my crusade to see if I could be made an exception and it took me about three months. But my congressman from Nebraska wired General Marshall, and as a result of my Commonwealth speech in San Francisco, I got Dr. Monroe Deutsche. And he together with Ray Lyman Wilbur, who was the President of Stanford University and the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, the three of them wired Secretary of War Stimson who was, at the time was not Secretary of Defense but it was Secretary of War. And Secretary of War finally granted me an exception to the regulation. So I just presumed that there probably was no other Japanese Americans who flew in B-29s.

FC: Was flying in the 29 different than flying in the 24?

BK: Oh yes, that was just like flying in a Cadillac in the 29s, because all the cabins were pressurized and we had regular heat and everything so there was no comparison at all, but in B-29s it was wide-open so it really was cold.

FC: You mean B-24?

BK: I meant B-24, yes.

FC: Would you repeat that? Flying in the B-24 was wide-open and it was cold.

BK: Yes. Flying in the B-24 was wide open and some of my gunner friends had froze and lost their fingers. In fact, Ed Bates had lost several of his fingers, just froze it. And he used to have a little stub that he always carried around in, in greeting our fellow, his buddies. [Laughs]

FC: These missions were long. How did you relieve your bodily functions up there, or did you?

BK: Which...

FC: I mean like how did you pee?

BK: Well, of course they had, they have regular things for you to do that. [Laughs]

FC: Oh, there's a lavatory on the plane?

BK: Well, no, a little tube-like thing.

[Interruption]

Male voice: After you finished Ploesti, did you ever want to fly again?

FC: Yeah, he flew the twenty-ninth.

Male voice: Yeah, but I mean, Polesti.

BK: Well, yes.

Male voice: Did that scare you?

BK: Oh sure, it scared the hell out of me, because that was my twenty-fourth mission. But still kept on flying. At that, you're still young, and that's the way the, I guess that's why they want young people in the service 'cause you're all gung-ho and you have no responsibilities and you have no family to worry about or anything like that.

FC: How old were you when you flew over Ploesti?

BK: Oh man, what is it? I must have been twenty-five, I guess, somewhere, I think.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1998, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.