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TI: So I'm going to keep moving along so we can get through some of this. And so I'm going to jump ahead a little bit to... so we're in Manchuria, and why don't you talk a little bit about what you did in Manchuria in terms of the training and other things?

IS: I had just finished basic training, that was all the time I had, because March, the war was over.

TI: Like August?

IS: August. But one thing I definitely remember, I saw this when I was still in Tokyo yet. We were just waiting to get inoculations and things like that, no training when we were one week in Tokyo. And we saw these other soldiers training, and they were tossing something like hand grenades or something on a long stick tied, and they're going through the motions. And then the soldier, the officer who came from Manchuria to gather us and take us there, he was saying, "Boy, you guys aren't going to go through that kind of training." He said, "You'll learn how to carry bombs and dive under the tank with the bomb." And sure enough, when we arrived in Manchuria, we did that, we carried this box. It was about a, almost ten inches square or something, made out of wood, with two handles on it. And it had a, something sticking out from the bottom, and it had a rope around it that you put over your neck. And the idea was to -- as you dove under the tank, you stretch your hand, and that would trigger. That was one trigger, when you stretch that rope, it made the bomb explode. Another thing was that thing sticking out at the bottom, when it hit the ground, those two things would explode the bomb. And, of course, it had nothing but sand in it when we trained, but we trained with different kind of formation and how to dive with that box under the tank. And I remember the officer saying, "You know that the Russians have a lot of tanks, but," he says, "you know how many soldiers we have. So if one soldier can put out one tank, that would be more, more soldiers. We have more soldiers than they have tanks. So just, your responsibility is to take out one tank." And without even thinking, I accepted that. So when I read about these... what do they call them?

TI: Suicide bombers?

IS: Suicide bombers, I think about that, that's what we were. And that's what the air corps did in Japan, too.

TI: The kamikaze?

IS: Kamikaze, yeah.

TI: And so going back to the suicide bombers, do you kind of understand how they would do that today? I mean, is that kind of... like what would, what would it take to be a suicide bomber today, do you think?

IS: Yeah, I guess... I don't know what age those people are, the suicide bombers in the Middle East right now, and if they have a family. But say like my experience, I have no family, I wasn't married, I didn't have a wife, I didn't have a child. So I think it would have been different if I was married and did have a family. I mean, you start thinking about your family, "What's gonna happen if I die?" But if you, say a soldier's goal is to defeat your enemy, then if you can't put out one tank with one body, or like these Middle East bombers, if one bomb can take out more than one person which is, you know, like seventeen or twenty, then... I don't know. I don't question that. I can say I sort of understand that.

TI: But when you were training, were there other soldiers that had families? Maybe they were married and had a child or children. Did you get a sense that they were more hesitant, or did the army do anything in terms of saying, "Okay, so you have a family so you won't do this and we're doing more of the ones who were single"?

IS: Yeah. Well, see, the training, when I did that kind of training with that bomb and the tank, they were all recruits just like myself. That's all there were there. And I don't know... I didn't even question that because I'm thinking now, "Gee, I wonder about that officer who told us to do those things. What was he going to do?" Yeah. [Laughs] I don't remember. He must have been somebody that was older and had a family.

TI: Were you aware of the army ever using this tactic? Did they ever use this technique?

IS: About the bomb?

TI: Yeah, with tanks.

IS: It was all rumors, but I did hear after the surrender that they did do that. And then I heard both sides. They said they dove under there, but they said those tanks had all the armaments below them, too, because of the land mines, so that they just sort of lifted it up and kept on going. I heard that, and then I heard rumors on the other side, yeah, they were able to take out tanks. I don't know which.

TI: But it was a technique that was used, whether or not it was effective or not...

IS: And then like the, and the pilots, I guess they did damage as far as I can see or read about the Japanese.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.