<Begin Segment 11>

AL: And when did you volunteer and where did you go? Were you at Iolani Palace?

AN: Yes, uh-huh.

AL: Tell me about that.

AN: Yeah, we were, we were the originals. We were all processed, and after being inducted officially, we were going to Iolani Palace, and the government gave us a little farewell aloha, and then we all went. At that time, I guess there were about three thousand of us. But there were, I believe, over ten thousand volunteers, and they picked only three thousand of us, so I happened to be one of them.

AL: And when you came to the States, the mainland, you came on a luxury ship I read in your book, that you came on the Lurline, wasn't that a luxury ship?

AN: Yeah, that's one of the luxury ships that brought all the tourists back and forth, yes. And, of course, that was converted to a troop ship when the war was, broke out. So yes, we did ride on a luxury ship.

AL: So how did the, how was the ship different? What did they do to convert it?

AN: Well, I don't know what it was like before, but it was made so that they can carry thousands of people on it. It was a comfortable trip; I enjoyed it. I think all of us did. It wasn't like a regular military transport, but it was a nice ship, of course.

AL: Do you recall any of your emotions in saying goodbye to your family?

AN: Yes, we all felt... we knew that we're gonna be in combat, we know that we're going to be trained to fight, not play soldiers. We knew we're going to be highly trained and specialized to fight. And so we also knew that some of us were not going to return. And so it was an emotional thing for all of us to live, and, of course, that's what happened to some of 'em, never returned. But we were young, so we could, we faced the realities. We knew that was gonna happen.

AL: And were you ready?

AN: Yeah, I guess we were. We were. If we weren't ready, we wouldn't have volunteered. Don't forget, these were all volunteers, we were all volunteer, we weren't forced to go. So we were just volunteers, and we know what we're volunteering for.

AL: So where did you, could you just give us the, the trajectory of where you went when you came to the States? Which bases you were at, what your training was like? Did you do any training in Hawaii or was it all in the mainland?

AN: No, no. We did, we went straight to our training camp in Mississippi, Camp Shelby, Mississippi. From the time we landed, they took us on the train and went straight to Camp Shelby, Mississippi.

AL: Which port did you land at?

AN: I believe we got into Oakland. And then from there, we got on a train, and then all the way to Mississippi.

AL: What do you recall about the train ride?

AN: Well, the only thing I thought was rather odd was that when we boarded the train, all the shades were down. And I don't know why, but anyway, then I later found out that they didn't want the people in California to know that we were there, all Japanese kids were there, because of the many hatred in California. And so we sort of like snuck in until we got out to Nevada, and go up to Utah, from there go down to Mississippi. That was, we thought was rather odd, that all the shades were drawn down.

AL: You talked in your biography that I read last night, you talked about coming under the Golden Gate on the ship. Could you tell us that story about when you first saw land, when you came into...

AN: Well, of course, for us, that was our first trip. Of course we knew about the Golden Gate. Not for reality for most of us, wow, we finally saw the whole Golden Gate, and so we thought that was really something there, we had really reached the mainland. And so I guess we all got out and stood on the ship once we passed underneath the Golden Gate, that was a thrill for most of us, yes.

AL: Were there people up on the bridge watching you come in, or just...

AN: [Yawns] Excuse me. I don't recall; I don't think there were.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.