<Begin Segment 9>

FA: I want to break down and walk around a little bit, but one more question I need to ask you is the test cases that you and Min Tamesa tried to create. I'm told that you and Min tried to get arrested to create test cases before the draft came around, right?

FE: Uh...

FA: By walking out of camp?

FE: Well, I think, I think it was during the, during the period of when we were active on this draft resistance movement.

FA: Okay. So it was during that time.

FE: I think so.

FA: What did you and Min try to do?

FE: We wanted to, we had a feeling that we may be caught on some kind of a charge, some violation of the law. We may be, go to trial, so we wanted to establish the fact that we were not free citizens. That we were like prisoners in here and that we didn't have free ingress or egress out of the camp, and that was our main point. And when the guards stopped us, and we said -- asked us for our passes, and I remember I think I said, "Well, we don't need passes. We're American citizens," you know. "We should be able to leave this place." And he says, "No, you got to have a pass," this and that. So I said, "Well, what'll happen if we don't get a pass, we walk out?" And the guard says, "Well, I'll just have to shoot you." And that stopped it there, because there was no point in getting shot. After that, we were sent to the military guard house for two days. Received some good food, better than camp food. [Laughs] Roast beef, in fact. I still remember. That was a rarity. And then we were put, sent back to the camp.

FA: Were you questioned by six people, including the JACL spokesman on the staff of the Heart Mountain Sentinel?

FE: Oh, yeah. That was a hearing that we had to go to after this incident. It was a hearing on the camp, walking out thing. And we were questioned by about six or seven people, Min and I.

FA: Okay. This is my last question. Is the, the interrogation by Guy Robertson... you had two interrogations, I guess. Can you give me a picture of what it was like? Where was it? What was the room like? How, what was the air like? Give me a feel, a sense of what it was like.

FE: Well, it was like a fairly good-sized office, and maybe a couple of windows. There was a big desk, you know, office desk, and Robertson was sitting there. And I think Harold was sitting to one side, and I was sitting in front. And they started asking questions, just like the transcript says. But see, I think, I believe this was after Okamoto and Horino were sent to Tule, and I wanted to be careful that I didn't get sent to Tule. That's why I had to form my answers so that they wouldn't have any grounds to ship me to Tule, see? And that was one of the reasons I was playing it a little cagey there on the answers. Because if I were sent to Tule, there would be... you know, the resistance thing might just flop and we wouldn't be able to obtain our objective.

FA: You felt a responsibility to the group?

FE: Right.

FA: And your family.

FE: Yeah.

FA: So, did they turn -- you know, with the Nazi, stereotype of Nazi interrogations, they turn the big spotlight on you, and a little riding crop, and you know, "You will answer our questions."

FE: No, actually, Robertson was fairly civilized. He just actually tried to more or less soft soap me, you know, sweet talk me. He wasn't real, getting after me like the third degree, or anything like that. [Laughs]

FA: And like Grant said, your were applying your judo and your chess in terms of trying to anticipate what his next question would be.

FE: Well, I was thinking. I was thinking, you know, whatever they asked, I'd better make sure that I answered it in a way that wouldn't incriminate me so that they can ship me off.

FA: You have a memory of... was the room hot or cold? Was the chair hard? Were you getting, feet sweating?

FE: No, I wasn't nervous. I think during that period I was more full of anger, you know, at the injustice, that I didn't feel any nervousness or anything like that. I was just, you know, face-to-face, and then go at it, you know. That type of feeling.

FA: Did you ever leave your seat to rise up?

FE: I don't remember doing that.

FA: Raise your voice?

FE: I might have. I might have in the, some places like when... some places where he tried, he tried to say that we should, this being wartime, that we should be doing anything the government asked, and everything. They didn't take into consideration that -- he didn't take into consideration the position we were in, you know. How we were treated, and why we feel this way. And I tried to make him understand, and then I might have raised my voice a little, but I tried to keep my cool, mostly.

FA: Sure did.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1993, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.